Gunny, I watched the video where you did that. Was absolutely incredible. You shouldn't regret that just because the LGBT lobby is full of it.
That said, the LGBT lobby is tyrannical. It has nothing to do with liberty, the vast majority of the time.
I'm curious what P4P thinks about this thread, considering he was saying he wouldn't support Greg Brannon because of his "one-man-one-woman" stance on marriage.
Quite frankly, its one issue. There are a lot of issues that matter to me more. What I'm sick of is the tyranny behind the gay marriage crowd that masquerades itself as "libertarian." We're seeing it on these forums too.
That said, the stance that government should not be involved in marriage, as I know you are aware, goes beyond just being an impact on homosexuality, its a stance with implications as to the role of government in general.
Just curious Gunny, did you really lose your political career over that one issue?
That ended up being the one area where my position put grassroots and establishment on the same side against me. It wasn't until March-April 2013 that I was able to articulate this issue in a way that the GOP grassroots understood why I took the position I did, after which they became a LOT friendlier again. Without that one issue, I would have had my own grassroots backing me in 2012 against the establishment. Instead, in 2012 the grassroots readily accepted the lie that I was a secret gay marriage supporter. Interestingly enough, the one segment of the grassroots I
didn't lose over it, were active pastors that were actively pastoring real congregations. (there are 'pastors' who are really just lobbyists and political operatives, but they put government above God and never bothered to actually listen to my argument in the first place). Apparently my former arguments were way too theological technical and rarified, and it usually took a seminarian to actually understand what I was trying to say.
I finally figured out how to articulate the issue in a way the grassroots understood 1/3 of the way through 2013, and won back most of my grassroots support, too late for any race...but when it became clear that I was going to win the NCGOP Vice Chair, you started seeing Karl Rove poke around our State quietly.
The change I made was instead of laying out a
theological argument why misappropriating the authority of God was a really bad idea and would ultimately only make things worse, I started laying out a
practical argument detailing exactly HOW it was going to make things worse. Ironically my first approach failed because it was TOO Christian, and your average Christian could not identify with it, so they figured I was just babbling random nonsense to try and baffle them, when I was really laying out a scriptural argument.
So I abandoned the theological approach and started explaining what the practical unintended consequences were going to be. I explained how that now that we have opened up the definition of marriage to a popular vote, as demographics shift we'll be right back here in 10-15 years voting on the same issue again, and instead of
repealing the marriage amendment (as the GOP Speaker of the House publicly predicted would happen) they would be voting to
add things to it, and that as a result of our actions here we will end up in 15 years with actual gay marriage written into our State Constitution.
About half to 2/3 will apprehend that right away, but some will still be doubtful, so then I start drawing out statistics from the 30 and under crowd. Some 70%+ of the 30 and under demographic support gay marriage, and as new voters age in that number keeps climbing. I show how the Amendment passed in NC almost exclusively based on the 55 and older demographic, particularly the 65 and older. In 15 years, a 65 year old voter will be 80 years old, and the math alone demands that this policy will be changed or reversed. The Speaker explained once that the Amendment would be repealed within 20 years because of these exact same demographic pressures, and I explain that by 2027 the Amendment will be 'status quo' and they won't be voting for a repeal but to add new categories.
I kindly, nicely, and gently demonstrate how it was our ratification and support of the Marriage Amendment that will actually lead to same-sex marriage becoming enshrined in the NC State Constitution by 2030, and then I ask them if they are concerned about the world we are leaving our children and grandchildren.
By then I've got about 90% of my grassroots people back on board. The remaining 10% will never be happy unless you advocate stoning homosexuals to death like Mary Magdalene, so I just consider it a handy litmus test for smoking out the fake christians.
I think the one thing that stuck with me the most through all of this, was how in the 2nd half of 2011 the caucus (in separate meetings) put me in front of 4 major Christian leaders in NC to try and convince me to support it (including one from the Seminary I attended), and we had some very passionate discussions on the matter. ALL FOUR of them after we had discussed and debated the matter as far down as we could, basically said the same thing, "In a perfect world you would be exactly right, but we do not live in a perfect world and we have to deal with the reality we face." To which I responded "Since when does God require perfection before obedience? Aren't we supposed to acquire obedience
first and
then we will be blessed with perfection? Isn't this exactly what we tell people who are reluctant to obtain salvation thinking they are unworthy and want to become better people first? Why then is this issue any different?" which inevitably ended the meetings pretty much immediately because nobody had an answer to that one.
The bottom line is that the NC Marriage Amendment will, practically and theologically, inevitably lead to doing more damage to traditional marriage than had we done nothing at all, and I actually offered the ONLY solution that would have protected the sanctity of traditional marriage far into the foreseeable future by getting government out of the matter altogether. The real difference is I wasn't looking just a year or two ahead, I was looking a decade or two ahead; and once it 'clicks' with people that my fight was honest-to-God for the LONG TERM preservation of the sanctity of traditional marriage (rather than short term political goals) then even if they still disagree with my position they generally do not begrudge me for holding it.
Now demographics keep shifting, and 10-15 years from now I will almost certainly be back in the legislature, and at that point I will once again be the outcast fighting to NOT add a definition of marriage to the Constitution (this time to add same sex marriage) and I will once again offer the exact same amendment I offered in 2011. That time, my support and opposition will be exactly reversed from what it was in 2011, and I would bet you that much of the public will look at me as though I were the one who flip flopped.
