What the Hell is a “Values Voter” Anyway?

Seriously, I see the terms “Values Voter,” “Moral Values,” “Family Values” and “Traditional Values” tossed around, but I’m having trouble understanding what these things are at their core.

By “their core” I don’t mean stands on particular issues. I know where so-called “Values Voters” stand on things such as Abortion Access (Opposed!), Embryonic Stem Cell Research (Opposed!), Gay Marriage (Opposed!) and letting little Georgie play War President (In Favor!?), but these don’t define the core, it’s the core that defines WHY they take the stands they do.

That’s what I’m having a hard time understanding. This is especially true when I look at the history of what we now call “Values Voters.”

People with the same so-called “Traditional Values” supported slavery, opposed women’s suffrage, supported segregation, opposed feminism, opposed rock & roll, opposed males with long hair and opposed, and still oppose to this day, the teaching of evolution.

If we had listened to these morons in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, newspapers would still differentiate between people and “Negroes,” females would still dress like Donna Reed and be stuck in the kitchen all day and most of the technical innovations we take for granted would never have gotten beyond the back of the napkin stage. We’d also be wearing white shirts, ties, sports jackets and still be reading National Geographic for the “hot spots.” In other words we’d be a nation of what we would now consider hopeless nerds.

I remember the 1950’s. They sucked big time. The idea of a simpler, more moral time before the country went to hell is pure fiction. The difference today is that rather than keeping it swept under the rug, the dirty linen is fully exposed for all to see.

Learn this young Padawan, you cannot solve a problem or redress an injustice until you are willing to admit that it exists. What the mid to late 1960’s did for this country, both culturally and in terms of technology, was to force it to face up to the problems endemic in American society.

Television made it impossible not to understand the injustices of segregation, impossible not to understand that women were effectively second class citizens, impossible not to acknowledge that homosexuality existed whether we wanted it to or not and impossible not to understand, at least a little, the horrors of war. I say “a little” because no one that hasn’t been there can really understand the horrors of war.

Being exposed to the dark side basically gave the zeitgeist a swift kick in the butt and propelled it farther forward more quickly than anytime previously in the history of civilization. I tell my daughters and their friends that if they were to be transported back to 1962, they would think they had been stranded on the far side of the moon. The culture shock would probably kill them.

There is no way in hell I want to go back to the American cultural environment of 1961 and neither should anyone else with half a brain and any conception of historical reality.

I suppose, inevitably, there would be a backlash. The funny part about it is the backlash is taking advantage of the same technology that spurred the progressive leap to begin with and has sustained its momentum.

Now, what I’d like to know is what the hell are these people called “Values Voters” thinking? Often they’re voting against their own interests in supporting right wing candidates that cater to “Values Issues.”

Is it they’re afraid the culture of the country is going to change? That’s just a fact of life. It’s going to change, get used to the idea and live with it. I’m sure if I were transported 50 years into the future, I’d think I was on the far side of the moon as well and I probably wouldn’t like all the changes I would see.

Is it they’re afraid Sky Daddy is going to incinerate the country in his wrath? Good grief, if he didn’t incinerate the place over slavery and segregation he sure as hell isn’t going to over a woman controlling her own body or over what two queers do in the privacy of their own bedroom. If he didn’t want us to capitalize on the potential of Embryonic Stem Cells, why did he make them so useful?

So I really just don’t understand. What do these people think is the benefit, to themselves, to others and to society as a whole, of their so-called voting based upon “Moral Values,” “Family Values,” “Traditional Values” or whatever else they would like to call it? I just don’t understand.

Isn’t providing adequate health care for children a “Family Value?” Yet their “Family Values” president vetoed the bill which would have extended health benefits to more children including, I’m certain, a fairly large number of the children of “Values Voters.”

Isn’t providing a stable home situation, with commitments by both partners, a “Family Value?” Yet they force Gay Partners to not have the same legal protections as heterosexual couples by opposing Gay Marriage and often even an equivalent legal state such as Civil Unions.

Isn’t allowing an individual the freedom to make the choices associated with their own health and well being a “Family Value?” Yet they try to dictate the rules for pregnant women.

Isn’t eradicating disease a “Family Value?” Yet they oppose the single most promising new area of medical research since Alexander Fleming tripped over penicillin.

Like I said, what are these people thinking?