It's Not the Values, Stupid

November 11 2004
Counterbias.com
Marc Krug

John Kerry did not lose the presidency for the reason most people believe. According to nearly every analysis you read, this election’s prevailing consideration was supposedly “values”: George Bush had them and John Kerry did not.

Unfortunately, this explanation has two major faults. First, it defies logic. Secondly, it belies fact.

To see how it defies logic, one need look no further than the war in Iraq. A President who prizes values does not deceive his constituents into supporting an unnecessary war — particularly one in which soldiers and innocent civilians alike die by the thousands, mostly owing to Bush’s incompetence and failure to plan. Nor does a value-preoccupied man find himself incapable of admitting that he has made any mistakes.

The values explanation also belies fact. It tends to portray Bush as an admirable character who unceasingly strives to decide how best to serve America. But in reality, nearly all of Bush’s decisions are guided either by a concern for corporate interests, a desire for self-aggrandizement, or a penchant for suppressive secrecy. Factual evidence can easily be produced to prove the frequency and force of each of these motivations.

Regardless, according to received opinion, it wasn’t Bush’s talent for deceit, however prodigious, that helped him win the presidency. It was the two “value” issues of opposing gay marriage and abortion.

To demonstrate his opposition to gay marriage, Bush earlier championed a Constitutional amendment forbidding it. But this so-called act of conscience was little more than a charade undertaken to win the support of the religious right. Bush knew the amendment would never be passed by two-thirds of the Senate and Congress, much less ratified by three-fourths of the states.

Kerry believed that gay marriage should be decided by the states — and 11 of them voted to ban it in this election. Keep in mind that Bush held this same belief during the 2000 campaign. Also keep in mind that during the recent Vice Presidential debates, Dick Cheney similarly said that the states should decide this issue.

Even so, this past November 6, Karl Rove said that President Bush "absolutely will use his second term to push for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.” Apparently the charade will continue.

Those who believe gay marriage to be sinful can find no support in scripture since same-sex unions are not specifically mentioned there. Admittedly, one passage in the English Standard Version of the bible condemns homosexuality as an abomination. But this same bible also commands that homosexuality be punished by death — a position no known gay rights opponent seems prepared to adopt.

Actually, outlawing gay marriages has more of the flavor of bigotry about it than it does of biblical proscription. Other than abhorrence for same-sex unions, most other forms of intolerance are now no longer considered socially acceptable. Simply put, it is acceptable to condemn those who would marry someone of the same gender but not those who would marry someone of a different race.

And then we come to the matter of abortion. Bush never explicitly condemned abortion, but frequently implied he opposed it by speaking of a fetus as a living being, possessed of certain rights, and deserving of protection under the law.

Most of us remember that Kerry supported a woman’s right to choose, although that position brought condemnation from several within the Catholic Church and may have cost him many thousands of votes. A few of us may also remember that Kerry’s support for abortions was less than robust: he wanted them to be “legal, safe, and rare.”

By risking criticism from his own church and, in the process, jeopardizing his chances for election, Kerry proved not only that he had values but also that he had the courage to voice them regardless of whether they might adversely affect his candidacy. Furthermore, these values were not the byproducts of his ardent pursuit of the Presidency; he held them while still in the Senate.

Bush regularly represented himself as a man with a strong set of values. Unfortunately, to make it all look convincing, he had to rely on cliché-laden TV advertising and a Rove-enhanced campaign image. He certainly never earned the reputation of a values-driven idealist by attending church. In the four years of his presidency, he never went.

But despite what some might have you believe, the matter of values extends far beyond just gay marriage and abortion. Bush has supported a multitude of values — usually not within sight of the public or notice of the press — which adversely affect us every day of our lives.

Specifically put, these values include befouling the atmosphere by weakening environmental law, decreasing the number of American jobs by facilitating their export abroad, slighting citizen welfare by systematically promoting corporate interests, diminishing civil rights by supporting a strengthened Patriot Act, increasing the number of those living in poverty by supporting economic policies that primarily benefit the rich, desecrating large sections of wilderness by permitting commercial development, inadequately protecting America’s shores and borders by not putting the proper policies into place, and helping create an America whose infant mortality rate is the highest — and life expectancy rate is the lowest — among industrialized nations by opposing measures that would make healthcare less expensive and more available.

For reasons that remain obscure to all but the most religiously devout, these values did not seem as consequential or as threatening as same-sex marriage. Throughout the campaign, it was singularly disturbing to see how few voters seemed to care about these other values. Or for that matter, even to know about them.

Perhaps more disturbing were the glowing terms that so many religious figures used in speaking of Bush’s values. In the opinion of many, such praise demonstrates a rather limited, if not distorted, set of priorities or a state of willful ignorance similar to that of the public.

Following their example, many of us seem to be ardently pursuing a different sort of country than the one we have. It will be one where the line separating church and state might eventually become so vague as to be almost indistinguishable.

But by doing that, we may all soon be walking on a path well trodden by the Islamic fundamentalists we now consider our enemy.