If actions speak louder than words, then the Democrats’ lack of action on the values it claims to represent speaks volumes about why they keep losing elections.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean’s recently exhorted his party: “We need to talk about values and not be afraid of them. We need to talk about Christian values and how they are Democratic values.”
Dean’s advice to Democrats to begin reaching out to “values-voters” is understandable in view of their recent electoral setbacks. But in order to win over the constituency of conscience, Democrats must realize that their recent defeats have very little to do with a reluctance to talk the talk on values like personal choice, tolerance and social justice, and much more to do with a refusal to walk the walk when it comes to supporting an agenda that reflects those values.
For instance, while the Left declares its fondness for freedom of choice, it has spent the last five years on a crusade to prevent the president from exercising his constitutionally authorized freedom to choose qualified individuals to represent him in various departments of government. That’s not pro-choice.
Even worse, while the “tolerant” homosexual-rights crowd campaigns on behalf of every individual’s right to choose whom to marry, these same activists and their allies in the courts become profoundly intolerant when states choose to preserve the timeless definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. For instance, a single judge in Nebraska recently struck down the state’s marriage amendment – approved in 2000 by 70 percent of Nebraskans – much to the delight of liberal interest groups like the Human Rights Campaign and the American Civil Liberties Union. Not only is this out of step with mainstream values, it is antithetical to authentic tolerance and American democracy.
What’s more, while the American military battles tyranny around the world so that enslaved people may realize the social justice and personal freedoms that representative democracies cultivate, the American Left labors just as intensely to deny them the opportunity to make the first real political choices they have ever had.
Of course, when liberals talk about choice, they’re usually referring to abortion. And while many liberals are pro-choice on a woman’s right to abort, they become strangely silent when it comes to the unborn woman’s right to choose life.
Stranger still is the Left’s obstinacy against laws designed to help women make informed choices about their reproductive health. Self-described “pro-choice” groups consistently oppose laws requiring that doctors provide reliable information about the potential physical and psychological risks of abortion as well as laws that require that women seeking an abortion be given the opportunity to see an ultrasound image of their child. What’s pro-choice about a frightened teen mother who’s uninformed about the realities of abortion?
Whether it’s preventing families from choosing where to send their children to school; refusing to give taxpayers more choice over what happens with their hard-earned money; or, its campaign to prohibit children from choosing to recite a simple prayer on public school property, the Left has revealed that far from representing choice and tolerance, its agenda has instead come to more closely resemble a horrible totalitarian reality better left to the pages of a George Orwell novel.
Fortunately, Americans are becoming wise to the Left’s rhetorical sleight of hand and are exercising their right to elect men and women who will defend authentic choice.
Democrats now have their biggest choice to make. Will they continue to stand for a false liberalism that regards authentic tolerance as a barrier to the implementation of their policies and worldview? Will they continue to stand for a distorted version of choice that takes real choices out of the hands of people and puts them into the hands of a select few?
Or, will they embrace genuine forms of choice and authentic notions of tolerance that also adhere to the basic standards of morality at the heart of American democracy?
While voters have made it known that the kind of choices they are looking for have little to do with the radical social agenda of today’s Democratic Party, the choice to take a new direction and embrace the kind of choices desired by a majority of Americans, that’s up to them.
Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of Campaign for Working Families. A 2000 Republican presidential contender and former domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan, Bauer has previously served as president of the Family Research Council, one of Washington’s most-respected centers for public policy.
