Twelve Gen-X Republicans Who Will Have Some Explaining To Do Sometime Soon

By Tom Prezelski
Re-posted from Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

Dirty_Dozen
The worst day of my six years in the legislature was also the last day of my last session: June 27, 2008.

This was the day that the Senate passed SCR 1042, which referred to the ballot a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. The change was unnecessary and strictly political. Arizona law already forbade such marriages, so the referendum ultimately had little practical effect other than to poison the public dialogue to advance the agenda of some sick and cynical people.

I could go on for a while about the ugliness that led up to 1042′s passage, like the promises that leadership and rank-and-file Republicans broke with the legislation’s opponents so that the bill could advance, the bizarre glee of the measure’s supporters (this did not include lobbyist Cathi Herrod, who continually bore her permanently sour countenance as she watched from her command post in the gallery), and the overall bigotry behind the whole thing. Suffice it to say, supporters of the bill went through a lot of trouble to get this passed. One could admire the parliamentary skill at play here if only it was about something useful like fixing potholes or building a hospital.

The bill got the votes of every single Republican present save two: Representatives Jennifer Burns and Pete Hershberger, both of Tucson. Burns had already announced that she was not running for reelection. Hershberger went on to lose a Republican Senate primary to the famously grumpy Al Melvin. If this issue was a factor, it was only one of many as Melvin had beaten another well-regarded moderate Republican in a primary for the same seat 2 years before. Based on my subsequent conversations with him, I think I can safely say that Pete has few if any regrets about any of this.

It would be easy to dismiss the passage of this as the act of a bunch of frightened old people who were intimidated by a modern world that they no longer understood were it not for the fact that twelve legislators under the age of 40, all Republicans, three in the Senate and nine in the House, enough to change the final outcome, were among those who voted for this. In other words, people who should have had an eye to the future rather than the past supported this even though they knew better.

At the time, I remember saying that the folks under 40 who voted for 1042 were all going to live to feel foolish about their vote. Society was moving in the opposite direction, and the future would not look kindly upon those who stood in the way of progress. We were people who all grew up around folks of our parents and grandparents’ generation who lived through the days of legal segregation. We would hear the lame excuses of older people who told us that while they all knew that the way that African-Americans were treated was wrong, they just had to go along with it in the name of expedience. As usual, evil triumphed because so many ostensibly good people found excuses to do nothing. The fact that the older generation was still (and is still) making excuses many years later indicates that they were embarrassed by their part in allowing it to continue.

Despite the court decision, the debate over same sex-marriage in Arizona is by no means over. Opponents have made it clear that they will continue to fight, but they are rapidly looking more like the Japanese holdouts who were still waging war from caves in the Marianas years after the surrender. It is clear where the issue is going, and it is happening much faster than even the most hopeful among us ever thought it would.

This was a very different issue than most of what we dealt with in the legislature. Unlike our arguments about taxation or whatever, this was one where, as what happened with SB1070 two years later, the legislature singled out one constituency for stigmatization, as the folks to blame for the problems the rest of us were having. They targeted our fellow human beings for crass, cynical and craven reasons. They all knew exactly what they were doing.

This is the part where someone says “Hey Tom, that was 6 years ago. Why still hold a grudge?” The reason is simple. I have seen nothing in the intervening time that shows that any of these folks have regret over their vote in 2008. Based on the fact that three of these individuals: Senators Adam Driggs, Rick Murphy and Michele Reagan, recently voted for the clearly anti-gay SB1062, it is safe to say that they still think that political considerations trump the dignity of our neighbors. So far, none of these individuals has had a George Wallace moment where they admit that they were wrong.

Now that it is clear that they are on the wrong side of history, they all better start thinking up what lame excuses they are going to be making. Their grand-children’s generation is sure to ask questions.

5 thoughts on “Twelve Gen-X Republicans Who Will Have Some Explaining To Do Sometime Soon”

  1. I don’t think you will ever hear an apology for the way they voted. This is a subject, similar to abortion, that is very deeply held. The fact that it is now legal won’t change many minds about it. A more productive route would be for you to accept the change as a victory for civil rights and forget about those who opposed it. Holding a grudge against them only hurts you because I can assure you they don’t care. And they never will care. Move on and let the darkness go away.

  2. My guess is they go the William F. Buckley route. In 2004, he “apologized” for his opposition to civil rights by pretending he just loved strict interpretation of the Constitution and states rights too much. He was able to pull the wool over a lot of eyes of people who didn’t bother to look at his actual history of telling Southern states to resist equality by “such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally.” Buckley was basically Bull Connor without the firehose but with a better vocabulary.

    My other guess is that these SCR 1402 voting legislators will be able to further bury their disgusting and anachronistic bigotry under the rug, despite an inescapable history on the internet, because of the way the Establishment likes to give such poltroons all kinds of props and latitude for being “decent”, well after the time when it would have mattered.

  3. The bishop in October 2008, then proceeded to send a disgusting video, that was required to be shown in all churches in the Phoenix area, essentially telling all Church members to vote for this Constitutional amendment. A truly disgusting moment.

  4. Well said, Tom. They knew better & cast a hateful vote anyway. Their votes should not be forgotten.

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