Natalie Portman, Marriage and Republicans

What is striking about the Republicans and their allies in the tea party is that they want to reduce the size and footprint of the government, all the while spending their time interfering in the private lives of citizens. They want less government protection of people’s health or the environment, or help for the poor, but they want more government when it comes to life-affecting decisions — abortion and marriage, for example — precisely the areas of life in which no one wants the government to intervene. Especially not a government whose conservative values go against the well-being of its citizens.

The latest example: “The Natalie Portman Affair.”

As unemployment is at its lowest point in three years, the Republican Party must focus on something else. Oddly, the Oscars have given some of them a pretext to interfere in the choices of those who do not think like them. It is a method tried and tested by Karl Rove (upholding moral values; divorced since 2009). The former George W. Bush adviser created these means to mobilize the conservative electorate: creating artificial debate around social issues in order to arouse indignation or fear that would mobilize the idle conservative electorate.

The latest example: the intervention of former Arkansas Gov. — and previous and future candidate for the GOP presidential nomination — Mike Huckabee. Invited by the host of a conservative talk show, Michael Medved, Huckabee went after actress Natalie Portman, recent Best Actress Oscar winner. What did he criticize the “Black Swan” actress for? Advertising having children out of wedlock. “One of the things that’s troubling is that people see a Natalie Portman or some other Hollywood starlet who boasts of, ‘Hey look, you know, we’re having children, we’re not married, but we’re having these children, and they’re doing just fine,’” said Huckabee. He then had to backtrack and apologize to the actress.

But the damage was done. It was, once again, stigmatizing people just to get brownie points from the conservative organizations that Huckabee and others will need in the primaries.

Meanwhile, Republicans in the House of Representatives have indicated they would take measures to counter the administration’s announcement last week that it would no longer support the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which requires the government to defend marriage as the union of one man and one woman. John Boehner, speaker of the House, suggested that it was for the courts and not the president to decide whether a law was unconstitutional or not. Instead of focusing on the budget and deficit reduction, Republicans are once again engaging in a battle that can only be turned against them. They know they probably will not take over the White House in 2012. Not with their current policy, anyway.