The Right really exhibits a nasty authoritarian streak that lets them, whenever they see fit, offer up selective interpretations of what is and isn't "legitimate" in a democracy - and conservatives are most willing to do this on divisive issues like gay marriage.
I appeared on CNN this weekend to discuss a bunch of different topics, including - most interestingly - gay marriage. You can watch the clip here [1].
I say "most interestingly," because you'll see in the debate that the conservative du jour - a guy named Ben Ferguson - pulls the Right's now-standard tactic of blaming the process for any policy outcome the Right does not like. In this case, Ferguson insists that state legislatures and courts - major branches of our democracy - have no right to pass bills legalizing/issue court rulings legalizing gay marriage in a democracy. According to Ferguson, the only legitimate way to legalize gay marriage is through voter referenda.
I'm not, of course, saying that voter referenda are inherently bad or illegitimate - if I was saying that, I'd be resorting to the same moronishness of Ferguson. Referenda are also a legitimate form of democratic power in a democracy, and I believe that even if they don't go the way I want them to.
The point here is that the Right really exhibits a nasty authoritarian streak that lets them, whenever they see fit, offer up selective interpretations of what is and isn't "legitimate" in a democracy - and conservatives are most willing to do this on divisive issues like gay marriage.
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Links:
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnJwhGSbpFA
