Where the Republicans go wrong but Democrats go right

On Wednesday, President Obama created the news item of the week by stating that he was personally in favor of gay marriage. Now, for many people this wasn't a surprise as that saying "actions speak louder than words" rings too true for this administration. However, words do make a difference, so it was indeed an occasion of note to have the President of the Unite States come out in support of an untraditional definition of marriage. Indeed, the homosexual lobby was very quick to celebrate this as a victory for their side. They saw it as what it truly was, another affirmation of the idea that sex is whatever you want it to be.

As I stated, though, none of this was surprising. What was surprising (somewhat) was the way in which the Republican party responded to this announcement. The Republican reaction was summarized for me by one of my Facebook friends. This gentleman is one of those people we all have as friends on Facebook, someone we kind of knew a long time ago but have never really kept up with for 5+ years. This particular friend of mine is a die hard Republican, and I would estimate that 99% of his status updates consist of repeating the party line. Now, I don't mean to attack a nameless fellow who has no means of defending himself on this blog, I only wish to point out his status update on Wednesday as typical of the Republican reaction. His status update was this: "Now that we know North Carolinians don't like gay marriage, and Obama does, can we please talk about the abysmal economy, thank you."

Somewhere, the Democrats and homosexual groups responded with, "No, allow us to thank YOU." Indeed, Democrats and homosexuals understand something that the Republicans have failed to grasp: the main thing wrong with society today is not economic policy, but moral policy. While the Republican policy is focused on making people richer so as to win their support, the Democratic party is focused on changing their morals so as to win their support. Both are incredibly powerful means of getting votes, but I would argue that one is more powerful than the other, and the Democrats are going after it. If you can change a person's morality to the point that pleasure becomes a right, then you become the party of "choice," "tolerance," and best of all, "hope".

The Republicans have so far ceded this ground to the liberals that I did not hear one Republican stand up and say, "It's a shame President Obama endorsed gay marriage because in so doing he has endorsed immorality." Indeed, some Republicans even seemed to agree that President Obama's view of morality was right. Fox News' Shep Smith, working for what is largely considered a Republican news network, said this:

"What I'm most curious about is whether it's your belief that -- in this time of rising debts, and medical issues, and all the rest -- if Republicans would go out on a limb and try to make this a campaign issue while sitting very firmly, without much question, on the wrong side of history on it."

So, even on Fox News now the acceptance of homosexual marriage is considered to be the right "side of history." Their key concern with the President's declaration was not that it was further redefining morality, but it's distracting from jobs.

And yet, even the Republicans will acknowledge, unconsciously, that the main problem with this country is a moral one. Indeed, a familiar line of argument from Republicans is that many today need to get rid of a sense of "entitlement." They lay the ever expanding nature of government (which is primarily bad because it hurts the economy) at the feet of "entitlement." By "entitlement" they primarily mean a sense that you are owed an easy life, but truly "entitlement" is more of an addiction to pleasure and comfort than anything else. It is a moral sense that the ultimate good in life is pleasure, comfort, and ease.

Republicans, though, often reinforce this addiction to pleasure and comfort by their own policies. They run on the platform "Smaller government will make us all more rich, and when we're all richer we'll be able to pursue even better pleasures." This is why Republicans don't want to make moral issues important, at their very base, they are strikingly similar to Democrats. Until the Republicans change their morality, then, and start valuing true Good over pleasure, they will never take strong moral stands. They will remain the party of the economy while Democrats pursue their policy of changing the people's morality. If we want true change, though, if we want to bring about a true common good to America, a happiness that will fulfill all men, we must fight the moral program of the Democrats with a moral program of our own. This starts in our own lives, our families, and our communities. If we want to see change, if we want to see true "wealth", we must teach people how to live well.