Karl Rove, Evil Genius - an email I received from my mother

[complain jane]

The author of this wrote this in an email to my mother to be used in a newsletter and to be passed along.

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Gay Marriage Issue Determines Presidential Race

by John McDonald

It is wedge politics at its worst. The United States just re-elected George Bush as president. Not because of his stand on terrorism. Not because of his position on Iraq. Not because of his economic record. George Bush got re-elected because religious conservatives in Ohio came out of the bushes to vote for a state measure to prevent Gay marriage.

Karl Rove is a genius. Evil, cynical, mean spirited, and manipulative, but a certified political genius. He drove a wedge so deep into the Ohio electorate it diverted voters from their concerns over the economy and security.

Somehow he figured out that a state initiative banning gay marriage would be the red meat that would bring religious conservatives out in droves to cast their votes against sin, and while they were at it, vote for George Bush. In effect, Rove used the issue of gay marriage to create a fire and brimstone wall to protect the President.

And it worked. Exit polls data found that 23 percent of Ohio voters listed moral values as their most important reason for voting. Forty two percent of the states voters described themselves as either white conservative Protestants or white evangelical born again. Sixty two percent of Ohio voters supported the state ban on gay marriage. The initiative clearly energized the religious conservative voters that make up the Bush base.

Never mind that there has never been a single gay marriage in Ohio. In a state that has lost more than 200,000 jobs, in which the vast majority of families make less than the typical tax cut given by President Bush to the nation’s richest 1 percent of tax payers, conservative religious voters chose to vote against their own economic interests to ensure that gay men and women are denied the benefits of marriage - and in some cases - domestic benefits.

Never mind that more than 1,100 U.S. soldiers have been killed in a war that the majority of Americans disagree with and believe is going badly. In Ohio, no price is apparently too high to pay to ensure that somewhere in their state, gay people aren’t having sex as a married couple.

Never mind that on President Bush’s watch, America suffered the worst foreign attack on U.S. soil in our history and then pursued an approach to the threat of terrorism that many would argue has made us less safe, damaged our relations with our longstanding allies and eroded the world’s trust and respect for America. Conservative religious voters in Ohio have made us safe from gays.

I feel so much better.