ARE YOU "READY"?
November 9, 2004

by Joe Sobran

     As the Democrats reflect on their shockingly broad 
defeat last week, Senator Barbara Boxer of California has 
unwittingly explained one reason for it: The country, she 
says, isn't "ready" for same-sex marriage.

     Notice her choice of words. She didn't say the idea 
is wrong, or immoral, or self-contradictory, or just 
nuts. It's only, well, premature. The Democrats will keep 
pushing for it, wearing down resistance until the courts 
can impose it on us. This is the way they do business.

     John Kerry didn't exactly repudiate the idea either. 
He just said he and John Edwards believe that marriage is 
between a man and a woman (though they favor civil unions 
for homosexuals). He didn't slam the door on the notion 
once and for all. The missing word -- the one millions of 
voters wanted to hear -- was "Never!" They heard it from 
President Bush.

     Now the Democrats are talking about their need to 
say more about "faith" and "values." Good luck. The 
country has learned to decode their attempts to 
appropriate red-state shibboleths. Kerry's faith-talk 
didn't fool many Catholics (more than half the Catholic 
votes went to the Protestant candidate), and his 
soldier-talk didn't fool many hawks.

     The Democrats' real problem is not so much what they 
talk about, as the disingenuous way they talk about 
matters of faith and morals. Abortion is not killing; 
it's just "choice," though the aborted child gets no 
choice. Don't they know how phony they sound? They yell 
about constitutional rights (equating specious court 
decisions with the U.S. Constitution) and the separation 
of church and state (which they misconstrue) and keeping 
government out of the bedroom (abortions aren't performed 
in bedrooms) and on and on, in dogged slogans, cliches, 
and fallacies.

     Their approach to this matter, which haunts every 
campaign even when it isn't openly discussed, includes 
smearing their opponents as "religious fanatics." For a 
party that's forever urging tolerance, pluralism, and 
diversity, this is an odd tactic: The Democrats tolerate 
no diversity among themselves on abortion. Even Teresa 
Heinz Kerry had to stop expressing qualms about it early 
in the campaign, and no anti-abortion speakers were 
permitted at the last few Democrat conventions. Winning 
back religious voters will take more than a superficial 
charm offensive. It will take a kind of conviction the 
Democrats don't have.

     After more than 30 years, the country still isn't 
quite "ready" for legal abortion. And the Democrats think 
they can win Christians over with new, Christian-friendly 
slogans which they obviously don't mean? They are proving 
only their contempt for the Christian vote they have done 
so much to alienate for decades.

     C.S. Lewis once said he had never known a convinced 
Christian who didn't have a strong belief in Hell. 
Christianity is much more than the belief that we should 
all be nice to each other; it's a belief about the 
ultimate stakes of life, salvation and damnation. But 
it's not considered nice to talk about this grave subject 
in public, so politicians naturally avoid it.

     Still, most people sensed that Bush took it 
seriously and Kerry didn't. Bush also believed that 
things -- marriage and human life, for example -- had 
firm definitions and Kerry thought they were more or less 
negotiable. Some voters preferred Bush's attitude, others 
preferred Kerry's; but it was an essential difference 
between them that finally worked in Bush's favor. He 
didn't ask whether the country was "ready" for the 
distinction between right and wrong.

     Not that Bush always applied the distinction 
properly; far from it. He stuck stubbornly to defending 
his dubious war. But at least he didn't exude the stale 
moral relativism and secular humanism that made Kerry so 
uninspiring. Bush believed in Hell.

     The Democrats nominated Kerry in the very mundane 
belief that he was the candidate likeliest to defeat 
Bush, not because he stood for any positive principle. 
Now their theme is that they believe in something higher, 
but they can't decide what it is. Having condemned Bush 
as a religious zealot, will they adopt a touch of 
zealotry too?

     It's doubtful that the 2008 Democratic platform will 
affirm the entire Apostles' Creed. Nobody would believe 
they really meant it, for one thing. On the other hand, 
the returns seem to indicate that America still isn't 
"ready" for secular humanism.

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