Tamara Wilhite Responds....kind of

In the last few months, I've given away numerous Idiot of the Week awards. This is the first time any recipient has ever replied. Mrs. Wilhite sent me an e-mail this evening. As we shall see, it is as badly reasoned and ridiculous as the commentary that won her this prestigious award in the first place. She begins:

With regard to your blog - which someone sent me after searching for one of my articles - it was interesting. Do you really see yourself as in a war against conservatives?

Of course not, nor do I recall ever saying or implying such. I find it bizarre when someone identifies themselves so closely with a category or label that any attack on themselves is seen as an attack on the whole group, or vice versa. I suspect that a great many conservatives would have seen your article as every bit as stupid as I did.

Regarding the gay "marriage" issue, I don't care if two people of the same sex live together and make contracts, just don't turn it into the same legal level that my husband and I enjoy.

Is that the crux of it? You and your husband will enjoy your marriage less if those big bad gay people are allowed to do it too? That doesn't seem to square with your hysterical screed that claimed that gay marriage was going to bring down the wrath of the terrorists upon us. In that article, you listed all of those horrible reasons why the terrorists hate us - that we "allow our daughters to have sex outside of marriage", we "allow homosexuality to exist" and "tolerate them living in the open. They can be seen in public office and public broadcasting" - and blame it all on "Kerry and the other Democrats". The obvious implication is that if we voted for Bush, those things might change and we would no longer "play into the hands" of terrorists by allowing such things. Now you're fine with it as long as they don't get to call it marriage. Why the backpeddling?

As a conservative libertarian, I would be willing to see "contract marriages" on any terms all of the members agree to. Two guys, two guys and a girl, or a group "family" doesn't matter to me.

Wow. Do you really think the terrorists are so stupid that they'd be okay with us being Sodom and Gomorrah as long as it's only by private contract and not by law? Everything else that you lamented, all those evil freedoms that those horrible Democrats have foisted upon us that have made the terrorists hate us, would remain the same under this new plan of yours. Our daughters would still be allowed to have premarital sex (do you have some alternative to that? Would you like to go back to stoning women for not being virgins when they marry?); we'd still allow "equal rights for women" (damn those liberals for advocating that!); we'd still allow gays to live in our society and hold public office without killing them (much to the disappointment of many theocrats, I know); we'd still allow lesbians to have children (again, do you have an alternative? Forced sterilization, perhaps? Cameras in every bedroom? Forced abortion for any lesbian who gets pregnant? Ripping children away from lesbian parents?). You say all these things make us equal to Sodom and Gomorrah and claimed that the terrorists bomb us "in protest of this evil". Why would they hate us any less if all of this was allowed to continue by private contract under a different name?

This is as long as I cannot be persecuted for hate speech for telling my kids that I don't think it's right or normal, if parents can put a baby up for adoption and specify "two parent heterosexual couple" and not be legally guilty of discrimination, and that I don't have to worry about gay guys parading down the street in crotchless thongs in the name of "gay culture". if they leave me alone, I will leave them alone.

Well, none of those things are true now. You cannot be persecuted (or prosecuted) for hate speech for telling your kids that you don't think it's right or normal, nor will you ever be in this nation. That's why we have a first amendment. Parents who put babies up for adoption are entirely free to choose who gets to adopt that baby if they choose to. It happens all the time in private adoptions. And you don't have to worry about gay guys parading down the street in crotchless thongs because no one will ever force you to attend a gay pride parade (I wouldn't want to see one either, but it doesn't worry me because I recognize that I am in complete control of whether I attend one).

However, it is wrong to be asking me to pay for AIDS drugs because a man thought he had not only a right to sleep with 100 partners but for me to pay for his consequences, just as it is wrong for a girl to have 5 kids without a stable partner and ask me to foot the bill for her immaturity.

What on earth does this have to do with anything you wrote or that I responded to? And why single out those things that morally offend you? There are vast numbers of health problems that are caused by willful behavior, from lung cancer from smoking to injuries from playing violent sports. And what's your alternative to paying for AIDS drugs, just let them die? Would you pass a law that says that no insurance plan needed to cover any health problem that might have come about as a result of behavior? I'm sure that's just what Jesus would do, isn't it?

Besides, it's not paying for AIDS drugs that makes the terrorists hate us, is it? It's the fact that, as you put it, we "allow homosexuals to exist". That's not the "evil" that presents a "big target" that you blame Kerry and the Democrats for. So the only way to stop that is to not let them exist. Are you just not capable of following your own logic, such as it is, to its obvious conclusion?