Having said all of that, I have watched and listened to both sides and what I find is that Democrats really don't seem to hold a very high opinion of most of the groups that they claim to support. While claiming to champion the cause of minorities, women, and those who profess to be homosexual, the underlying messages are actually very condescending and outlandishly insulting to the intelligence, integrity, and worth of those individuals. I'm picking out three messages I hear consistently from the Democratic party and explain to you why I think these are absolutely appalling:
1. Homosexual marriage should be supported because gays can't help themselves.
This one is by far the most insulting of the arguments used because it implies that it is impossible for people with same sex attraction to exercise self-control. It seriously reduces them to the level of animals, since this is the reason we do not hold animals accountable to the law. Is that really the message that homosexuals want people to believe about them? That they are animals incapable of controlling their urges and impulses?
The more dangerous part of this argument is that decades ago it was arguments like these that were used to support the eugenics movement, classifying some people as unable to improve their lot in life because they were simply born that way. Human behavior is not hard wired into our genetic code, although we may have a predisposition toward certain behaviors, we are still free to choose them. That, more than anything else, is what separates man from animals.
2. Blacks, women, and gays can't compete with white men for jobs without government intervention.
Speaking as a woman, I find this statement to be beyond the pale. I don't need government help to compete in the workplace. I want to be hired for my qualifications, not for my skin color or my gender or my sexual preferences. If I am qualified, I can prove it. If I am not able to get hired by someone else, I am capable of starting my own business and finding clients who will purchase what I have to offer without the assistance of the government. All I ask is that the government not be an obstacle or an impediment to my efforts to prove myself.
3. Women need birth control because it helps free them to be more like men.
First, why would women need to be more like men in the first place? This implies that there is something inherently wrong with being a woman, that we need to be "fixed" somehow. There is nothing wrong with being a woman. It's a glorious thing, and no woman should ever feel like she needs to stop being feminine in order to be able to get ahead in life. Yet this is the exact message she receives from the Democratic party.
Second of all I want to ask how, exactly, does birth control help women? By reducing us to sex objects for the pleasure of men? By messing with our hormones so that we are more likely to become depressed, less likely to seek out healthy partners, are more likely to contract diseases because it throws off our immune systems? By pitting us against our children, telling us that we must choose between them and a decent life? By decreasing our sex drives? By encouraging us to be careless in the bedroom so that we end up contracting STD's or facing a pregnancy without a partner to help us?
I just can't see how birth control helps women at all. It seems to me like the plight of women has gotten worse, not better, since birth control was legalized in the early 1970's. Rates of divorce are higher, rates of cheating, the numbers of single parents, incidents of domestic violence - and violence specifically targeted to pregnant women - has increased, even child abuse has gone up over the last 40 years. How is any of this helping women?
Furthermore, doctors used to actually try to solve women's reproductive health issues. Now, when a woman complains about some problem with her reproductive system, the first and often only response she gets is a prescription for birth control. This is INSANE! Birth control doesn't solve any problems. It only masks them, and the real problems get bigger and bigger. Girls as young as 11 are being prescribed these hormone altering drugs - hormones that impact their growth and development - as a way to "help" solve their menstrual problems or keep their menstrual cycles regular.
What really helps women is to teach them to value themselves enough not to give in to the pressure to sleep with a guy in the hopes that he'll love you. What really helps women is to encourage them to develop self-control and take responsibility for their lives. What really helps women is to teach men not to treat women as objects of pleasure and to help men realize that there is no such thing as consequence-free sex. If you really want to help women, help them to take control of their lives so they don't have to be the victim all the time.
