Monday, June 29, 2015
From: Gary L. Bauer
In Your Face
As if his Rose Garden speech praising the Supreme Court’s ruling forcing same-sex marriage on every state in the union wasn’t enough, President Obama chose to bathe the White House in the symbolic colors of the gay rights movement Friday night.
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
It’s hard to imagine a more in-your-face gesture to millions of men and women of faith.
On the few occasions when conservatives have prevailed in recent years, our leaders don’t allow a moment to celebrate before they are lecturing us against gloating. We’re told that even though we won, we must demonstrate a charitable spirit. Well, there is no such tolerance or grace from the left.
Obama and the left have been doing a victory dance ever since Thursday’s Obamacare ruling, and it reached an audacious peak when the president chose to turn the White House into a celebratory symbol after the destruction of thousands of years of history and tradition. And I doubt anyone at the White House cares.
I couldn’t help but wonder whether anyone on Obama’s staff thought to light up the White House red, white and blue when Osama bin Laden was brought to justice. Somehow I suspect it never crossed their minds. But on this issue, they were eager to spike the football.
Rush Limbaugh has said in his own way that for some on the left, the enemy is not Ayatollah Khamenei or ISIS, but conservatives. The gloating on display Friday was the kind of gloating you might expect when you have vanquished an enemy, not after you narrowly won a debate at the Supreme Court on an issue that deeply divides the country. And certainly not an issue on which, just a few years ago, you insisted you agreed with the other side.
The Left’s Moral Relativism
I was struck over the weekend by a profound column written by Bari Weiss of the Wall Street Journal. Weiss, who has always supported gay marriage, cheered Friday’s ruling. But at the same time, she blasted the left for its moral relativism when it comes to radical Islam. Consider these excerpts from her column:
“How else to explain the lack of outrage for the innocents murdered on the beach, while vitriol is heaped on those who express any shred of doubt about the Supreme Court ruling? How else to make sense of the legions of social-justice activists here at home who have nothing to say about . . . flogging, beheading or stoning?
“How else to understand those who have dedicated their lives to creating safe spaces for transgender people, yet issue no news releases about gender apartheid in an entire region of the world? How else to justify that at the gay-pride celebrations this weekend in Manhattan there is unlikely to be much mention of the gay men recently thrown off buildings in Syria and Iraq, their still-warm bodies desecrated by mobs? . . .
“The barbarians are at our gates. But inside our offices, schools, churches, synagogues and homes, we are posting photos of rainbows on Twitter.”
Where They Stand
The presidential candidates, most of them, were quick to respond to the court’s ruling Friday. All of the Democrats celebrated the news. Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders used the ruling to highlight their early support for same-sex marriage in contrast to Hillary Clinton’s slow evolution.
Every Republican candidate opposed the decision, but there were considerable differences in their statements. David Brody at CBN graded the responses. You can read his summary here.
Meanwhile, many pro-family Americans are rightly asking, “What do we do now?” My friend Maggie Gallagher offers some useful suggestions in her latest column at National Review Online.
By the way, don’t think that the marriage fight is over. The celebrations over same-sex marriage had only just begun Friday when some on the left began demanding more. The battle over polygamy is next.
Thoughts On A Flag
With the July 4th holiday coming up, I thought you might enjoy my surprising essay on the flag. Read it here at The Weekly Standard. Just be certain to read it all the way to the end!
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