Dean, who will with the grace of some higher power (the Clintons?) become the Democratic presidential nominee, has invoked theology to justify his acceptance of gay unions. Here are his exact words:
"From a religious point of view, if God had thought homosexuality is a sin, he would not have created gay people."
Dean used to be a medical doctor. He has essentially devoted a large part of his career to countering "the will of God" as expressed in people's genetics. It seems safe to assume that Dr. Dean would never have withheld medical treatment from diabetics, on the grounds that a significant part of their disease was genetic and therefore it was the will of God that they have unbalanced blood sugar. Similarly, I doubt that he declined to treat sufferers of genetically caused cancerous tumours, whether or not it was the will of God that some people have cancer. For a man of medicine to embrace biological determinism is the ultimate in either stupidity or hypocrisy, and whatever else Dean may be, he isn't stupid.
Gay unions are an issue about which well-meaning people may disagree. What is so awful about Dean is his dishonesty. Let the man declare that he supports this position because he believes it is morally right, or simply politically expedient, to do so. What is even worse is the refusal of the blinkered media, or Dean's rivals for the nomination, to expose his hypocrisy and fuzzy reasoning for the dishonesty that it is.
Posted by Clio at January 8, 2004 08:51 AM