Not What I Meant

I think some Republican lawmakers have been reading my blog, namely my most recent post. In it I looked at an Ohio counter to the rampant and sexist anti-abortion and women's health laws being passed in various states. The counter was to provide equally sexist and damaging regulations, but this time on men's health in order to, it seems, get men to understand what discrimination feels like. I concluded that this approach to fighting back is misguided and destructive.

In the current debate about the Violence Against Women Act's upcoming possibility for renewal some social conservatives have taken to the same kind of argument to justify voting against the legislation's newest form. As Janice Shaw Crouse says, speaking for the Concerned Women for America organization, the legislation "creates an ideology that all men are guilty and all women are victims." It would be against our country's best interests, she is essentially arguing, for us to pass anti-woman or anti-man legislation. Another high-profile conservative woman, Phyllis Schlafly, said the legislation advocates for "divorce, breakup of marriage and hatred of men."

Sounds good enough. That's a lot like what I wrote the other day, arguing against Democrat-supported legislation aimed at men to retaliate, an eye for an eye, for the existing sexist legislation oppressing women. Of course the flip side of that argument is that I believe conservatives shouldn't pass oppressive legislation to begin with, but the main concern of my post was about the direction of the left-wing response.

So, what is the legislation that victimizes women and makes men out to be evil-doers? And here's the rub, the reason I am so upset with how Republicans have twisted the logic they've ripped from my blog:

The legislation would continue existing grant programs to local law enforcement and battered women shelters, but would expand efforts to reach Indian tribes and rural areas. It would increase the availability of free legal assistance to victims of domestic violence, extend the definition of violence against women to include stalking, and provide training for civil and criminal court personnel to deal with families with a history of violence. It would also allow more battered illegal immigrants to claim temporary visas, and would include same-sex couples in programs for domestic violence.

Most upsetting to Republican lawmakers, like Senator Jeff Sessions who said the above "are matters put on that bill that almost seem to invite opposition," are probably the last two, expanding coverage of the law to include homosexuals and non-citizens. It's amazing that such a blatant acceptance and support of gays would not come up as the most divisive issue. No, instead it is sexism: the conservative women's groups feel that expanding the definition of domestic violence persecutes men and victimizes women.

It seems like a common Republican tactic to demonize Democrats and liberals. When conservatives are unwilling to compromise on anything, ranging from taxes to reproductive rights, it's actually because liberals are intolerant of other ideologies, despite social conservatives exhibiting far more dangerous, uncompromising, and outspoken intolerance - is there a liberal equivalent to Rush Limbaugh, who said "I tell people don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus—living fossils—so we will never forget what these people stood for," or his dozens of other hateful prominent cohorts? When Democrats and liberals champion themselves on being supportive of the LGBTQ community, social conservatives claim this support is actually evidence of their intolerance for religious freedom of expression, and their discrimination against non-straight sexual orientations is excused by the perceived discrimination of their religion and ideology from the left. And now, with Santorum's unfortunate recent successes and the Democrats increasingly being seen as the party that supports women's rights, conservatives fire back with trumped up charges of sexism towards men.

They're creating two sides to issues with more than just two sides. Just because Republicans favor anti-woman legislation doesn't mean their Democratic opposition is anti-man. Just because conservatives vilify the poor doesn't mean that liberals do the same for the rich. Just because Republicans advocate religious rights doesn't mean that Democrats are godless, as Santorum seems to think about Obama and most Christians in America. And just because Republicans are intolerant of so many demographics - gays, poor people, non-Christians, foreigners and immigrants, liberals, and so on - does not mean that Democrats and liberals have to, by default, oppose the "opposites" of those demographics. But the right continues to frame these issues as two dimensional only so as to place the left firmly on the opposing side, effectively creating the image of two parties of "no" when there is really only one.

Granted, liberals and Democrats are not free of their individual prejudices, being humans, and, like everyone else, address individual and unique bigotry. But a general mass of slightly like-minded people, the left is not as opposed to things as the right would like us all to believe. In fact, just by calling them "left" and "right" I partake in the same misconceiving - I have been separating conservatives from Republicans and liberals from Democrats as often as convenient in order to weakly alleviate the limited understanding of politics right-wing strategists want us to have.

So that is my objection to the application of my previous logic: conservatives are using it to create a false impression of liberal sexism towards men. The changes to the Violence Against Women Act - namely to expand coverage to meet the needs of more demographics of women and to include stalking as a definition of violence against women - are not measures that will change any of the "ideology" that Crouse is worried about, nor will it lead to the "divorce" Schlafly fears. But because the legislation is obviously designed to protect women, it can be portrayed as discriminating against men, precisely what I argued against in my previous post.

My argument is being applied in a situation it doesn't belong for the purpose of spreading misconceptions. When I urged Democrats not to be reverse-sexist in their response to sexist legislation as in the Ohio example I gave, I did not mean that all Democratic legislation pertaining to women's health is dangerous and equally oppressive. Do not confuse something that occasionally happens for something that is inevitable. The Violence Against Women Act will (and has already) protect many people and benefit America, and it would be a terrible shame to lose it to falsified accusations of sexism.

So, social conservatives who are using my logic: that was an insulting reading of my last post. Despicable.