Watching the Worm Turn on Gay Marriage

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I missed out on all the DOMA blogging yesterday while I was off the net, but I doubt my voice was missed. When I got back to my RSS feed in the afternoon, it was practically wall-to-wall DOMA. Oddly, though, I still have something to add. It turns out that a number of conservatives had a reaction like this one, from CBN’s David Brody:

In the media’s narrative, you would think that homosexuals are the poor souls who have been banished by society like ugly stepchildren and are now rising to overcome incredible odds.

But what about today? Let’s be honest: If you are a conservative evangelical who believes in the biblical definition of traditional marriage then guess what? You are one of the following: An outcast, a bigot, narrow-minded, a “hater” or all of the above. It’s a different type of ridicule but it’s still ridicule.

This produced a fair amount of mockery from liberals, including this nice mini-rant from Paul Waldman. But you know what? Brody is right. A lot of us really do believe that conservative evangelicals are narrow-minded haters. Next year, even more of us will believe that. A decade from now, Brody’s beliefs will be viewed by most of us as pure bigotry, full stop. That’s got to hurt.

Brody is finding himself increasingly at the business end of a tremendous societal pressure telling him that his lifestyle is wrong and he should keep his beliefs to himself. I won’t lie and pretend that I don’t enjoy the irony. But Brody’s diagnosis is quite correct. He just hasn’t yet figured out the cure.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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