Yes they can , as they remind us every election cycle.
They always talk about broadening the agenda beyond the life and family issues. I’m fine, by the way, with broadening the agenda, so long as we don’t forget and obscure those life and family issues. But for many Democrats, it seems rather to amount to an effort to change the subject.
The young, to whom the Democrats wish to appeal, may indeed not care so much for opposition to same-sex marriage. They haven’t thought about the implications of what candidate John Kerry said less than a decade ago :
“Here is what fatherhood has taught me. Children need the love and discipline of fathers as much as they need it from mothers. Children need to get their role models at home—not from the media. Fathers need to show their children, particularly their sons, that raising a baby, not making a baby is what makes you a man.”
As far as politics is concerned, the constituency the Democrats want to cultivate was born yesterday (well, in 2008). They’re counting on that.
Life issues are a different story altogether. Here it seems to me that Democrats have a problem with the very constituencies to which they’re attempting to appeal. We can’t let them change the subject or obscure the question.
I say this not simply for the sake of securing a partisan advantage, but because I am convinced that clarity on this moral question is absolutely essential to civilization. When you don’t ackowledge that, the long term consequences can be horrific .
Joseph Knippenberg is Professor of Politics at Oglethorpe University.
