I think the two ideals are non-competitive.  You can be a political conservative, yet oppose gay marriage.  Here's how:

The government should generally not interfere in the economic affairs of the nation.  However, there are exceptions, that being in the case of externalities.  If an economic condition benefits society more than the net benefit to the parties making the agreement, then the government has the right to subsidize particular actions to accommodate the unrealized benefits.

Now in the case of marriage, the nation gains a key resource: people.  In Western societies, where populations are stagnant and in some cases declining, higher population is a source of economic, political, and military strength for a nation, all other things being equal.  Thus, a nation with a dwindling population would want to encourage more children to be born.  That means it's in the government's interests to promote heterosexuality.

Or how about going this way?

The government should not interfere in economic affairs.  However, moral issues fundamentally have negative consequences on the economy.  An immoral society will slowly degrade, and the nation's economy and military will suffer as a result.  Rome is a good example.

As a result, even though a nation shouldn't interfere in economic affairs, it is in our national interests to retain a rigid moral fabric.  Homosexuality contradicts that moral fabric for X, Y, and Z reasons.  Therefore, it's bad.

Disclaimer: I don't advocate either of these positions.

I'm going to let this thread ride for a little bit just to see what kind of responses I get. It's just one of the things that gets on my nerves. You do bring up some good points though politically any program that expands the role off government into your daily life is a liberal political choice for the sake of a socially conservative argument.

Zarf,

I have sympathies toward "practical morality," but that's not what religious conservatives are about. I support educating children on hard work, but I don't on prayer. What the social conservatives do is support morality because of religion. They are principle trenchers.

Someone can support some morals for practical reasons, and that's fine. But that isn't what social conservative do, because of the religious connection.

> avogadro wrote:

> the problem isnt the existence of "social conservatives" the problem is the lack of "political conservatives">

You have a point, hahaha.

> Justinian I wrote:

> Zarf,

I have sympathies toward "practical morality," but that's not what religious conservatives are about. I support educating children on hard work, but I don't on prayer. What the social conservatives do is support morality because of religion. They are principle trenchers.

Someone can support some morals for practical reasons, and that's fine. But that isn't what social conservative do, because of the religious connection.

Actually, number 2 would be quite in line with religious conservatism.

> Justinian I wrote:

> Religious conservatives may support some morals because of practical reasons, but they also conveniently ignore the other side of the double edged sword. A practical moralist would exclude any and all non-practical morals.

isnt a practial moralist that doesnt exclude non-practical morals like an empiricist who doesnt empirically test empiricism?

Your gay marriage example is a poor one. I'm one of your "political conservatives" (libertarian, if anything) but I don't think our government should recognize or have anything to do with homosexual "unions." Men and women are not the same. Male-male and female-female relationships are not the same as heterosexual relationships. They do not serve the same functions in society that government encourages heterosexual unions in serving. Yes I don't want government involvement in most aspects of anyone's life. And this includes anything to do with marriage that does not serve the function marriage serves now. I do not believe there is anything immoral about homosexuality or homosexual "unions" of any sort; this has nothing to do with morality or moral judgements.

I think there is an important disctinction between conservatives who are more libertarian and the "religious conservatives" Justinian I brought up. While both tend to lean more Republican than Democrat (I guess anything not socialist leans that way now), they're significantly different. I'm pretty libertarian, but I think "religious conservatives" are crazy and do not support most of the legislation they support (that is, the legislation that distinguishes them from "political/economic" conservatives).

> Lizon wrote:

> Note: The examples are just that examples. I wanted to use something that was easily definable for the purposes of the thread.

That justifies me giving a counter-example without being off-topic. 

Abortion.  Social issue, no doubt.

But let's look at it pragmatically.  Pretend we are, say, Russia, debating this topic.

Russia is having a population crisis.  Declining population, at a time of an increasing amount of retirees, both working together to create an unsustainable population distribution that will either force retirees to go back to work or will create shortages of resources.

The solution?  More children!  QUICK!  WE NEED MORE KIDS!  IT'S YOUR PATRIOTIC DUTY TO MAKE BABIES!

Abortion would be contradictory to said position.

This same issue can be found in most industrialized nations, where population levels are maxed out at 1% growth per year, or in some cases, such as Italy, the population is declining annually.  It's a simple problem: As populations become more developed, birth control, education about sexually transmitted diseases and protective sex methods become more widespread.  In addition, more rural families need additional children to help work on farms and increase short term revenue for the family, whereas in industrialized societies, children aren't family financial benefits but instead emotional benefits, as they most likely use more resources than they contribute to a household.

On the flip side, the book "Freakonomics" argued that the children of families that would use abortions are more likely to become the criminal element of a society because their families are less equipped to raise children in the first place.  That would turn any benefits on the national scale that an increased population would have.

Now, as for Justinian's highlighting of compromise in "extreme situations," I would say that social conditioning must ALWAYS assume an extreme circumstance, specifically because instilling patriotism and preparing populations is a long term issue.  In an extreme example, if a nation had a year in which no children were born, it wouldn't affect the nation immediately.  It would, however, affect the nation in 18 years when the military recruiting stations are looking for new soldiers, and it would devastate the nation if a major military conflict occurred in that time.

your european term liberal has no application in the United States.

Gay marriage is all about forcing other people to change their behavior.  don't wanna give me discounts? tough we're married, the state says so.

when everyone drops their languages and settles on a specific dialect of english, i will too, until then, our dialects are just as official and we are just as justified to use them as any british dialect. and in our dialects, liberal means something completely different.