Conflicted America: The Ironies Abound (thanks, Adam)
I’m not normally a big Andrew Sullivan fan. The words “gay”, “Catholic”, and “Conservative” sound like the ingredients for an exercise in self-loathing. I’ve never quite been able to wrap my ahead around those seeming contradictions, but hey, this is America, and we are full of contradictions, no? Besides, no one really cares what I think anyway, right? I’m just another troll with a weblog, eh?? ;0)
This piece, though, does make some interesting points about the inherent hypocrisy and willing ignorance of reality displayed by so many Conservatives. When you live in a Red State and vote Republican, the truth is whatever you want it to be. To the victor goes the right to demand of others what they would never demand of themselves, no?
When America sat down last week for its annual rite of national Thanksgiving, some would argue that two different nations actually celebrated: upright, moral, traditional red America and the dissolute, liberal blue states clustered on the periphery of the heartland. The truth, however, is much more complicated and interesting than that.
Take two iconic states: Texas and Massachusetts. In some ways, they were the two states competing in the last election. In the world’s imagination, you couldn’t have two starker opposites. One is the homeplace of Harvard, gay marriage, high taxes, and social permissiveness. The other is Bush country, solidly Republican, traditional, and gun-toting. Massachusetts voted for Kerry over Bush 62 to 37 percent; Texas voted for Bush over Kerry 61 to 38 percent.
So ask yourself a simple question: which state has the highest divorce rate? Marriage was a key issue in the last election, with Massachusetts’ gay marriages becoming a symbol of alleged blue state decadence and moral decay. But in actual fact, Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the country at 2.4 divorces per 1,000 inhabitants. Texas - which until recently made private gay sex a criminal offence - has a divorce rate of 4.1. A fluke? Not at all. The states with the highest divorce rates in the U.S. are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. And the states with the lowest divorce rates are: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Every single one of the high divorce rate states went for Bush. Every single one of the low divorce rate states went for Kerry. The Bible Belt divorce rate, in fact, is roughly 50 percent higher than the national average.
So what’s the lesson here? Perhaps that you’re righteous if you THINK you’re righteous? That the reality is not nearly as important as the views you espouse? That if you repeat something loud enough and often enough it eventually becomes the truth (yes, Goebbel’s “Big Lie” theory DOES work, y’all)? That “Conservative” and “faimly values” candidates are neither?
Even a cursory look at the leading members of the forces of social conservatism in America reveals the same pattern. The top conservative talk-radio host, Rush Limbaugh, has had three divorces and an addiction to pain-killers. The most popular conservative television personality, Bill O’Reilly, just settled a sex harassment suit that indicated a highly active adulterous sex life. Bill Bennett, the guru of the social right, was for many years a gambling addict. Karl Rove’s chief outreach manager to conservative Catholics for the last four years, Deal Hudson, also turned out to be a man with a history of sexual harassment. Bob Barr, the conservative Georgian congressman who wrote the “Defense of Marriage Act,” has had three wives so far. The states which register the highest ratings for the hot new television show, “Desperate Housewives,” are all Bush-states.
How about this reality…that Conservatives enjoy their sins and guilty pleasures just as much as the rest of us? Perhaps their consciences bother them more than those of us on the Left. Maybe it’s just that Conservatives can justify their continued pursuit of what they purport to condemn as long as they look and act pious and self-righteous enough?
Yes, in America, the only quality that knows no party affilition is hypocrisy, the “Do as I say, not as I do mentality”, eh? Perhaps the biggest problem here is that Conservatives have no trouble with double standards- a lower one for themselves, and a much more stringent one that they demand others adhere to…and did I mention the hypocrisy?
