Motley Moose – Archive

The label “Republican woman” has always seemed, to me, to embody a certain amount of inherent self-loathing. The same goes in my mind, I suppose, for “African American Republican,” “Hispanic Republican,” “gay Republican,” and the list continues… Truly, the only people I believe have any real business being Republicans these days (and by that I mean, the only ones who should find conservatism to be in their own self-interest) are rich white dudes who don’t want to pay their fair share of taxes, or maybe even poor white bigots who have nowhere else to go because they would meet the sort of people they hate at every turn under the rather diverse “big tent” of the Democratic party. But nowadays the blatant self-loathing certain groups of Republicans are displaying is becoming increasingly pronounced. Two examples I’ve come across in the last week, which I just couldn’t help commenting on…

First, gay conservatives are proud indeed this week to announce that Ann Coulter will be headlining GOProud’s “Homocon” fundraiser party in New York City next month. Check out their promotional poster, and no this is not a joke:

And they’re thrilled that she’s coming. It’s amazing that anyone could be thrilled about the impending presence of Ann Coulter, but I find it particularly shocking that gay people would be so pleased. This is, after all, the woman who called John Edwards a “faggot” and Al Gore a “total fag,” in contexts which were clearly not intended to be complimentary. Fortunately (I guess), the conservative LGBT community (all 14 of them?) isn’t overly fond of “political correctness” to begin with.

“I’m so tickled that she agreed to do it,” Jimmy LaSalvia, executive director of GOProud told The Daily Caller. “Think about it: She’s hilarious, she’s provocative and, honestly, our folks just love her.”

LaSalvia said Coulter was the only person the group asked to headline the party, and she immediately agreed.

“Of course I’ll do it,” Coulter wrote to GOProud when they asked her to join the event. “I’m the right-wing Judy Garland!”

GOProud used that quip to advertise the event, adding, “our gays are more macho than their straights!” which Coulter wrote in a 2005 article comparing liberals and conservatives.

[. . .]

“This party is about fun. It’s not about placating to the PC crowd,” he said. “Listen, the no-fun police do enough in this world and we want to have a fun party.”

The Daily Caller

It’s not really that I think gay people or, indeed, any “group” of people should march lockstep with any political or social ideology. But Ann Coulter at a gay organization’s fundraiser? Um, how about just a little self-respect, please?

And speaking of a lack of self-respect… What the hell is wrong with women like Sarah Palin and Sharron Angle? Angle is running against Harry Reid (D-NV), and she’s one of several Republican candidates who believe that unwanted pregnancies resulting from rape should be carried to term regardless of the wishes of the mother. Rachel Maddow has done some stellar research and reporting on this, and it’s actually pretty terrifying:

“The Republican Party is, without actually talking about it, this year nominating a group of candidates for top-of-the-ticket races that are more extreme on the issue of abortion than any other slate of top-of-the-ticket candidates in any other year,” Maddow stated on Thursday.

She pointed to several GOP Senatorial candidates or front-runners who have declared that they oppose a right to abortion even in cases of rape or incest, including Nevada’s Sharron Angle, Kentucky’s Rand Paul, and Colorado’s Ken Buck.

According to Maddow, these three “small government conservatives” all believe “that government should be big enough that it can monitor every pregnancy in the country to ensure that every single woman who becomes pregnant is forced by the government to carry that pregnancy to term. … This is a position that was beyond the pale even in fringe anti-abortion politics not very many years ago, but apparently those days are over.”

Raw Story, emphasis added

Does anybody else here get a bit of a shiver (not the good kind) while reading that? Maddow’s guest Melissa Harris-Lacewell had some intriguing (and chilling) insight.

She then turned to political scientist Melissa Harris-Lacewell, asking, “How did even anti-abortion politics in mainstream electoral politics get so fringe-y?”

“We’re in a period of deep economic anxiety,” Harris-Lacewell replied, suggesting that people are trying to assert control over their own lives by controlling women’s reproduction.

She also pointed to racially-based fear of illegal immigrants, which leads some people to fear that “on one hand … there’s a population that is over-reproducing. … On the other hand, there’s an anxiety about wanting, particularly, middle-class white women to produce more babies … to counteract all of these bad anchor babies.”

“Why do you think the Democrats have been gun-shy, so far, about making an issue of this?” Maddow asked.

Harris-Lacewell suggested that it’s difficult “to have the conversation [with those who believe abortion is murder] because there’s not a lot of common ground.”

Raw Story

Anyone who hasn’t seen it really needs to watch this clip:

Now back to the issue of self-loathing… Honestly, after watching that video — how can I believe that any woman who either holds those extremist views on abortion, or who votes for someone who holds them, has any self-respect whatsoever? Not that such a woman would give a damn about my female heathen baby-murdering liberal opinion anyway.