Thursday, March 10, 2011

More on (or moron) Santorum

Historical analogies can be tricky. Santorum compares abortion rights with slavery, and says they are equally abhorrent. Of course, that assumes that his premise about the personality of the foetus is taken for granted, which I don't concede.

But there's a much closer and more valid analogy to slavery, in my opinion. Namely his statement that allowing gay marriage is an offence against freedom of religion. I would argue that this is so only in the same way that abolitionism infringed on the property rights of slave holders.

Descendants of slaves are likely to find his analogy more than somewhat offensive, I suspect. But then, he's not really talking to them. He's talking to the white middle class bigots, who use such talk to persuade themselves they're not really racists.

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