{"id":948,"date":"2004-11-04T01:08:24","date_gmt":"2004-11-04T09:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2004\/11\/the_new_america_nogo_zones_for\/"},"modified":"2004-11-04T01:08:24","modified_gmt":"2004-11-04T09:08:24","slug":"the_new_america_nogo_zones_for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2004\/11\/the_new_america_nogo_zones_for.html","title":{"rendered":"THE NEW AMERICA: NO-GO ZONES FOR GAYS?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that 11 states have voted by overwhelming margins for amendments to their state
\nconsitutions to ban gay marriage — Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, North
\nDakota, Montana, Utah, Ohio, Michigan and Oregon — lending huge support to seven other
\nstates that already define marriage as exclusively heterosexual, will we soon be seeing “no-go
\nzones” for gays? <\/P>
\n

If you think that’s far fetched, think about how far the lunatic fringe, now the
\nright-wing majority, has come — and how far it believes its mandate from the election goes. For
\none thing, efforts to institute a federal ban may be on the not too distant horizon. “With five new
\nRepublican senators elected Tuesday, opponents of same-sex marriage maintain, an amendment to
\nthe U.S. Constitution could be introduced and conceivably passed as soon as the next
\ncongressional session,”<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> Elizabeth Mehren reports.<\/P>
\n

(Image by<\/FONT> <\/FONT>Mort Subiet<\/B><\/FONT>.)<\/FONT><\/A><\/I><\/P>
\n

“Now comes the revolution,”<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> the
\ninfluential, far-right conservative Richard Viguerie tells reporter David D. Kirkpatrick. “If you
\ndon’t implement a conservative agenda now, when do you?” Viguerie, he reports, wrote in a
\nmemorandum to conservative leaders: “Make no mistake — conservative Christians and ‘values
\nvoters’ won this election for George W. Bush and Republicans in Congress. It’s crucial that the
\nRepublican leadership not forget this — as much as some will try.” <\/P>
\n

Kirkpatrick reports that Christian conservatives — who, don’t forget, turned the election into a
\nrout in the popular vote for the Ignoramus in Chief — believe the nation is “on the verge of
\nself-destruction” because it lacks traditional family values, according to James C. Dobson, an
\nevangelical Christian who founded Focus on the Family<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>. With the
\nelection of the Ignoramus to a second term, “God has given us a reprieve,” Dobson says. “But I
\nbelieve it is a short reprieve.” <\/P>
\n

Think about this: These right-wing Christian conservatives believe they have just four years to
\nban gay marriage, stop abortion and embryonic stem-cell research, and, above all, give the U.S.
\nSupreme Court a complete makeover so as to overturn Roe v. Wade.<\/P>
\n

If they succeed, how far fetched would it be to see no-go zones not only for gays, but
\nfor embryonic stem-cell researchers, scientists who believe or, worse, preach evolution, and for
\nwomen seeking abortions. (Hell, the lunatic fringe even hopes to pass one measure called the
\n“Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act,” which, Kirkpatrick reports, would require “some women
\nseeking abortions to be offered anesthesia for their fetuses.”)<\/P>
\n

(Image by Mort Subiet<\/FONT><\/B>.)<\/FONT><\/A><\/I><\/P>
\n

Now think about this:<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> Jews were
\nalmost the only religious group that did not vote for the Ignoramus in Chief. They favored Kerry
\nby roughly 75 percent. But they are just three percent of the electorate (like gays, a tiny minority).
\nWill we be seeing constitutional amendments to ban interfaith marriages to Jews, maybe even
\nmarriage between Jews? It wasn’t so long ago that marriage between enslaved African-Americans
\nwas banned. How about no-go zones for Jews? (But Christian evangelicals support the Jewish
\nstate of Israel, you say. Well, how about deporting the Jews to where they belong?)<\/P>
\n

We were deluded by polls that said a majority of American voters believed the Ignoramus had
\nmismanaged both the war in Iraq and the U.S. economy. The polls deluded us into thinking the
\nelection would be decided on the moral issues of lying to the American people about weapons of
\nmass destruction; torturing U.S.-held prisoners; the deaths of more than 1,100 American soldiers,
\nand nearly 10,000 wounded; the uncounted deaths of Iraqi civilians, perhaps 100,000 according to
\na recent report; social issues involving morality such as poverty, the increasing divide between
\nrich and poor, tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, privatizing Social Security.<\/P>
\n

In the real world, when polls show high disapproval ratings for a sitting president — as they
\ndid just before the election — they would indicate a brewing defeat for him. But this is America,
\nwhich seems to be living in a dream world. Are we in shit too deep to climb out? I recall asking,
\nWill voters suddenly wake up on election day and make the right decision? Now we know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that 11 states have voted by overwhelming margins for amendments to their state consitutions to ban gay marriage — Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Montana, Utah, Ohio, Michigan and Oregon — lending huge support to seven other states that already define marriage as exclusively heterosexual, will we soon be seeing “no-go zones” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-948","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-fi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}