While I'll be thankful for my turkey today, I did not especially appreciate the turkey of a headline which greeted me from the front page of this morning's Inquirer:

Two GOP votes test gun lobby in Penna

The axioms of state politics dictate that two Republican House members from the Philadelphia suburbs risked political death when they crossed party lines Tuesday to vote for a gun-control bill.

Those rules may be changing, however, with Pennsylvania polls indicating majority support for stricter regulation of handguns and a newly emboldened advocacy group determined to counter the National Rifle Association's traditional power.

Reps. Kate Harper (R., Montgomery) and Bernard O'Neill (R., Bucks) voted for a bill to limit handgun buyers to one purchase a month. The measure failed to get out of the Democratic-controlled Judiciary Committee.

Harper, of Blue Bell, said she was reflecting the will of her constituents, knowing that the gun lobby may try to exact revenge next year.

"To the single-issue voters, this is an antigun vote," Harper said. "I am afraid this will come back to bite me next election season."

But, she added, "I think I did the right thing."

O'Neill, of Warminster, did not respond to a request to explain his vote. A Bucks County GOP political consultant said that O'Neill's 29th District was moderate, and that he was unlikely to face a primary challenge over the issue.

John Hohenwarter, a lobbyist for the NRA in Harrisburg, said the votes disappointed him, but that it was too early to say whether O'Neill and Harper would fail to get his group's endorsement next year.

I'm not saying that CeaseFirePA doesn't have every right to do this, but I'm wondering.....

Suppose the NRA commissioned a poll from a known conservative activist pollster in Virginia, and he came up with opposite results. Would the Inquirer refer uncritically to the NRA poll as "Pennsylvania polls indicating majority opposition to stricter regulation of handguns"?

Kate Harper represents nearby Blue Bell, and while it's not my district, it's in my area, and I go there to shop and eat regularly. So I'm technically not in a position to complain as one of her constituents, but in a way I am glad I'm not, because I'd feel discounted.

And I do not mean discounted by Kate Harper's vote, or because she disagrees with me. That I might be able to handle if I thought she was a sincere person who arrived at her decision for sincere reasons, and who took her constituents' opinions seriously.

My problem is with what she said:

Harper, of Blue Bell, said she was reflecting the will of her constituents, knowing that the gun lobby may try to exact revenge next year.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. I am not a lobby! My opinions are my own. Furthermore, I am not an agenda. These phrases are used to discount opinions, and while it is not surprising to see them tossed around by activists engaged in ideological disputes with each other, for any legislator to discount constituents that way is to my mind, a lot worse than simply disagreeing with them.

If I have a pro-gun opinion, and it is mine, why does that make me the gun lobby?

To put it another way, if I have a pro-gay opinion, and it is mine, does that make me part of the "gay agenda"?

To an activist, it does. Glenn Greenwald will refer to people who disagree with him as part of the radical right wing agenda. The Concerned Women for America spokesman will call people who disagree part of the radical gay agenda (or "apostates").

It's the Greenwaldization of political discourse. It's probably inevitable in the blogosphere and among activists, but should legislators be interacting with their constituents that way?

Once again, the thesis in Glenn Reynolds' law review article really hits the nail on the head. There is an eerie similarity, not just between the gun issue and the gay issue, but in the way people who hold opinions about these issues are treated. And stereotyped. I don't know what to call it. ("Greenwalding" the opposition?) But it's leading to a situation where any opinion that you have makes you not a person, but a lobbyist. And Agendaite. (Er, maybe would that be "lobbyite" or "agendaist.")

So, whether you agree with him or not, why should Glenn's remark about the "happily married gay couples with closets full of assault weapons" reduce him to being a hapless stooge of the gun lobby and the gay agenda? The Gun Gay Agenda Lobby? Or the Gay Gun Lobby Agenda?

I think people are getting tired of this. What bothers me in this instance is to see it coming from a legislator, and I'm hoping the Inquirer was putting words in her mouth. Um, no, I'm not really hoping that, because I don't want the Inquirer to put words in politicians' mouths. You know what I mean. (I mean you, the reasonable readers, not the people who think an opinion is a lobby is an agenda.)

Of course, to the Inquirer (and, apparently, Governor Rendell) the argument that current laws are not being enforced is not a legitimate argument or idea worthy of discussion on its merits:

Rendell's 40-minute appearance, in which he sought to refute gun-lobby arguments about weak enforcement of current laws...

Stay tuned for more gun lobby arguments, and gay agenda arguments.

Speaking of lobbies and arguments, I enjoyed this piece of, um, "constituent email" which activists were urging be sent to Kate Harper:

We will never have a sane gun policy unless we stand up to the gun lobby.

You can start today.

Please take a moment to pick up the phone and call a couple of people on the committee. It's a simple form of citizen action that makes a big difference. They listen. I just did it myself. Here's what I said (Rep. Kate Harper's office) - I got her voicemail:

Hi, my name is Hannah Miller, and I am calling to ask Representative Harper to support the gun-control measures that are coming up in front of the committee tomorrow. I live in Philadelphia and I have seen friends lose their loved ones and family members because of all these guns. Just this summer my friend had his 24-year-old son paralyzed and we as a city can simply not take any more of this. Please vote yes on HB 72 and 77. Thank you.

Something like that. That's all you have to do.

Here's the info and the members of the committee....

We will never have a sane family policy unless we stand up to the gay lobby.

You can start today.

Beware!

If you have an opinion, you're just a lobbyist whose agenda assaults someone's values.

UPDATE: Wow. My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for linking this post, and a warm welcome to all turkey headline gobblers!