Federal Hate Amendment: Traditional Conservativism

In the process of tepidly defending the indefensible, Rich Lowry gets something (mostly) right:

Andrew Sullivan has been playing increasingly tendentious word games with the labels he applies to supporters and opponents of the FMA. Yesterday’s version was particularly amusing. He said that the FMA may widen the split between Santorum theocrats and old-school conservatives. Old-school conservatives? Since when are old-school conservatives big supporters of gay marriage and judicial activism? Maybe there is a split between religious conservatives and moderates, or libertarians, or progressive conservatives, or whatever you want to call them. But saying it is old-school conservatives (Phyllis Schlafly? Trent Lott?) who oppose the FMA is an absurdly stilted attempt by Andrew to make the traditional social right seem as if it is some sort of radical innovation, when it has been a key part of modern conservativism for decades.

Quite so. Pace Sully, the Federal Hate Amendment is as “old-school” conservative as the flag, apple pie, and union-busting. Where Sullivan errs is his belief that “states’ rights” represented a consistent principle. And, of course, where Lowry and Sullivan both err is in claiming there’s some kind of principled conservative opposition to “judicial activism.” In the U.S., most judicial activism has historically been conservative. And, needless to say, the National Review are big fans of the new reactionary judicial activism: Boy Scouts v. Dale, Seminole Tribe, Bush v. Gore, etc. etc. etc. At any rate, the idea that the FHA betrays traditional conservatism is absurd. It epitomizes traditional conservatism.

Where Sullivan is right, on the other hand, is that the FMA is going to be bad politics for the Republican Party. The Dems, to their credit, understood this–calling their bluff this weekend by saying they’d allow an up-or-down vote on the Allard Amendment was brilliant. Matt Ygelsias explains the dynamic in a very prescient column from last year. The logic of the FMA makes superficial sense: it’s a way to mobilize the base in an issue that also has popular support. But when you consider intensity of support and the way it’s distributed, the advantage vanishes is. And a federal constitutional amendment frames the issue in the best possible way for the Dems. Is liberal rhetoric about states’ rights opportunistic? Sure. But then, so is conservative invocation of states’ rights (as this amendment unequivocally proves.) And it always has been; for some reason, George Wallace didn’t complain about the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the Supreme Court rejecting a perfectly plausible state court interpretation of state law on transparently specious grounds was perfectly OK to conservatives in 2000. The difference is that conservatives use the term to support bigotry; liberals use it to oppose it.

And the political disaster that the FHA represents was palpable yesterday. Chris Matthews, always a reliable bellwether of moderate-right received wisdom, was so hostile to Allard (who was evasive about his hate amendment when he wasn’t lying about it) you’d think he was defending Bill Clinton or something. Watching Slippery Slope Santorum and various other assholes blubbering about “The CHILDREN!!!!!” on the Senate floor was so pathetic you could almost feel pity for them. This is the latest manifestation of an ideology that is rotten to the core, that has been on the wrong side of every important civil rights issue, that is on the wrong side of history. And everyone knows it.