"The ideal world is a man and a woman, you don't go ahead and accommodate every behavioral pattern that is against the ideal, that would be like saying well, there's some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them."
His words verbatim, from a radio interview February 28 of this year with host Steve Malzberg.
This has to stop. Comparing relationships between loving adults to relationships between molesters and molestees -- this has to stop. This can no longer be part of our national conversation, and that kind of talk needs to be called out for what it is: one part fear-mongering, another part ignorance, and clearly part insult.
I get it, though. Huckabee believes -- or at least pretends to believe, for political expediency -- that marriage is a covenant reserved for heterosexual unions. He doesn't want to expand that covenant outside that circle. That's the way it's been for millennia. I get it. Tradition!
So just say that. And stop there. Just state that gay couples are barred from marriage, for reasons of gender. If that's all it is. (It may be less defensible to acknowledge that you think that inheritance rights, visitation rights and custody rights are special privileges reserved for state-sanctioned heterosexual lovers. But that is the legal core of what you're implying.)
Anyway. More sentences beginning with "just": Just admit that you want traditional marriage to continue in its present form. There is very little shame in sticking to the dictionary definition of a term. Just take that route and you'll at least escape with some decency left.
Or even... just say "you don't go ahead and accommodate every behavioral pattern that's against the ideal." Leave out the incest line.
Just say that traditional marriage is the ideal, and no substitutions are permitted. That's all. Leave room for the other side to politely argue that gender doesn't figure into the ideal. Have your conversation on those grounds.
But don't say that marriage between two women will lead to creepy old guys marrying their great-niece. Then you join the haters, and you deserve to be called out for it.
And no, it's NOT ironic to call someone hateful. It's not an ironic act for me to heap scorn on a hateful statement. I don't become hateful or intolerant for doing so. I become the person who brings daylight to a dark comment. When we get home from a two-week vacation and I tell you, "Oh man, the fridge is broken," and you open it, and you get tackled by the ripe stench of rotting asparagus dipped in curdled milk, you don't blame me for pointing out the malfunctioning appliance. (Well, not successfully, at least.)
I'll give people a chance to retreat if they want from cruel remarks. I say stuff I regret. I have compassion.
However, I don't have to tolerate hate.
To wrap up neatly: If the day comes when more than just some crackpot pervert wants to legalize incest and possibly brand it with a governmental seal of approval, then at that time, we can have that conversation. But this isn't it.
excellent point, John. This IS hate speech, and I'm glad you're calling it out as such.
ReplyDeleteEric