If you visited the White House website yesterday morning, you would have been introduced to a defense of the right to life, the need for lower taxes and the sanctity of traditional marriage. But within hours, as power changed from a president of one party to a president of another, all that was gone. By mid-afternoon the White House website had undergone an “extreme makeover,” with the extreme agenda of the new administration front and center. Here are just a few examples:
• Abortion: “he [President Obama] has been a consistent champion of reproductive choice [abortion on demand] and will make preserving women’s rights under Roe v. Wade a priority in his Administration.”
• Homosexual rights: “President Obama and Vice President Biden will strengthen federal hate crimes legislation… President Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. …President Obama believes that we must ensure adoption rights for all couples and individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation.”
• On taxes and the economy, he is promising to hike tax rates on successful families and small businesses back to Clinton-era levels, raise payroll taxes, again raise the minimum wage and then index it for inflation.
Of course, changes to the White House website by the new administration were to be expected. But the radical changes in policy outlined there today underscore the consequences of elections past and future, as well the challenges ahead for those who cherish our time-honored traditional values, which do not change with the winds of political fortunes.