For another and fascinating take, check out YourMorals.org. Heidl is researching tempermental moral inclinations, and finds — surprise — conservatives to be nuanced, liberals monomaniacal and simplistic. Or SLT. Do his survey, then read the analyses of results to date.

Hear! Hear!

Marguerite,

If I may cordially disagree, I don’t think children have a “right” to a mom and a dad. Certainly, all children naturally have a male and female biological parent, and of course they should be allowed by right (and indeed encouraged) to live together as a family, but sometimes those parents die/leave/get divorced, leaving the child with only one parent. How will the government then secure this “right” for the child? Will it find a replacement for the missing parent? If so, how will it accomplish this–by persuasion? Bribery? Force? Of course, this thought exercise is leading down the path of plain silliness, but it’s unfortunately a logical extension of a “right” to a mother and father.

I think rather that what is implied is that if a child has two moms or two dads, that this is somehow depriving the child of something he or she would have otherwise had. Au contraire! If the situation were different, it’s likely the child would simply have a single parent. And I think we can all agree that a single parent is less optimal than having two parents. If the child in question is adopted, then why not praise gay couples who want to love and raise a child who would otherwise have no parents at all? There are certainly more children to be adopted than there are people willing to adopt–there can be nothing gained by denying a child a loving, two-parent household simply because it is not viewed as “optimal”.

Every so often, but rarely, I bring up in these comments that I am gay. It’s a part of my life but not a significant part.

Everybody MUST be allowed to speak up and express every single opinion they have, on this subject, and on any subject. I don’t want anyone to hold back. Don’t let anyone convince you to repress your own beliefs. Make THEM oppress YOU; don’t do their job for them. Fight them every step of the way. I hope conservatives will always stand for total free speech. The Democrats have certainly abandoned the concept in favor of misguided enforcements of buzzwords such as sensitivity and tolerance.

I think the controversy over gay marriage actually affects three core conservative principles:
- Encouraging traditional values
- The definition of a family: meaning a father and mother who raise their children AND HAVE CONTROL OVER the direction of their children’s lives
- Opposing judicial tyranny, putting control over making law back in the hands of legislatures

One of the largest problems in defining a core conservative platform is that libertarians and religious fundamentalists are often opposed. Common ground exists among conservative-minded libertarians, and individualism-oriented fundamentalists.

For libertarians who favor absolute social freedom in every way - including public and legal use of drugs of any sort, public nudity, public sex - and for fundamentalists who favor rigid theocratic federal laws controlling all aspects of our lives - including total environment-based federal regulation of our economic system so that we will more effectively serve as Stewards of the Lord’s Earth - there’s little common ground.

To the extent that libertarians and fundamentalists agree to allow States to serve as the laboraties of laws and regulation, I think we can find a LOT of common ground. That would include returning abortion law to the States; not in creating a federal law banning all abortions. It includes finding a way to have State to pass laws concerning homosexual union, not in using the power of the national government to either force homosexual marriage upon - or to deny it to - all citizens of all States.

As you might guess, I’m a libertarian States-law guy, living in an age when the national government has taken over control of regulating every aspect of our American lives. Most conservatives these days seem to actually favor big-government spending, so long as it’s “our” kind of big- government spending; they favor judicial tyranny whenever they like the kind of judicial fiat imposed; they often favor abrogation of individual rights in the pursuit not of happiness but of daily safety and security.

Conservatives believe that sexual preferences, race and ethnicity are private matters that do not define who we are as individuals and how we stand as equals under the law. Conservatives certainly don’t believe that people should wear their sexual habits on their sleeve.

Leftist Democrats believe that sexuality, race and ethnicity define “victim” constituencies and voting blocs that should be granted special dispensations to be granted by Leftist Democrats under the Law…UNLESS such defined minorities stray from the Liberal Democrat plantation, whereupon their sexuality, race and/or ethnicity should be waged as a cudgel to destroy them for their apostasy.