Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Will conservatives throw "Big Jim" underneath his "big bus?"
I thought it quite telling that this post showed up over at Volunteer Voters at the end of last week. Basically, conservatives are realizing that they can improve the chances of the Marriage Amendment passing if they don't vote in the Governor's race.
As last week went on, I had more people ask me about this possibility. These people were independent of each other, preceding any public post on the subject, so it seems that there is more than one strain of this thought amongst conservative voters. I took this possibility to several members of the Republican leadership, and they obviously bristled at the thought.
I don't think that this has much to do with Jim Bryson as a person. However, I do think that it has a great deal to do with a campaign that, according to most polls, is trailing by 35 points.
It is an interesting strategy. It's effectively casting two votes for the Marriage Amendment while stabbing a conservative in Big Jim in the back.
I guess the question is: How close do you think the Marriage Amendment is to being defeated?
(To be clear, I'm not advocating this approach. Everyone needs to get out the message that conservatives need to VOTE YES ON 1. That is certainly important. We also need to show our support for Jim Bryson, who is a decent conservative who at least stepped up to the plate and ran against Bredesen when others lacked the courage to do so.)
MORE: Chris Stovall of the Alliance Defense Fund has a PDF on popular myths that groups opposed to marriage amendments around the country are spreading, with the truth on how those myths are not based in fact provided.
I think that Stovall's fact-check is good, but I don't think that most popular flawed argument - the discrimination argument - is addressed. The honor for best addressing "discrimination" - which honestly could have been penned by myself because it is nearly identical to the argument I have been using for a decade - goes to my friend Mike Faulk, the Mountain 'publican.
Trust me - you don't want to live in a world without discrimination. Well, unless you like to have murderers, pedophiles, and psychotics as neighbors. As Mike opines, we must have some levels of discrimination for social order. "Discrimination" in itself is not a bad thing. It's when people are discriminated against for no good reason that we have to give pause. So is discriminating against one group of people who choose (notice: not born into, as there is no scientific basis for such an allegation) to be members of an activist social class that challenges traditional norms of society and has no sociological or biological purpose categorized as "acceptable?"
That is a question for the voters of Tennessee.
As last week went on, I had more people ask me about this possibility. These people were independent of each other, preceding any public post on the subject, so it seems that there is more than one strain of this thought amongst conservative voters. I took this possibility to several members of the Republican leadership, and they obviously bristled at the thought.
I don't think that this has much to do with Jim Bryson as a person. However, I do think that it has a great deal to do with a campaign that, according to most polls, is trailing by 35 points.
It is an interesting strategy. It's effectively casting two votes for the Marriage Amendment while stabbing a conservative in Big Jim in the back.
I guess the question is: How close do you think the Marriage Amendment is to being defeated?
(To be clear, I'm not advocating this approach. Everyone needs to get out the message that conservatives need to VOTE YES ON 1. That is certainly important. We also need to show our support for Jim Bryson, who is a decent conservative who at least stepped up to the plate and ran against Bredesen when others lacked the courage to do so.)
MORE: Chris Stovall of the Alliance Defense Fund has a PDF on popular myths that groups opposed to marriage amendments around the country are spreading, with the truth on how those myths are not based in fact provided.
I think that Stovall's fact-check is good, but I don't think that most popular flawed argument - the discrimination argument - is addressed. The honor for best addressing "discrimination" - which honestly could have been penned by myself because it is nearly identical to the argument I have been using for a decade - goes to my friend Mike Faulk, the Mountain 'publican.
Trust me - you don't want to live in a world without discrimination. Well, unless you like to have murderers, pedophiles, and psychotics as neighbors. As Mike opines, we must have some levels of discrimination for social order. "Discrimination" in itself is not a bad thing. It's when people are discriminated against for no good reason that we have to give pause. So is discriminating against one group of people who choose (notice: not born into, as there is no scientific basis for such an allegation) to be members of an activist social class that challenges traditional norms of society and has no sociological or biological purpose categorized as "acceptable?"
That is a question for the voters of Tennessee.
Permalink posted by Rob Huddleston @ 10:22 AM 
