This week has been very revealing in terms of what conservatives actually think and what progressives imagine we think. The “big” question that kicked it all off was “would you attend a gay wedding?” This was, apparently, supposed to separate the knuckle-dragging haters on the right from the sophisticated and pious leftists. John Nolte writes:
Another Republican presidential hopeful, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, made all kinds of headlines when he said something that would not surprise anyone who has spent any amount of time with a conservative Christian — that he would attend a same sex wedding. Out here in the real world this is a dog-bites-man story. Nevertheless, our media considered it as newsworthy as the sinking of the Titanic.
And that’s the problem. As surreal as it seems to most of us on the right, the leftist media and progressive groups actually believe that we have such hate in our hearts that we wouldn’t support our own friends and family members should they be gay. This is, after all, a very different question than whether or not gay “marriage” should be legal. At least it is to us.
This fundamental misunderstanding of conservatives seems more than a simple political weapon designed to rally progressives against those (supposedly) intolerant, nasty Republicans. The conviction with which they approach such topics–so certain that some candidate’s willingness to attend a gay friend’s wedding will instill in the base a violent disgust–suggests that they really believe their own myths about us.
They can’t see anything but their own bias, so when Ted Cruz attends a reception hosted by conservative gay businessmen, leftists go nuts. To them, the fact that Cruz attends functions hosted by gay businessmen doesn’t show that he’s not “homophobic” or that he doesn’t “hate” gay people.
In fact, in some way that I can’t quite fathom, it seems to mean that the gay businessmen are somehow culpable in Ted Cruz’s “hate.” Or something. From Hot Air:
I actually predicted yesterday that that NYT story would hurt the businessmen more than it would hurt Cruz because I remembered what a gay conservative once told me. Conservative are more likely to accept me as gay, he claimed, than gays are to accept me as conservative . . . . It used to be that many straights viewed gays as so far beneath contempt that they wouldn’t want to shake their hands or invite them into their living rooms. Fifty years of the gay-rights movement has changed that, not universally but enough that the GOP’s leading “true conservative” candidate for president would be willing to attend a campaign reception in a gay businessman’s home. An ironic monument to “progress”:
Then we cap off an interesting week with the Diane Sawyer interview in which Bruce Jenner came out . . . as a conservative Republican. The startling thing was not that he’s a pre-op transgender person but that he’s a conservative.
The left, as you can imagine, were not happy, according to Ed Morrissey: “Tolerance? Not so much. Prior to the interview airing, progressives on Twitter offered lots of support for Jenner, and plenty of predictions about how conservatives would heap scorn on Jenner. After Jenner truly came out, their tone changed considerably . . . “.
The Blaze has some of the vitriol on Twitter that was flung by the tolerant left when they learned that Jenner is a conservative Republican who has the audacity to “believe in the Constitution”:
Even Sawyer herself was shocked and horrified to learn this news; her voice rises significantly as she asks, “Are you a Republican?” as if she can’t quite believe her ears. From Aly Weisman’s Bruce Jenner: I’m a transgender Conservative Republican:
When Sawyer asked if Jenner cheered when Obama became the first president to even say the word “transgender” in a State of the Union address, the 65-year-old replied that he “would certainly give him credit for that.””But not to get political,” Jenner continued, “I’ve never been a big fan, I’m kind of more on the conservative side.””Are your a Republican?” Sawyer asked in response, to which Jenner replied, “Yeah! Is that a bad thing? I believe in the constitution.””Do you think that would be an unsettling thing for some people in the conservative wing of the party?” Sawyer asked.”I’ve thought about that,” says Jenner, adding that neither political party has a monopoly on understanding.
Here’s the video from the Weisman piece:
There may be some in the conservative wing of the party who are unsettled by this, but all things considered, I have to agree with Nolte’s assessment:
Unlike the elite media, conservatives and Christians are the true liberals. We’re the ones able to separate one’s politics and identity from one’s humanity.Bruce Jenner is about to discover that conservatives and Christians will be much more tolerant towards his transitioning than so-called progressives are of his political beliefs.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY
