Thoughts I've thunk while sippin' at a cup of tea and reading something provoking, often get dropped here for the benefit of humanity and my own hubris.
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Just read this interesting article in the latest issue of the Utne Reader that says:
Today there is a more reliable predictor of people’s politcal allegiances than their pocketbooks: where they stand on sexual issues.
Specifically, “more liberal a person was on sexual attitudes, the more likely the person was to vote Democrat,” as was the opposite. In fact, a quote from this editorial by Pete du Pont entitled Gore Carries the Porn Belt states that a “map show[ed] by region the percentage of sex movies in the home-video market” and that it “bore an eerie resemblance” to the 2000 election results where Gore carried the areas with the highest percentages.
It seems that the vast majority of states that voted for George W. Bush are states that are less responsive to issues of sexual rights and sexual health.
So if I was to say that I vote Democrat, does that mean that I’m more liberal on issues regarding sex? Guess so. According to a survey noted in this article, respondents were asked the following questions to test these attitudes:
- Do you believe homosexuality is morally wrong?
- Do you ever personally look at pornography?
- Would you look down on someone who had an affair while married?
- Do you believe sex before marriage is morally wrong?
But I should note is that the perception of evil is on both sides of the fence. Of course there will be the “morally right” who will state that homosexuality is wrong, but it takes a Republican state like Wyoming to beat a young gay man to death. So this division is not over good and bad, but over our definition of American culture.
This is certainly more intriguing than simple economic-based politics (however, if the unemployment rate doesn’t drop in the next year, the Republicans have little hope of re-election). But more to the point, this internal battle is good for the American soul. We need to argue and debate over important issues that have no clear answer.
No clear answer? Every person who reads my little editorial (yes, both of you), will obviously think that there is a clear answer. However, the other half of America will not agree with you. These are tough questions, and “proving them” to the other half will require more than isolated case studies and more than prevalent statistics.
Perhaps we will never come to a clear consensus, but I would argue that the debate will be good for us to argue.
© 2003-2005, Howard Abrams • Except where otherwise noted, all original content is licensed under a Creative Commons License (see details).
Based on the poll I should be a democrat, but actually I’m a libertarian. Most democrats consider libertarians to be somewhere to the “right” of Pat Buchanan. The poll and its conclusion appear to be stuck in the left/right rut and forgets that there are more dimensions to politics than just the scale from conservative to liberal.
Comment posted on Wednesday, 1 October 2003
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