A while ago I had a conversation with friend on the topic of abortion. My friend told me how he converted from anti-abortionist to pro-abortionist at about the same time he realized he was gay. He still believes that a unborn child is a human being, and he doesn’t “support” abortion, but does support the woman’s right to choose. (Let’s not go there.)
I was very interested in his conversion, and he explained that his whole outlook changed to become more Liberal. In the past he was staunchly against the welfare state, was strongly individualist, and opposed socialist wealth redistribution programs. Now he stands firmly for all of those things.
The catalyst?
“The Liberals support gay rights”.
The idea here is that Liberals support gay rights, and that was the one issue he felt was the most important. Now, personally, I would think, “fine, then support gay rights. It doesn’t mean you need to change all your positions to line up with the Liberal agenda”.
But to my very good hearted gay friend, that didn’t appear to be a viable option. He wanted to support the Liberal agenda “fully”, and this, to him, meant he needed to support the party line.
This phenomenon is actually just partisanship. We see it all the time in politics. I have an aunt who backs the Liberal Democratic agenda in all things, including abortion, when I know she personally thinks abortion is murder. But she refuses to vote that way, and she will even argue the party line. Why? Because she is a public teacher, and believes that the Democrats support public education more than Republicans.
It’s what I call, the Principle of Bedfellows. “The enemy of my friend is my enemy.”
It’s a concept that I believe stands in opposition to intellectual honesty and integrity. We should not be bound to agree to concepts we know to be false simply by virtue of our friends believing them to be true.
