The Noonan Challenge By Donnel Jones, February 12, 2004	Home   Search   Forum   Terms

Peggy Noonan, feeling rather sore that she received some angry e- mail for daring to have criticized Bush's performance on Meet The Press with Tim Russert, has challenged her readers to write one paragraph to convince people to vote for George W. Bush for one more term as president.

Before I offer my own paragraph to Ms. Noonan, let me add that, at this point, it has become impossible for me to vote for Bush. Yet he is the only man who should be elected president for a second term because he is the only candidate who will fight the war against Islamo-fascism. The Democrats have shown themselves to be delinquent in their lack of support for the war. No longer are they the party of Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy. They are stuck in the generation of 1968, descendants of the pro-Ho Chi Minh Chicago riots, and who no longer believe in America's promise and will not, will never, forgive her for her mistakes and misdeeds, failing to recognize that in the great moral reckoning of history she has done far more good than bad.

How exactly do I square this circle of not voting for Bush but supporting him? Let me be clear, I am not happy that, in not voting for Bush, I vote not at all. It is my hope that the political landscape may change to offer me the opportunity to vote, but at this time I don't see how this is possible. Bush needs to secure his base and has caved in to the far Right in his support of Colorado Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave's version of the Family Marriage Amendment to the Constitution. This amendment would not only outlaw marriage for gays on the Federal and state levels but any and all civil protections for gay relationships whatsoever.

Here is the full text of the Musgrave amendment:

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.

Again: Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups. "Unmarried couples" would, of course, include all gay couples, let alone hetero-live-ins. "Groups" refer to polygamy. It is not only "marital status" that is not to be conferred upon unmarried couples and groups but "the legal incidents thereof" as well. "Legal incidents" is referring to something other than the already mentioned status of marriage It means any and all civil protections that gay couples already have in some states. It would render null and void whatever protections gay couples have in Vermont and California. It would also mean the federal government trouncing on state's rights—something that is instinctually anti-conservative. One can clearly see that the Right has a lot in common with readers of The Nation.

Two other versions of the amendment leave out this draconian removal of all civil rights for gay couples, which are currently protected in parts of the nation. The president supports this particular version because it is the one that the religious Right is pushing for. Bush needs their vote.

In short, my self-willed disenfranchisement has not to do with my right to vote, which remains inviolate, but my uncompromising refusal to be party to my own "niggerization."

The Right needs to full the void left behind by blacks, even as some are blacks themselves. The specter of hate, one of the unfortunate downsides of American history and fueled by a fierce Protestantism, which otherwise is laudable when witnessed in Bush's hatred of fascism, rears its head again to stigmatize another group. The Right needs to drive gays underground because they perceive homosexuals as an evil so great they can only be compared to Islamists. Gays are deemed as dangerous as the terrorists hiding in their sleeper cells ready to take orders to attack us.

Yet I have no choice but to hope Bush wins. Why my Janus-faced politics? In a fit of spite over reading an e-mail posted on Andrew Sullivan's website, defending Tony Kushner's hateful, anti-American (anti-Republican, anti-goyim, pro-Rosenberg's betrayal) melodrama "Angels in America," I fired one back of my own, stating that it would be better for gays to live in an apartheid America where they had no rights than to die in one ruled by Islamists. That is technically true but should America's promise of freedom and equality be eviscerated in order to defeat the enemy?

Though I will always despise the gay Left, I am deeply ashamed of that missive. My punishment for writing it is mete: I cannot vote this year. I reconcile my contradiction with the hope that the amendment will not pass. I am aware that Bush is practicing a grim realpolitik to get elected. He needs the radical Right to get elected. He will support the amendment, be elected, then, one hopes, drop the ball.

None of this is guaranteed. Bush, if re-elected, may go through with his promise to disenfranchise gays of any civil protections for their loving relationships. Yet even with Bush's support, how likely will it be for the amendment to pass? I am skeptical and hopeful. But none of this means that I should "get over it" and vote for him anyway. It is a matter of principle that I abstain from voting for someone who otherwise must be elected but whose bid for election requires a new "nigger" for America.

I refuse.

True to my promise I will give Ms. Noonan her paragraph:

George W. Bush must be re-elected as president of the United States— the only hope to secure the world against terrorism. Civilization itself hangs in the balance. For some, that means gays must not be protected in their relationships through the passage of an amendment to the Constitution. For me, that means we must fight fascism. That fight goes back deep into the twentieth century. Bush, in this necessary fight, has proved himself the noble heir to Roosevelt, Truman, and Reagan. Although Bush has allied himself with domestic forces that seek my disenfranchisement as a gay man and although I will not willingly be part of that disenfranchisement by voting for him, I urge others to do so despite my worthy self-interest. I pray God that, once Bush is re-elected, right will be done by everyone in America, secure in her victory over enemies who would destroy everything and everyone we hold dear.