Moral Mandate Baloney

The irony of the so called Moral Values imperative that propelled George Bush to a second term is, at its core, fueled by narrow mindedness, hypocrisy and demagoguery!

George Bush would no more fight for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage than he would have volunteered to go to Vietnam. It only sounds good in political rhetoric and callously served his purpose for getting re-elected.

The plain reality is that neither he nor Congress will unleash that loose cannon to take potshots at the very foundation of this great nation. They know that to do so would set in motion a chain of events over which they would have no control and open the flood gates for every crackpot notion that lurks in the hearts of tunnelvisioned organizations.

The evangelical right, for all of its righteous “pro-life” piety, does not really believe that a fertilized egg should have the full protection of law and that abortion is murder. Anyone who stakes out that claim— if they truly believed it---would be demanding the arrest and prosecution for murder of every woman who chose an abortion and every doctor who performed one.

Moreover, if the “pro-life” lobby suddenly got its wish and had the power to write an anti-abortion law—does anyone really believe they would make its violation (murder) punishable by execution---or life in prison---or even 30 or 40 years in prison? And what, then would they do with the head of an invitro fertilzation clinic who orders the destruction (murder) of excess, or questionable fertilized eggs?

For those who were motivated to vote for George Bush because of some vague notion of his moral superiority, it would be interesting to see their reaction if they reaped the full benefits of his “secular” agenda: the depletion of Social Security benefits that are drained by the capricious nature of the stock market--the privatization and increased cost of healthcare for senior citizens--the increased pollution of the air and water--the continuing tolls we pay for the occupation of Iraq in terms of money and terrorism--not to mention the ever ready preemptive war—waiting to be unholstered elsewhere.