From Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/26/why-is-gay-marriage-different-than-abortion/
By Amanda Marcotte
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
The Supreme Court is hearing arguments about DOMA and Prop 8 today, and there’s a lot of anticipation now, especially since they could truly use this opportunity to not only strike down these laws but also to make same-sex marriage a right held by all Americans. Unsurprisingly, same-sex marriage opponents are grimly warning pro-gay people that a win in the courts is going to backfire, an argument I find asinine on many levels.
The long-standing opposition to abortion rights post-Roe has nothing to do with the haste in which the Supreme Court moved to protect women’s rights. Let’s give our opponents the dignity of assuming they aren’t that stupid; their opposition to women’s rights is genuine, and not a temper tantrum over process. That said, I do think there’s a strong reason to believe that, unlike abortion, once conservatives lose the legal battle over same-sex marriage, they’ll probably give up, much as they did on the question of interracial marriage.
The reason is that conservatives are obsessed with appearances, far more than liberals, who tend to have an ideal of reconciling reality and appearances. That’s how conservatives can prattle about waiting for sex until marriage while 95% of Americans—including most people engaging in the prattle—have sex before marriage. This kind of social hypocrisy is held by both right and left—for instance, both Democrats and Republicans use drugs while supporting drug prohibition—but tends to be more of a thing for folks on the right. That’s why conservatives are fond of abortion bans. Abortion is a private medical choice, and so it’s easy enough to secretly get an abortion while publicly denouncing abortion rights. For well-off conservatives, abortion will always be an option, even if it’s banned, because you can just pay a discreet doctor to do it or travel to Canada.
Continue reading at: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/26/why-is-gay-marriage-different-than-abortion/
