Perhaps this point is too obvious to warrant mentioning, but perhaps not.
One of the objections voiced to the current operations in Iraq is that an attempt to introduce cultural innovation will most likely result in unanticipated backlash that could overwhelm the innovation. This is, I think, a reasonable argument (Repeat after me, libertarians: "The Law of Unintended Consequences") supporting the supposition that we are engendering some of the hostility depicted as an insurgency by just being there.
I think one aspect of this argument, often overlooked, is that we here in the Western world are embedded in our own culture, probably to the same extent. I most emphatically do not support government-enforced opposition to same-sex marriage, but the opposition itself is clearly a longstanding element of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic (gratuitous political correctness, of course, but the Instarebbe wants us to be nice) culture that, as Samuel Huntingdon writes, defines much of the Western identity.
(He'd say insufficiently, I believe. Not having access to the breeding implied by his surname, I'd disagree the merits, but I'd agree with the facts.)
As such, even a reasonably well-intended effort to move America past its prejudices - before the society is prepared to move - is likely to not only fail, but it is likely to be perceived as a provocation, and to precipitate a backlash.
I don't think this is terribly novel, but I do think that it's true of me as well, and, in all likelihood, of the readers who chuckle to themselves when they see other people who appear to be willfully constrained by their own segment of society.
- Moishe Potemkin
Posted by MoisheP at November 3, 2004 08:10 PMIf I'm following you correctly, you're proposing that Bush won because the issue of gay marriage was brought up; not that Bush pushed it to the fore, but that it was brought there by those honestly believing in it.
Posted by: Greg at November 3, 2004 11:12 PM