5 Issues Where Right-Wingers Are Crazier and Meaner Than Ever

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/5-issues-where-right-wingers-are-crazier-and-meaner-ever



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1) Immigration. Belligerent hostility to immigrants has been a bad look for a long time, since it’s so obviously racist in origin. Instead, the standard conservative talking point has been to praise “legal” immigrants while ignoring the fact that legal immigration is out of the reach of many. Meanwhile, they also offer to find compromise legislation that would allow some immigrants, particularly those who are minors, a chance to earn citizenship if they jump through a series of dazzling hoops. No one could accuse House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of being anything but right-wing, and this was his basic position. Worse, he wasn’t even particularly willing to defend that position — doing no real work to get even the most basic immigration reform moving.

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2) Sexual violence. In the past four decades, relentless feminist campaigning on the issue of sexual abuse and rape has created some amount of consensus about what rape is and what it isn’t. Until recently, even the most belligerent rape apologist had to admit that “date rape” is a thing that actually happens in the real world and that no really does mean no. Sure, anti-feminists still try to deny the extent of date rape and argue that consent is more confusing than it actually is, but even they had to admit that clear-cut cases of non-consent amount to rape.

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3) Gay rights. The trend in the past decade or so for conservatives has been a move away from overtly homophobic arguments and towards claiming they are not so much against gays as they are “protecting traditional marriage”. But that argument is collapsing in face of overwhelming evidence that gay marriage will have no negative effect on straight people, and so many conservatives are regressing back to old school strategies, namely demonizing gay people and basically calling them perverts.

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4) Domestic violence. That domestic violence is a serious problem and that victims need to be separated from their abusers instead of pushed to try to “fix” them is one of those beliefs that spread quickly — from feminist circles to be common wisdom — by virtue of the overwhelming evidence in their favor. Even Christian conservatives who push to put all these obstacles on divorce carve out exceptions for domestic violence, however hard they may be to enforce, because the need to end an abusive relationship quickly is so well-understood.