With Feeling

I have often heard, through the grapevine of from various people, that the pursuit of happiness is one of our rights in the United States of America. Yet as I read material for another class I am taking concerning issues of sexuality and gender, I am left wondering who defines this happiness and the pursuit of it?
Politicians? Surely, in the heat of today's political climate, they have the people's welfare in mind as they continue to make laws allowing access or restricting certain aspects of American life. They are older and presumably well educated and informed. In his "Nicomachean Ethics," Aristotle claims that "each man judges correctly those matters with which he is acquainted; it is of these that he is a competent critic. To criticize a particular subject, therefore, a man must have been trained in that subject [...]" (9). Keeping this in mind, certain politicians fall a little short of his claim. Take for instance Michelle Bachman, a presidential candidate whose anti-gay rhetoric is tethered closely to her husband's government-funded gay reparative clinic. She constantly address her stance on homosexuality, staunchly opposed to same-sex marriage and quite certain that homosexuality is curable. Her husband is her source and his clinic is her proof. Never mind the fact that homosexuality has been declassified as a disease or disorder for decades now, thus raising questions about the idea of a cure. How can something that is not an illness be cured? Still, she claims to know exactly what she is talking about.
It is probable that Michelle Bachman is guilty of something else Aristotle addresses in his "Nicomachean Ethics." When he points out why he feels youth are not equipped enough to handle the world of politics, he says "they are led by their feelings; so that they will study the subject to no purpose or advantage, since at the end of this science is not knowledge but action" (9). Bachman, as well as a slew of other politicians in our modern political atmosphere, are seemingly acting off of feelings (albeit strong feelings rooted in powerful christian doctrine) about homosexuality simply to surge towards their desired endgame: the definition of marriage remaining between one man and one woman. Yet, Aristotle's work raises a question. Aside from those few politicians that have been busted for soliciting sex in public restrooms or seducing younger men, what do these people really know about homosexuality and the actual struggle for same-sex marriage? They know what propaganda and fear tactics reveal, quite possibly because of the active roles some of these politicians take in spreading the 'word'. They use age-old techniques like 'protecting the children' and 'stopping the spread of disease' as a base to instill fear in the every-day heterosexual's head. Yet, these tactics appear to come from an emotional response as opposed to an educated one. It all seems to be for one purpose and that in-itself is something Aristotle claims to be negative. These politicians aren't rallying against homosexuality for the sheer knowledge of it, they are doing so to take action against it. Since they know little-to-nothing about it, how can they truly be considered objective as they continue to attack it.
With feeling.