To my fellow Republicans. Enough already! Let’s worry about what’s important and win some elections
Dear Editor,
Last week I heard a joke – not for the first time – about the Republican Party. The commentator said the “… Republican Party is in favor of shrinking government so that it’ll fit in my bedroom.” Unfortunately, this belief that Republicans harbor a “bedroom police” mentality is widespread and has cost us dearly in recent years. This has been reinforced time and again by a small but very vocal minority within the Party and their near obsessive attacks on civil marriage equality; most recently shown by their “Hail Mary” attempt last week to salvage their floundering crusade by asking the California Supreme Court to – in effect – overturn the decisions of a federal judge, a federal court of appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. Fortunately, the state court declined.
First, let’s cut through the emotions and vitriol to the real truth … mainly, civil marriage does not threaten traditional marriage. Never has and, in this country, never will.
Civil marriage was first imposed in ancient Rome as a means to control who could marry whom. Principally, it was meant as a means to control property and to keep Roman soldiers free from family obligations and therefore more loyal to the state. In our own country, civil marriage was originally created as a revenue source for towns and cities, and didn’t exist in large parts of our country. It wasn’t until the mid-19th century civil marriage became more about social engineering, which included – yes – control over who could marry whom. My baby sister has been happily married to the same man for over 20 years. During my lifetime, they would have been subject to imprisonment because Frank is Hispanic. Up through the 1950s and ’60s most states had such laws which made it illegal for whites to marry blacks or Hispanics, and Chinese couldn’t marry anyone except other Chinese. It was not until the 20th century and the growth of government ‘safety nets’ that we saw a realization that society benefited in economic and other ways when two people took it upon themselves to accept the burden of care for each other and to work together toward their common future. In exchange for taking on that huge and expensive burden, the state grants limited benefits to the couple. It’s now time to accept the reality that those benefits society receives are gender blind.
In truth, nowhere in the Bible does it define marriage as between one man and one woman. There really isn’t any one definition of traditional marriage other than it’s a religious institution defined by the tenets of your faith and beliefs. Some churches may choose to recognize same gender marriage and most won’t, and that’s fine. Our Constitution has the strongest protections of freedom of religion ever stated in the history of man. Since 2004, thirteen states, the District of Columbia, five Native American tribes and all of Canada now have civil marriage equality. Even more states have civil unions. Yet nowhere has a single church, temple or synagogue been forced to conduct or recognize a same-sex ceremony. And they won’t.
As a conservative, I would prefer the state get out of the marriage business entirely. Until then, I support civil marriage equality. And no less an icon of conservatism than Clint Eastwood has stated (in words I can’t repeat here) that fighting it is a dumb idea. His voice has been joined by an increasing number of political conservatives across the country saying civil marriage equality is right and trying to deny any part of society that right is wrong.
We know most Californians agree with Republicans on fiscal and governmental issues. It’s the social issues that make them vote against our candidates. Proposition 8 was a disaster for the Party and continues to be one. Let’s finally be rid of this millstone around our necks and concentrate on economic issues and jobs … and finally win some elections.
To the religious conservative minority, I believe not only are you on the wrong side of history … you’re just plain wrong.
RALPH DENNEY
Former member of the San Diego County
Republican Party Central Committee
and Republicans Against Proposition 8
San Diego
