Doublespeak and doublethink

I find it interesting that the mainstream media does not question George Bush on his doublespeak. I always thought doublespeak was an Orwellian phrase used in 1984. It turns out it isn’t.

According to Wikipedia: Doublespeak may be considered, in Orwell's lexicography, as the B vocabulary of Newspeak, words "deliberately constructed for political purposes: words, that is to say, which not only had in every case a political implication, but were intended to impose a desirable mental attitude upon the person using them."

The phrase Bush and many others use that drives me to distraction is “activist judges.” He uttered this phrase the other day when describing the New Jersey Supreme Court’s decision that the marriage laws were unfair. He and many right wingers believe that marriage is under assault from the gays.

This kind of rhetoric is irritating. First, divorce is the biggest threat to marriage. Second, most American families aren’t married anymore. According to the U.S. Census, a greater number of couples are living together and not marrying. Third, the court didn’t say same-sex marriage had to become legal. It did state that the legislature had to create something that gives all of the rights, privileges and burdens of marriage. This means it could be called domestic partnerships, civil unions, etc. It doesn’t matter. But loving same-sex partners deserve equality.

“Activist judges” are crucial to American equality. If the majority ruled and got its way all of the time, then we’d still have slavery, interracial marriages would be illegal and segregation would be ok.

Thank God for court decisions like Brown v Board of Education and Loving v. Virginia. Those aren’t cases where judges are activists. Those are cases where the judges righted some serious wrongs.

Also, Georgie Porgie must have a terrible memory. Two years ago he endorsed this kind of thing. He said same that gays should be allowed to have the same rights as marriage, “if the state chooses to do so.”

The Catholic Church loves to do a different kind of doublespeak with the gays. Actually, it's more like talking out of its ass. While in the same breath it calls gays “intrinsically disordered,” the Church says that gays shouldn’t be discriminated against. Read this first paragraph from an AP story:

The nation's Roman Catholic bishops said Wednesday they are developing new guidelines for ministry to gays, reaffirming church opposition to same-sex marriage and adoption by gays, while condemning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

OK. Do they not understand that by opposing same-sex marriage and adoption by gays they ARE discriminating. I mean, this is logic 101.

And for being a “loving” religion it’s an awful and evil institution. It closes an adoption agency because it doesn’t want the horrible gays to become parents. It encourages parishioners to vote for state amendments that ban same-sex marriage. It actually sides with anti-gay groups like this right-wing Christian conservative group just to denigrate and push down gays.

Yet I don’t hear any voices other than my own and other liberal bloggers calling out these discrepancies. Where is the mainstream media? Shouldn’t they be pointing these things out? Where are the straight allies saying enough is enough? Where are our families? Our brothers and our sisters? Shouldn’t they be marching to Washington and to the Vatican to defend us?

If not, we’re going to have to rely on “activist judges” to give us (the minority) the same rights and privileges as other human beings.