Sadly, Taylor Swift — a celebrity who had carefully, wisely stayed out of the political fray — has decided to come out strongly against Tennessee Republican Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn, in part implying that Blackburn fails to support women.
Posting on Instagram, Swift wrote about Blackburn:
Her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me. She voted against equal pay for women. She voted against the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which attempts to protect women from domestic violence, stalking, and date rape.
What Swift is missing is that voting against legislation with the name “equal pay” isn’t the same as being against equal pay. In fact, by opposing bad legislation pushed under the guise of equal pay, Blackburn has worked to create more and better opportunities for women.
First it’s already illegal to pay a woman less than a male coworker for doing the same work. The most popular legislation advanced by the Left under the equal-pay banner would just encourage more class-action suits (great for lawyers, not so great for workers) and generate more red tape for businesses, which would hurt employees, particularly women.
Similarly, the Violence Against Women Act sounds like a wonderful law — who but a monster could oppose that? — but the question about its reauthorization isn’t whether you oppose violence, stalking, or date rape. The question is if you think that this law actually works as intended and that funds are being used properly to help victims, rather than for unrelated political purposes.
Sadly, VAWA funds tend to be grossly mismanaged so the GAO can’t tell how the money is spent and has urged better oversight. By opposing the VAWA status quo, Blackburn is pushing for a better law, one that better uses funding for prevention and victim services.
Swift also cites Blackburn’s opposition to gay marriage as a reason to oppose her. But given that this issue is essentially settled, it’s unclear why this should be a top concern for Tennessee voters. Swift complains that Blackburn believes businesses should be able to deny gay couples services, but most will likely recognize that the core issue in this debate isn’t anti-gay discrimination, but the whole gay-wedding-cake question of whether a religious business owner can exercise his or her conscience. Voters will likely know who is truly being discriminated against.
Swift seems to accept the headlines and marketing of the Left that would have you believe that a vote against anything claiming to be pro-woman or pro-equality is actually so. Voters in Tennessee are likely to be more savvy.