Controlling the message

Now that I’ve had an opportunity to look at some reaction from around the country from yesterday’s results, I’m noticing a couple themes.

First of all, Matt Bevin’s victory in Kentucky confounded the pollsters and political pundits who thought a TEA Party ticket couldn’t win despite the fact Mitt Romney carried the state two years ago. Even Fox News bought into this narrative, although they based their work on an AP story. Needless to say, the liberals in the media were quick to blame national anger for Bevin’s triumph. Obviously the people who thought they had run the TEA Party into the ground didn’t count on the people thinking for themselves and seeing past the leftist narrative.

Also lost in that win was the fact Bevin’s running mate, Jenean Hampton, is a black female near-political novice, and as such became the first black person to win statewide office in Kentucky. Yes, she ran as part of the ticket and not separately but in a close election as this was expected to be having the wrong running mate can be the difference between celebrating and conceding.

(By the way, as of January there will be just two black LGs in the country – Hampton and Maryland’s own Boyd Rutherford. The story fails to point out the obvious – both are Republicans.)

It’s even more interesting that Bevin’s support of Kim Davis didn’t hurt him, either. So you have a guy who ran against Obamacare and backed the faith-based civil disobedience of the Rowan County clerk, who was elected as a Democrat. If you believed the media and most of the GOP elite, Kentucky would be a lost opportunity for the GOP, but it turned out to be another GOP pickup. Obviously Bevin’s message against Obamacare and for school choice scored with Kentucky voters.

Speaking of surprising victories, it was assumed that Houston’s HERO legislation would be approved by voters. Instead it was crushed by 24 points and supporters were quick to blame its demise on opponents dubbing it the “bathroom bill.” The same was true in Maryland, but there wasn’t much interest in bringing it to the ballot, especially from the state Republican Party.

On the other hand, a few years ago the left successfully shifted the narrative on in-state tuition for illegal aliens from that fact to the image of “Dreamers” who were here through no fault of their own. They had over a year and a half to suck the passion out of the fervent opponents because the original bill passed in 2011 but the vote came in 2012.

As races move up the chain from local to state to national, the messaging becomes more important. This is why the revolt after the CNBC debate is so important. The moderators tried to promote their message but Ted Cruz and the others would have no part. Instead, they would prefer to put their own message out without the filter, in much the way Ronald Reagan succeeded in swaying public opinion his way.

Thanks to a trick of the calendar, we still are over a year away from the 2016 election. It appears the battle will be between a message of class envy and free stuff (that really comes at a cost)  versus a message that we need to roll back the excesses of government, put it in its proper place, and make it more responsive.

Questioning authority

The curious case of Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk of courts who has defied the Supreme Court in the name of her religious beliefs, has sparked a lot of argument on both sides.

On the one hand, you have the people who claim the SCOTUS decision is the law of the land and Davis is not doing the job she took an oath to do as an elected official. (The interesting sidebar to me is that she’s an elected Democrat, but suddenly that’s not important. I could imagine what it would be like if she were elected as a Republican, but I digress.) If she doesn’t want to do her job – and issuing marriage licenses is part of the job – she should resign, they say.

But then you have the Davis supporters who are applauding her determination in the face of being jailed for contempt of court. (Then again, she’s an elected official so she has a job waiting for her. I’m not so sure those under her who are reluctantly doing these marriage licenses have that option, which is why they are complying.) These supporters also believe that SCOTUS is making law instead of interpreting it as they are supposed to, particularly since the Commonwealth of Kentucky defines marriage as being between a man and a woman. As has often been the case, they continue, it’s five unelected judges overturning the will of the people.

Yet I find it interesting that Rowan County is suddenly a gay marriage hotbed. Admittedly, I have very limited experience with the state except for traveling through it en route to another destination as both a kid going to and from Florida to see my grandparents and as an adult returning from Missouri to visit relatives. If I have spent 24 hours in the state in my life I would be surprised, despite the fact I stayed overnight in the Cincinnati area one time. So I assumed Rowan County was home to Lexington or Louisville; instead it is a rural county in the eastern part of the state, bisected by I-64 and home to Morehead State University. Maybe it’s scenic – I really don’t have any lasting memory of driving through there, although I have – but I can’t see why someone would come from another place to get married there.

I also marvel at those who believe the five Supremes who made up the Obergefell majority got it right. If so, I guess they are fine with “separate but equal” and blacks not being citizens. Those were Supreme Court edicts as well.

Personally, I think it’s just like the cases of the florist, cake creator, and others who cited their religious beliefs against same-sex marriage in refusing service. Somehow that small group of activists caught word that Davis was not playing along with their desire to normalize same-sex marriage so it was decided to make an example of her.

Further, I think it’s the first step of a battle that’s going to move from individuals to institutions. What if the same-sex couple who just got their marriage license wants to get married in a particular church, one which believes that marriage is strictly between a man and a woman? Would the Supreme Court step in there?

The end game that is in play is twofold: one part is to eliminate the tax-exempt status churches enjoy, which would create great financial harm to many smaller congregations, while the other is to further eliminate the influence religion has by conditioning the God-fearing to suffer under the perception of being considered a bigot, making them afraid to speak out. At the exit of our church there’s a sign about entering the mission field, so the job of the radical gay lobby seems to be that of pushing the seed to stony places and thorns.

At best, gay marriage should be a state issue. We in Maryland voted – unwisely, in my opinion, but the narrow majority ruled – to make it the law of the state. Other states may not want it, but the hammer of the SCOTUS came down and said they had to, ignoring the Tenth Amendment because I don’t see anything in my copy of the Constitution that gives the federal government the right to determine who can or can’t be married. Yet we have adopted this religious construct as a legal term, one which confers certain rights. (And that’s why I had no real issue with civil unions.)

Proponents of gay marriage often tell those of us on the “one man, one woman” side that if you don’t like gay marriage, don’t get one. They snivelingly ask, “how is a gay couple getting married hurting you?” and tell us that marriage between opposite-sex couples isn’t doing all that well considering the divorce rate.

Yet I have to ask back: what benefits are we getting from gay marriage? They cannot naturally have children, which will cause further splintering of the already-tattered family unit because now a third person will be involved as a surrogate mother or sperm donor.

But to me that is small potatoes compared to the Pandora’s box we are opening. If you are a man who can marry another man, why can’t you marry a child, even a child of yours?  Or why not two so you can have one of each gender? When it’s all about #lovewins, thoughts of the legacy we leave behind are out of sight and out of mind.

Based on choices we make and sometimes cruel twists of fate, in life we cannot always get what we want. Regardless of how much I dreamed about it or how many hours I spent playing in the park and the backyard, I’m not looking back on a Hall of Fame baseball career because I didn’t have the skills to be anymore than a benchwarmer in JV baseball. Similarly, the young man in Missouri who considers himself a girl is still a guy even though he wears women’s clothes – no matter how much he may wish it so, he can’t change biology regardless of how many hormones and medical procedures he may endure.

Perhaps one is born gay, which to me as it relates to marriage falls under cruel twist of fate. There’s nothing that says they can’t have meaningful relationships and share their lives together. I just don’t believe they can call themselves married because that’s reserved for the union of one man and one woman.

Since the Supreme Court is always right, why not go “separate but equal” – marriage licenses for opposite-sex and civil union licenses for same-sex. Everyone’s happy and maybe Kim Davis can get out of jail.