I'm a white guy, middle-aged, a son of generations of poor, rural Southerners, a veteran, married with children. Though not Southern Baptist, my parents believed that salvation comes only from accepting Jesus Christ as lord and savior. Culturally, I fit the profile of a winger. Politically, I learned in my childhood that Nixon was the greatest of Presidents, that the Democrats and hippies betrayed this country in Vietnam, that the Washington Post was a nest of communists and traitors, that Carter was an unmitigated disaster and that our country's saving grace could only come from accepting Ronald Reagan as our political lord and savior. Economically, I fit in with the country club wing of the GOP. You see, though born and raised in the working class, I worked and borrowed my way through an education culminating in a top-10 law school. I'm now a professional with a comfortable income and a wife finishing her own professional medical degree.
I should have my television locked on Fox News. I should be a disciple of Rush and Hannity and Beck. I should have a library full of O'Reilly and Coulter.
I should be a Republican.
Let me tell you why I’m not.
I could use a great many words to explore the why's and wherefore's, but it really boils down to one thing: morality. I am a moral being, by which I mean that I possess both a personal and a social conscience. This conscience forces me – inconveniently at times – to recognize right from wrong based upon the consequences of actions and decisions, and not on what may be most personally advantageous or socially cost effective. In turn, right and wrong are founded on principles that cannot be compromised as a matter of expediency: thus, as a core principle all human beings are existentially equal to all other human beings. Men are not better than women. Descendents of Europeans are not better than any other persons of different cultural or racial heritage. Haves are not better than have nots. Because the power and authority of government derives from all of the governed, government cannot morally discriminate against anyone on the basis of the facts of their existence. Men cannot be privileged by government over women, nor whites over blacks, nor the rich over the poor. In short, public discrimination of any kind is morally wrong.
In light of the foregoing, discrimination must be stamped out wherever found, whether actively practiced by the government or existing tacitly by government inaction. Heterosexuals are no better than homosexuals, bisexuals or transsexuals. Government must not privilege one of these groups by granting special economic benefits or status to one that are denied to the others. But of course our government now does this precise thing, acting immorally to give heterosexuals economic privileges and special status through marriage and military service. Why is this allowed?
Opposition to changing these policies can be divided roughly (and incompletely, of course, as are all generalizations) into two groups: apologists and bigots. The apologists will profess mightily their theoretical opposition to discrimination against gays, but earnestly explain why it must be tolerated for 'just a little longer'. The country is not ready to change, you see, our public institutions would be stressed by too much change too soon. The discrimination is not really that bad, and they know this because some of their very best friends are gay, so that the country should take little baby steps toward someday eventually maybe letting the gays be real first-class citizens. The bigots, well, the bigots are simply bigots. Hate is their core principle, and they need no justification beyond the belief that any one different from them does not deserve equality because they are different.
I harbor no illusions that the leaders of the Democratic Party, left alone, would not prefer to continue this immorality indefinitely. There are plenty of apologists in the Democratic Party on the issue of marriage equality, and DADT/DOMA are the children of the Democratic Leadership Council. Still, a significant number of Democrats see the moral aspect of the issue, and that gives me hope. Discrimination because of the basic facts of a person’s existence is wrong, plainly and simply wrong. The arguments of the apologists, within the Democratic Party and without, have only expediency on their side. The truth, the moral truth, will prevail in the end.
In contrast, as a political party Republicans, and conservatives generally, are almost entirely immoral. Although they certainly pay lip service to morality, the principles to which Republicans and conservative ideologies actually subscribe are nothing more than avarice and hatred wrapped up in perverted versions of religion and patriotism. While there may be a few bigots left among the Democrats, the Republican Party overflows with them. They need no expedient justifications, though a few apologists find a home in the party. Hatred sustains them. God armors their certainty. For Republicans and conservatives, right and wrong derive not from the consequences of governmental action for real people, but from a fantasy of their own exceptionalism. In their world, heterosexuals are better than homosexuals, Christians are better than anyone else, men are better than women, and so on, and it is acceptable therefore to use the power of government to punish the other. Whatever satisfies their fantasies is moral, no matter the real world misery it causes. "I have mine, fuck you."
I chose to highlight discrimination against gays to illustrate why I am not a Republican, but I could just have easily used health care, or tax policy, or torture, to make my point. On issue after issue the Republican or conservative position devolves to greed and to hatred of anyone or anything that threatens their fantasies of a world in which the white, the male, and the rich are rightly privileged. Threaten that privilege and you deserve what you get – it seems to me – is the principle at the foundation of conservatism.
Given my cultural and social background, I wonder why I am not a Republican. I am certainly very different in my world view, and therefore my politics, than my sibling, my parents, and most of my hometown peers. Yet my family and a few of my very best friends are Republicans. You are probably smiling right now, but it is true.
I do not think that most Republicans or conservatives ever truly examine why they believe as they do; certainly I doubt that my friends ever have done so, for they are not bad people. So how can these good people support bad things? They are, I suppose, little more than children, not truly thinking of the consequences of what they do. Republicans believe the myths they have been told without question: that this is a Christian nation, that God hates fags, that Americans are exceptional, that a rugged individual can pull himself up by the bootstraps and owe nothing in return to society, that government is the problem. Fervent belief, untested, drowns out the social part of their consciences.
However, I believe nothing that cannot be challenged, nothing is true until proven. This questioning makes all the difference. I question everything, nothing is sacrosanct, not even my own motivations. Republicans seem to question almost nothing once they are told what they want to hear. Ultimately, it is not that I am a better person that repels me from the Republican Party, but that on some instinctual level I understand that I am merely a person, no better or worse than anyone else. Because of this, I have to believe that governance must be about doing what is right, not what is politic or expedient. The measure of a just society is how it treats the least of its members. I cannot ignore this moral truth in favor of policies that would privilege me.
I am not a Republican because I am cannot stop questioning.