Montana & Obergefell

Right-wing ranks are breaking over cruelty

It has been a while since someone called me "diseased" for being gay. That was such a Reagan Era slur. Yet there we were last week, my husband and I, in a Republican-led Senate Judiciary committee hearing, six blocks from our home. Some small-town Evangelical politico, Sen. Bob Phalen, was pushing a joint House/Senate resolution to strip same-sex couples of our marriage rights. He was backed by eleven co-sponsors, including the Speaker of the House, Rep. Brandon Ler, a big, ginger-bearded mountain man fond of western wear, who represents a town called Savage.

Legislative resolutions are meaningless, even if they pass. They are statements, not laws. They are a way for legislators to say something without actually doing anything, much less risking any responsibilty for the consequences of their opinions. Said differently, this means that any pointless cruelty in a resolution is precisely why it is being proposed.

Publicly stripping committed couples of their marriage licenses is pointlessly cruel.

The legislators backing this effort believe only some people — themselves and their like — deserve the hundreds of legal rights that come with a marriage license. Even though clear and convincing evidence proves that stable relationships, with or without children, make life better for everyone, they do not care. They are in this for themselves. They want to force their religious culture onto society at large, using state power. Just as happened for centuries in Europe before the United States rebelled, and gave each of us an equal claim to a Bill of Rights. The very first one of which guarantees freedom from state-imposed religious practices.

Thankfully, the local, state, and national Republican parties are beginning to split over this issue. While many Republicans are people of faith, most of them know genuine faith needs no legal coercion. Traditional conservatives support social stability, and freedom of choice in religious practice and belief, including no belief at all. Evangelical Republicans (aka, "Christian Nationalists") do not. Leading to the widening split.

Only five people spoke in favor of this Evangelically-driven resolution, beyond the sponsor, who called those opposing him "diseased." Four faceless male voices called in online to say nasty, inaccurate things of us. And, an oddly tall lawyer from the Montana Family Foundation shared his opinion that, regardless of the Obergefell decision and subsequent Respect for Marriage Act, the U.S. Constitution plays no role in protecting or respecting families he does not like, because equal rights are not a thing, while special rights for his family are. Homosexuals do not have real families and the U.S. constitution does not apply in Montana. Or some nonsense like that. Statements like these were all Sen. Phalen had to sell his notion of our homosexual "disease" to the 5-3 Republican majority on the Judiciary committee. By the tone of his strident closing statement, he thought he had this bagged.

He lost. About forty people were present, in person, to testify on behalf of our families, our love, our dignity, and against this nasty resolution. More testified online. During my own two minutes at the mic, not one of the Republican committee members would look me in the eye. Sen. Theresa Manzella, the reigning, red-clad chairwoman of the Montana "Freedom" Caucus, sat shuffling papers at her seat, looking anywhere but at the homosexuals daring to speak to her about love.

In the end, after a few hours of testimony ranging from tears, to clever puns, to social realpolitik, the Judiciary committee chair, Sen. Usher, was surprised to learn the final committee vote was 4-4, not the 5-3 he clearly expected. He even spoke the words "the resolution passes" before looking down at his tally device, and correcting himself to state for the record that "the resolution does not pass."

He gave a short, puzzled look at the Republican colleague who broke rank with him. A subsequent motion to table, and effectively kill, the resolution was made and passed by 6-2, including his own vote as chair. Having read the room, and the break in his ranks, this Senate committee boss was clearly ready to move on and get himself to lunch.

After voting to table it, in an apparent effort to save face, Sen. Usher mumbled that even if the resolution had passed, it would have been no more than "a letter to the Supreme Court." His face-saving "who cares if we lost?" drew a line under the venality of it all. The cruelty of the resolution was its whole point. He knew this. Did he feel embarrassed?

This committee chair's desire to move on seemed emblematic. While two of his Republican colleagues, Sens. Manzella and Emrich, voted to keep the resolution going, the chair himself voted to kill it instead of appease them. Which left me wondering if some Republicans are finally seeing limits to the value of anti-LGBTQ cruelty as a political tactic. To see that anti-gay hate has lost social potency, even if it still raises raises money along the fringe.

Yes, cruelty towards Trans folk in particular is a very large part of how Trump currently motivates his minions. A frightening number of Evangelicals enjoy punching down, and watching other people be hurt. This is why there are torture-porn movies. Pain sells. But, not everyone is that perverse. Some Republicans have sincerely held differences over how a government should function, even if their differences tend to preserve established advantages for themselves. Such political expedience is selfish in the same way wanting to "win" any game is selfish. But, it is not willfully cruel. Such folks just lack vision. They have been carefully taught to see America as something smaller than we are.

Watching this Judiciary committee chair discover his loss, and immediately move to kill and sweep it away, left me wondering: how does he view the game he thinks he is playing? Is there room in a political mind like his to see "winning" as something greater than just taking sides, scoring points, and "owning the libs?" Could he ever be moved to listen to the faith he claims, and do unto others as he would have them do unto him? Would he support equality?

In the week since this hearing, additional anti-LGBTQ bills have been voted down here in Montana. We have a small but highly devoted set of LGBTQ elected officers and lobbyists. We have a LGBTQ and allied community that shows up, en masse, when prodded. And, we live in a notoriously pioneering "you do you" state. Montanans believe in leaving each alone, sometimes to a fault (<cough>, suicide rates).

In the mix of this, I feel some small hope that even traditionally conservative Americans are starting to see that we have a greater game to win than the one we have been playing. One that that will take some reach-across to the rest of us, who already make America pretty great.