Sunday, November 23, 2003
More on gay marriages and ‘Forty years later ...’: Reader No. 1 writes in with comments on the two posts immediately below.
On gay marriages:
“I agree with you that the country would be very different today if the Civil Rights Act had been imposed by the US Supreme Court (very insightful)... and I think that the overreaching of the Mass Supreme Court has created a Wade-like problem ... But sorry, there are big big differences between how people accept the Civil Rights Act and Roe v. Wade. Abortion has proven controversial even when those who basically support abortion rights try to LEGISLATIVELY put some parameters on appalling procedures like partial-birth: the moral absolutist supporters of Roe won't stand for it. Anti-abortionists are not the only people 'obsessed with that controversial ruling.' The Civil Rights Act implies no harm to living beings. Abortion implies terminal harm to living beings whether you want to call them fetuses or unborn children. Legislative involvement in huge moral issues is critical to the function of a democracy, but let's not pretend that legislative acts will always end the debates.
Hub Blog’s response: One of the reasons why pro-abortionist extremists (and there are indeed pro-abortionist extremists) resist any legislative parameters is because there is NO legislative back-up to abortion rights. Am I wrong? We are still living in an age with NO federal law on the books granting women the right to abortion. It was short-circuited by judicial dictate, allowing so many politicians (and a certain political party) to speak out of both sides of their mouthes on the issue. ... Of course, many anti-abortionist lawmakers would suddenly switch sides, after much soul searching blah blah blah, and vote for the abortion rights if Roe was ever reversed. The majority of the people would demand it. The GOP would be cooked if it resisted. ...
On ‘Forty years later ...’:
“To answer your thoughtful question, yes, the shared experience of emotional intensity is what the anniversary of JFK's passing has all come down to, because it is what people can agree on most. In fact, it is one of the few political happenings in our modern fractured culture in which people can experience any common emotional intensity. Yesterday's self-involved Globe remembrances aside, this maybe isn't so bad. The alternative is to play the historian's game of ‘What Would Have Happened If...?’ which amounts to a Presidential Fantasy Baseball League of Do-Over with no satisfying resolution. Would Vietnam have ended sooner? How about the rapprochement with Cuba? The civil rights movement? And from the music/culture beat, would the Ed Sullivan Show have done so much for the Beatles? Which scenario seems more plausible: this or this?"
On gay marriages:
“I agree with you that the country would be very different today if the Civil Rights Act had been imposed by the US Supreme Court (very insightful)... and I think that the overreaching of the Mass Supreme Court has created a Wade-like problem ... But sorry, there are big big differences between how people accept the Civil Rights Act and Roe v. Wade. Abortion has proven controversial even when those who basically support abortion rights try to LEGISLATIVELY put some parameters on appalling procedures like partial-birth: the moral absolutist supporters of Roe won't stand for it. Anti-abortionists are not the only people 'obsessed with that controversial ruling.' The Civil Rights Act implies no harm to living beings. Abortion implies terminal harm to living beings whether you want to call them fetuses or unborn children. Legislative involvement in huge moral issues is critical to the function of a democracy, but let's not pretend that legislative acts will always end the debates.
Hub Blog’s response: One of the reasons why pro-abortionist extremists (and there are indeed pro-abortionist extremists) resist any legislative parameters is because there is NO legislative back-up to abortion rights. Am I wrong? We are still living in an age with NO federal law on the books granting women the right to abortion. It was short-circuited by judicial dictate, allowing so many politicians (and a certain political party) to speak out of both sides of their mouthes on the issue. ... Of course, many anti-abortionist lawmakers would suddenly switch sides, after much soul searching blah blah blah, and vote for the abortion rights if Roe was ever reversed. The majority of the people would demand it. The GOP would be cooked if it resisted. ...
On ‘Forty years later ...’:
“To answer your thoughtful question, yes, the shared experience of emotional intensity is what the anniversary of JFK's passing has all come down to, because it is what people can agree on most. In fact, it is one of the few political happenings in our modern fractured culture in which people can experience any common emotional intensity. Yesterday's self-involved Globe remembrances aside, this maybe isn't so bad. The alternative is to play the historian's game of ‘What Would Have Happened If...?’ which amounts to a Presidential Fantasy Baseball League of Do-Over with no satisfying resolution. Would Vietnam have ended sooner? How about the rapprochement with Cuba? The civil rights movement? And from the music/culture beat, would the Ed Sullivan Show have done so much for the Beatles? Which scenario seems more plausible: this or this?"
