“While President Obama has played politics on this issue, the Republican Party and our presumptive nominee Mitt Romney have been clear. We support maintaining marriage between one man and one woman and would oppose any attempts to change that.” – Reince Priebus, RNC
Fox Nation headline, via Media Matters (It was changed within an hour.)
IT’S GOING TO BE A HOT TIME at George Clooney’s Hollywood fundraiser for Pres. Obama tonight.
May the gods bless V.P. Joe Biden, who laid down a solid roll out for Barack Obama by speaking out on “Meet the Press” that was followed by a statement from the President that made history.
Even Alex Castellanos on CNN, after Obama’s statement became breaking news, questioned the intelligence of Republicans being against love, which will leave the next generation out of reach. Yes, Alex Castellanos actually said that, though he also said Obama will lose “Reagan Democrats, the cultural blue-collar Reagan Democrats in states like Ohio and North Carolina and Pennsylvania — important swing states.” Evidently, Mr. Castellanos missed the jailbird vote in West Virginia from Tuesday, because the voters he cites are already long gone for Obama.
If you want to be cynical, the President’s statement on marriage equality will excite Obama’s Democratic base, if anything, which is really what he needs to do right now.
Obama’s statement of support for marriage equality also lands same sex couples in a position to put states rights on trial through their pocketbooks. Because if you’re gay or lesbian and in a committed partnership or want to be, there’s no reason to continue to live in a state that doesn’t respect your civil right to form a legal family, proving it doesn’t deserve your money. Jobs make it rough to bolt, but living openly and being legally protected in a loving family should become an economic issue for states, because that’s where the battles will now be fought.
A message from Pres. Obama is important, but it won’t change everything, because we all know Congress is worthless, with Pres. Obama making the decision his administration would no longer defend section 3 of DOMA over a year ago.
So, with all this to talk about, it makes perfect sense that an article from Politico, written by Glenn Thrush and Carrie Budoff Brown, surfaced casting “blame” on Biden. Because we all have to keep churning stuff out no matter how ridiculous and Politico couldn’t seem to think outside their insider bubble to cast a net toward Republicans and what it means for them. Instead, the high school version was assigned, with thesaurus at the ready, on how Biden “forced” Obama’s hand, “deeply annoyed Obama’s team,” followed by the weirdly written phrase “nor did it tickle anyone” that Joe had been caught on video being Joe. It was followed by “chafed,” to once again describe the Obama team’s reaction to V.P. Joe Biden’s remarks. All of this came after an initial piece from Politico reporting “Biden forced Obama’s hand”… blah, blah, blah.
Politico’s Thrush and Budoff Brown dumbed it all down to this: “But the damage control was anything but a joke.”
When does a statement of support delivered by the president of the United States to people who love one another, encouraging acceptance of them to be able to form a family with legal protections, including for children, require “damage control”?
Maggie Haberman reports what I believe is the strongest angle in the whole unwinding, which didn’t begin this week, whether we’re talking Biden or Arne Duncan, but was a cumulative evolution that was helped exponentially by the strong views of First Lady Michelle Obama, along with an assist from Valeria Jarrett. These two women have given Pres. Obama his best council, most of which surfaced in action well after Rahm Emanuel’s departure, in case anyone is keeping track.
Then there was Barack Obama’s two young daughters, Sasha and Malia, the next generation capable of teaching each of us where the future lies if we listen. Is it so hard to believe their dad did just that?
However, if any one thing was the trip wire for Obama speaking out now it was just as likely to have been the painful and obviously disastrous White House press briefing by Jay Carney. If that didn’t shock Pres. Obama into moving nothing would, because it unfolded in a manner that proved the subject was never going to be tamped down.
The most important story beyond Pres. Obama making history is where this leaves the Republican party and Mitt Romney.
In the dust of things undone from the 20th century and they’re evidently not going to budge. This is the story, because it’s a jolting moment for the GOP, as the Democratic party lays down yet another historic civil rights marker, this time for activists to follow in states across the country.
Mitt Romney’s comments were predictably small, because they’re moored in religious conservatism, well outside the fulcrum of civil rights.
Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, while challenging Obama on marriage equality, which has now been met by the President, easily wipes the floor with Romney on the issue, who’s becoming a less attractive presidential candidate every day.
“Well, when these issues were raised in my state of Massachusetts, I indicated my view, which is I do not favor marriage between people of the same gender, and I do not favor civil unions if they are identical to marriage other than by name,” Romney told KDVR. “My view is the domestic partnership benefits, hospital visitation rights, and the like are appropriate but that the others are not.” – Yahoo! News
We can no longer accept or tolerate religious interference in the business of progress, because as a nation we can no longer afford the price we pay in productivity.
It’s like the entire world is moving to a place in the 21st century that encourages the expansion of civil rights and human rights, while Republicans hold fast to the notion that “Leave it to Beaver” can be recreated off a Hollywood set in a century that will leave the U.S. behind if we don’t empower every American to their best self, their best life, which includes bringing more and more families, as well as forgotten children, together, uniting loved ones in honor, dignity and protected status so that no person feels excluded from the pursuit of happiness and the American dream.
Fox Nation screencapture via Media Matters.
right on! a big day in civil rts history. big.
It seems that Obama has finally realized that compromise, obfuscation and waffling to pacify the rabid right and for political gains has taken him nowhere and is in fact increasingly counter-productive (to his reelection chances). Over the past 6 months he has finally decided to stop being a lazy democrat and stand for something. His stance against the wingnuts in favor of wide birth control coverage was courageous so is this newly evolved position on gay rights. Great day.
I may be wrong but I don’t think this will hurt him too much. I am sure that someone in his campaign has figured out that apart from the crazies on the right (and unfortunately there are many), a significant part of the electorate does not give a damn who marries whom just like they didn’t care about the over the top rhetoric of Catholic Bishops echoed by the Scarboroughs and the Noonan’s. Karl Rove’s values war is increasingly a loser for the GOP, they really should focus on the economy, if the vulture capitalist can find a credible line of attack that is…
Hugely entertaining to see the heads of wingnuts and Obama haters explode again, this is definitely not a “present” vote.
“Hugely entertaining to see the heads of wingnuts and Obama haters explode again, this is definitely not a “present” vote.”
To quote John Travolta from some gawd(who ain’t even there) awful movie…”ain’t it cool!”
My guess is that deep down he was always in favor of marriage equality, he just did not think it was politically expedient to take a strong stand. I don’t know how TM knows that Michelle was a strong influence behind his “evolved” position, but if it is true more power to her…Go Michelle!
Taylor, you spent a lot of words and could have just made this one statement. It’s a good statement.
#religionpoisonseverything
http://bit.ly/BidenGayTimehttp://bit.ly/BidenGayTime
What a mixed blessing Joe Biden is to Team Obama. The man has some serious foreign policy chops, especially when it comes to the Graveyard of Empires. Biden’s small bore, laser-focused, strategy of taken out Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden is the only reason we may finally exit Afghanistan anytime soon. By turning OBL into shark chum, a kind of victory can be claimed, and a dignified departure made. But with all the gravitas off shore the VP can sometimes be rather “colorful” domestically. Biden can be quite the loose cannon.
I’m wondering how that loose cannon, and the friendly fire it provided, finally changed the environment around Barack Obama. The shell that Joe fired into Obama’s tent a few days ago was nice bit of Darwinian natural selection; forcing the final “evolution” of Barack on Same Sex Marriage.
Once again President Barack Obama has come tantalizingly close to being terrific. –Robert Scheer, Truthdig
Yep. That’s what he does. Barack likes the sound and cadence of his own voice when he says fierce urgency of now, but his balls shrivel up when it’s time to man up.
Well obviously reactions to Obama’s statements vary widely, from the grateful and jubilant to the completely freaked out (this will bring about the end of the world), to the cynical and skeptical… obviously you chose to highlight the skeptical and cynical views but they are only one perspective and in my view not the most valid one. I would have thought that even you could give him some credit for his comments yesterday…obviously not.
Reminds me of the saying “where there is trust no guarantees are necessary, where there is no trust no guarantees are possible.
When all is said and done the last comment by Bloomberg is cause for hope isn’t it? And Obama is on the right side of history on this one.
Obviously as Joyce Arnold said the real credit is to the grassroot who through really really hard work and focus finally got to the position where the Administration understood that there is more cost than gain to their political waffling. That’s pretty amazing, I didn’t see that coming and also well done VP Biden.
This is is reply to RR’s comment.
Isis, I do give him credit for saying what he said. I said that repeatedly yesterday. I am happy he said it, for now the whole country is having this conversation. It’s just a sad fact that Barack doesn’t ever get out front to pull the rest of us along. He waits for the trend to gel until it’s safe enough for him to get in. On this particular issue, he did not affirm that marriage is a constitutional right. He will, of course, do that eventually but only when others have shown him the way. It’s typical politician behavior. Typical Barack behavior.
I refuse to remove my contrarian’s hat and do the happy dance with you all.
Well I love to dance, so I try to keep a contrarian’s hat and do the happy dance.
Ha! That’s fair.
Here is my hope: very soon, a reporter asks the president if the right to marry is a constitutional right, and he gives a simple yes. Done.
That makes absolutely no sense to me. The only people who can make that decision are SCOTUS or Congress. He could answer the question, but it would only be his opinion. And you’ve already commented ad nauseam that his opinion isn’t worth a bucket of warm spit. So what would be the point?
William Safire’s “Nattering Nabobs of Negativity” phrase comes to mind whenever I read your comments.
Exactly Ogenec, Only The Supremes can actually decide on how this breaks.
http://bit.ly/BidenGayTime
The Supremes are going to provide the last word, for good or ill, for at least a generation. With only a smattering of states sanctioning Marriage Equality, and over half of them blocking it outright, it will be the nine who sort the mess out. You can not have a marriage that is created in Massachusetts being made null and void in when the couple moves to Texas; that way lies madness. The Constitution is fairly clear on the matter in Article IV Section 1, which is why the homophobes keep yammering about an amendment so they can keep the gay-bashing going.
Ogenec, I know that Barack can’t change it by himself, but an acknowledgment from a constitutional scholar-president that marriage is a constitutional right is in not too much to expect.
Exactly, SpinCity. Full faith and credit and all that. School Solo on that, please.
“[A]n acknowledgment from a constitutional scholar-president that marriage is a constitutional right is in not too much to expect.”
_____________
I hope I’m not splitting hairs, but I continue to disagree. He’s given his personal opinion, which is appropriate (and much appreciated by me). He shouldn’t wade into the constitutional question. Obama can’t “acknowledge” anything. Only SCOTUS can, or Congress can pass an amendment, ratified by the States. The Executive can’t do anything. And since he can’t do anything, he should keep quiet. ESPECIALLY because he’s a con law scholar. Incidentally, I felt the same way about his remarks on the SCOTUS ACA arguments.
I just have to quote you Taylor, because I love this part of what you wrote:
Well said. BRAVO!!!!
By the way, Taylor, the bigoted, hate-mongering, religious cretins who support banning gay marriage always boast that 30-something states have some sort of ban. The problem with these fundamentalist types is that they don’t practice birth control and therefore, propagate their ignorance and intolerance at an alarming rate. Not all religions are bad. Just the ones who hide behind Jesus and God to justify their barbaric treatment of anyone who isn’t just like them.
Does anyone have a list of states that have not enacted some type anti-gay marriage laws?
Google is your friend.
I see that you are above hatered, ignorance and bigotry. Which religions. as you say ” Just the ones who hide behind Jesus and God to justify their barbaric treatment of anyone who isn’t just like them.” ? “Who” is this religion(s).
Religion poisons everything.
“Not all religions are bad. Just the ones who hide behind Jesus and God to justify their barbaric treatment of anyone who isn’t just like them.”
If it involves “belief” in a superNATural being or any such nonsense…yes, yes they ARE bad.
And certainly should have no bearing whatsoever in the formulation of public policy.
Well, once into the breach dear friends.
This is not all religion, this is not even a majority of religious people. This is a small subset of religious authoritarians and sexphobes trying to make the rules for everyone else.
To do this the authoritarians have to pick and choose from their King James Bible, their Tora or other “Good Book” to tease out a coherent, anti-sex, message. Yet even with a religious text chock-a-block full of Patriarchal Misogyny, this is lot harder than one would expect.
Take the core message of Jesus (and then call me in the morning). You know what Jesus says about the dreaded Gay? Nada. Not a blessed thing. There is even speculation that Jesus may have been Gay himself.
http://bit.ly/JC_Was_Gay
Yes, that blew my mind too. But let me get in even more trouble here: it makes narrative sense. Jesus spends forty days in the desert and his wife does not bother to break that fast with even a bagel? Where is that woman? Nowhere it seems, more than few female followers, but not a ball and chain to be seen–anywhere. And look over there, a “beloved disciple”. On second thought let’s ignore that man hiding behind the curtain; not good for the fundi home team, not good at all.
As matter of fact, the whole gay-bashing structure for the fundis rests on the thinest of reeds. You have Leviticus, who not only was against the Gay, but also against shrimp scampi. And then you have one quote by Paul. Only it was not Paul, it was someone pretending to be Paul. The passage is known by scholars as pseudonymous writing; less erudite people would call it a forgery.
Besides how do you square the central message of loving the human race as you would yourself and hating the gay? Love the sinner, hate the sin? Not really, but thanks for playing. The message of love is more than a bit muddled–but the hate is coming in loud and clear.
The issue lies not so much with faith, nor even religion but with a subset of rigid patriarchal authoritarians, who infest the upper reaches of centralized, hierarchal established churches. The laity is all over the map; especially when the Roman Catholic Church is the institution you decide to zero in on.
Most of the laity of most religious organizations are decent people with good hearts. They are people who attend the church for a sense of community and don’t really think too hard about dogma being spewed out from the pulpit. That is why the largest order of Catholicism is not Dominican nor Franciscan but “Cafeteria”.
Once a gay person becomes a flesh and blood reality, instead of a theoretical other, most people of faith will want only the best for them. Once it is their brother, their sister, their niece, their nephew, their good friend who has found a lasting relationship base on love, that person of faith is going to only what to protect that love; and damn the torpedoes.
It is not the faith. It is not even the Religion. It is just a cohort of mean, stupid people with hearts the size of raisins (and just as shriveled) who support the senile hierarchy, or who are the senile hierarchy, that screw it up for every one else.
Good stuff, Spin, and being raised with and by the fundies, I have gone through that same explaining exercise many times myself. Nowadays, it is oh so much easier to say, “You know what? I’m an atheist, and we don’t live in a theocracy. Your book has no bearing on the argument. None at all.”
great points spin~
I have to concur with Rick on this one. He waits for the path of least risk. It makes him no better or worse than any other national politician, but of course he rode in on the narrative of “new politics.” We have ourselves a pair of very risk-averse presidential candidates.
Obama says those who oppose gay marriage are not ‘mean-spirited’
“President Obama said he recognized that those who oppose gay marriage, and even those who believe that the union should be between a man and a woman, are “not coming at it from a mean-spirited perspective,” indicating that friends of his, some of whom are pastors, share this view.
Obama further discussed his beliefs on same-sex marriage in an interview that aired on “Good Morning America” today.
Obama says he’d already decided to come out for gay marriage before Vice President Joe Biden publicly endorsed it, adding that he wasn’t worried about being upstaged by his vice president on the volatile social issue.”
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/obama_says_those_spirited_oppose_9TFSuNVaeNvRPRCboHcLoO#ixzz1uTIZGIVL
A contrarian might ask why Barack didn’t finish evolving a day before the North Carolina vote instead of a day after. He could have made a difference in that vote.
No, no he couldn’t. Sorry, but NC is right in the heart of JEEBUS lovin peekerwood central.
I actually thought his announcing this the day AFTER was brilliant. REALLY defines a difference between those who think the Constitution should apply to everyone and those who don’t.
Sec, you are right, and I should have worded my comment differently. Coming out earlier wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the vote, but it would have meant the world to gay people living in North Carolina.
What is said, can’t be unsaid in this case. Gays+1
Just curious sec, are you a peckerwood?
I only ask because I have some peckerwood blood so we may be related.
That just made me spit beer! What the hell is a peckerwood?
Just looked it up. Awesome!
why thank you Rick!
Hey, Sasha, have you read Larry Brown? He’s dead now, but he was an author in the best tradition of Mississippi authors. Pretty sure he had peckerwood blood in him. I recommend Big Bad Love and Old Frank and Jesus as a start.
Not peckerwood, TexASSian, left when I was two and haven’t been back since. have ZERO contact with the birth family still living there.
“Obama says those who oppose gay marriage are not ‘mean-spirited’”
Well he is dead wrong on that. Yes, yes they are mean spirited…and hatefilled and superstitionaddled as well. They are basically the forces of ignorance and darkness. For real.
IMHO Joe Biden is the one beating heart of this Administration.
FYI…I might be off one state because I keep hearing that there are 31 states that ban it, but I can only find 30, with 20 not banning and some actually allowing gay marriage by law. According to my source from Google, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York and Washington, DC actually allow gay marriage. Here are all the states that do not have bans on Gay marriage:
1. Connecticut
2. Delaware
3. Hawaii
4. Illinois
5. Indiana
6. Iowa
7. Maine
8. Maryland
9. Massachusetts
10. Minnesota
11. New Hampshire
12. New Jersey
13. New Mexico
14. New York
15. Pennsylvania
16. Rhode Island
17. Vermont
18. Washington
19. West Virginia
20. Wyoming
These states have bans:
1. Alabama
2. Alaska
3. Arizona
4. Arkansas
5. California (with the passage of Prop 8)
6. Colorado
7. Florida
8. Georgia
9. Kansas
10. Kentucky
11. Idaho
12. Louisiana
13. Michigan
14. Mississippi
15. Missouri
16. Montana
17. Nebraska
18. Nevada
19. North Carolina
20. North Dakota
21. Ohio
22. Oklahoma
23. Oregon
24. South Carolina
25. South Dakota
26. Tennessee
27. Texas
28. Utah
29. Virginia
30. Wisconsin
Ooops..reference to proposition 8 with a parentheses, resulted in the sun-glassed smiling icon. Not my intention……darned internets!!! LOL!
And here I thought you had some special insight on Prop 8
California stands out like neon on that list.
The Mormon Church was a player on Prop 8.
See the LA Times.
The Washington Post has an article up today reporting an incident of Romney bullying a “soft-spoken” gay teen in prep school. It begins & ends with the story of the boy he led the bullying against.
The individuals who talk about it seem haunted, according to the Post, though you may have a different take once you read it.
Romney’s still known as a prankster, according to biographers & news reports, but at least he grew out of his cruelness.
TM NOTE: Last link at the end has been added.
Well, this probably only strengthens Mitt and elevates him to hero status in the eyes of the Evangelical States of America. He may have outgrown his this cruelty but he has not outgrown his intolerance of gays, by his recent digging in on being anti-gay marriage.
Sorry, Mittens. At one point, I considered voting for you, but this, along with a laundry list of things you have said and done during your campaign have sealed the deal. My vote will be used against you and everything the party of “Retrograde back to 1919″ stand for.
Gays, not corporations, are people, my friend.
…into indifference. I imagine Romney has a secret cache of sceptres to polish when he needs some ‘Mitt’ time.
Yeah, that was an interesting read this morning, but I couldn’t make it all the way through. Toward lunch, Professor Turley posted his opinion about it. He is more concerned about Romney’s assertion that he doesn’t recall the incident. Worth a read.
Before I write anything, I am going to say right now that the “teenage hijinks” was deplorable, That being said – do we know that Mitt cut the kids hair because he was gay? They suspected he was gay, but couldn’t it just be a case of kids being jack-a$$es to someone who was weak, as opposed to someone who was gay?
And no, the Democrats will not push this story because I don’t think anyone wants the media bringing up stories of anything Obama or any other Democrat did as a teenager. (Remember – 23 or 24 Senate seats are being defended by Dems. The Republicans only need to gain 4 – 3 if Mittens wins the White House).
Now Taylor you know Prez Barrie is just being messy.
And transparent.
Mittens says in the words of former Mayor Marion Barry, “This bish set me up”!
Woo! Sasha, you are on fire! Laughing my ass off.
Oh that prankster…..gay bashing ,cruelty to animals and baptizing the dead Jews from the Holocaust …just a barrel of laughs that one!
@Sand, doesn’t it though.
damn shame.
As KInky Friedman once observed, “Homosexuals (sic) should have the same right to be as miserable as the rest of us.”
That said, the trendy media has certainly managed to stigmatize opposition to gay marriage, and, as a result, it underpolls consistently. If the issue really slightly tilts toward legalization nationally, you would expect clear victories in places like California and possibly just slight losses in places like North Carolina and Iowa. Instead we get landslides for opponents in the latter places. Also, the polls on social attitudes are polls of all adults over 18, and therefore substantially overpoll young voters and Democrats relative to the electoral effect of the issue……consider the profile of the swing states…… these are generally socially traditional but may swing economically “liberal” on issues (PA, MO, NC, VA, FL, MI, OH, CO, NV, IO). Gay marriage has been polling in the 30s in places like Ohio and Florida. It just doesn’t seem to me that it will help Obama in any state that he doesn’t already have sewn up.
CO, those who oppose marriage equality should be stigmatized. I am a full citizen. Acknowledge the rights that confers or stop taking my tax money. It’s that simple.
And I don’t care how it polls in the booth or to a pollster. Any time you ask a majority to vote on the rights of the minority, it is not going to turn out well. It would be mob rule. There are many ills we would still be stuck with if that were the last word in how we govern ourselves.
Casual,
All the votes in the said states prove is that you should never put up basic human rights to a vote by the unwashed masses. If were up to the hoi poli slavery would still exist, only males would be allowed to vote, and everyone would be forced to be an Anglican. Sorry, you do not get to vote on my rights C.O.; not now, not ever, never.
“That said, the trendy media has certainly managed to stigmatize opposition to gay marriage, and, as a result, it underpolls consistently.”
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Yeah…it’s the MEDIAS fault for making those homophobic assmonkeys feel like they are….homophobic assmonkeys!!!!!
Reads like he was a total creature of his environment. The good and the bad.
I am not part of the “trendy media”. That said, I will cry no tears for those who stigmatize gays if they are stigmatized in return for trying to deny committed same sex couples either the joy or misery of marriage (take your pick). I have been happily divorced for decades and never remarried. For the life of me, I don’t understand why gays want this privilege anyway, but if they want it, they can have. As far as I am concerned, it is none of my business anyway, and neither is it the business of those who wish to deny it. The marriage of a same gender couple does no damage to the marriages of opposite gender couples. Period. End of Story.
And if the argument is that it is against some god’s law, well not everybody believes in your god’s law. If you want to live by that law, fine and dandy, knock yourself out. But, you have no right impose the will of your god on everybody else through a secular government that is supposed to maintain separation of church and state. Period. End of Story.
Ha! I am happily single too. But I know people who thrive in marriage. Everyone is different.Everyone should be able to make their own human mistakes or not.
As a libertarian, I am sure I am in favor of much less religious and government “interference” in people’s lives than most of you who self-identify as liberals, so please launch your pent-up hostility off someone’s else’s post next time.
I am also grounded in reality and pragmatism too. If I had a dog in the fight as an LGBT, I would have accepted there were two centuries of existing social culture built up around the word “marriage”. Rather than succumb to my personal insecurity to “want to belong”, I would have been quite willing to let “civil union” be my word for recognizing my relationship with my partner instead of intentionally playing with the religious-cultural book of matches. I cannot prove the null hypothesis obviously, but my sense of American culture would have shown much more acceptance of the actual practice than it has in accepting the re-definition of the term.
Absolutely not. I don’t care how many centuries of social culture are built up around the word. Language and culture are fluid, and we live in a secular country. People can celebrate or not celebrate gay marriages in their churches. I don’t give a shit about that, but fundies have no business telling government it can’t issue a marriage license – a contract – to a gay couple.
Rick, you are right on about this. Like you, I don’t care what people do in their silly churches, but nobody in this country should be second class citizens.
Also, some people should read some history. Marriage had more to do with property and enslavement of women then it did with mumbo jumbo religious shit.
That’s true. The marriage laws came into being because men wanted women to become property or “chattel” i think was the word back then and also because they didn’t want plantation owners marrying their slaves. So even then they were into wanting to control who married who but hey, you can still marry your COUSIN. That one at least has been consistent.
Angels (and everyone), check out Jon Stewart from last night for a pretty good takedown of so-called traditional marriage.
Oh just fracking great, I’m aligning with RR on this one? But ya, what he said.
And that hobby horse about a “two centuries of existing social culture built up around the word “marriage”? Pure horse shit Casual. Modern marriage, ei marriage for love, dd not come into existence until the very late Victorian era. It was not established until the early 20th Century. The reformed version of the grand old institution of marriage has only existed since the late 1950′s / early 1960′s with relaxed divorce laws. Our great tradition of marriage barely stretches back three generation.
Real traditional marriage, the trade of woman as property, the arrangement of marriage for social, political and or economic advantage, that has a pedigree stretching back milleniums, all the way back to the start of the agricultural revolution of the neolithic age. But I doubt you’re going to support marriage as loveless business proposition, at least not for you.
Good post. You gave the history lesson that I was to lazy to type out. For all those sacred marriage folks out there… History is a bitch.
As my blurb says : “A reader of far too many history books than is good for normal functioning.” You would be better off waving a piece of red cloth in front of a enraged bull than bringing up a B.S. talking point about a “tradition” or a bogus appeal to history. I will come out snorting and breathing fire, I guarentee you that.
I accept it gives you guys a cerebral hemmorage and you can parse away at whether I describe history accurately or not…….so let’s make it into a simple question………would you rather take on 100 and some thousand people for the next 30 years of your life for the glory of a word or would you rather just move forward with less resistance right now?
It’s not a taunt, it’s not a challenge to your virtue, it’s simply an assessment of how you choose to handle obstacles.
Let’s just say it is a curiosity of mine which persons show goal-orientation and which people show process-orientation.
CO, it’s a choice we don’t have to make. We can have both. Besides, brother Mitt said he doesn’t even support civil unions if their only difference from marriage is the name. So we may as well go all in.
As an aside, I personally think Romney would duck social legislation as much as he could at the Federal level.
However, the real point is you answered the question posed. Best of luck.
Casual,
The ship of Civil Unions has sailed away. There is no middle ground. The Fundies have seen to that. So it is man the parapets and fight, fight, fight for the right of Marriage Equality.
I only partially jest here. Political reality is that this has become an all or nothing affair. The opponents of Gay Marriage have totally bared the door to any compromise on the matter. Thus, it is now a thirty year struggle (if needs be) with hundreds of thousands of Evangelicals who hate The Gay.
Besides, as the tactics of Obama have proven time and time again, starting out at a compromise position only gets an even more compromised result. Aiming for Civil Unions as your end point only gets one all of the backlash with none of the advantage of full marriage equality.
Finally, I am not going to allow a bunch of religious bigots and hypocrites decide who I can or can not love, or who I can or can not marry. It is my life, it is my partner, it is my decision–back the f**k off Bible Beater.
Hey, yo! I resemble that remark!
Wonder how you would feel if only libertarians were not allowed to marry? I could make a case that they are way too immature to take on the responsibility.
“I am also grounded in reality and pragmatism too. ”
Oh sweet JEEBUS CRISPIES hangin onna popcicle stick with lins through hands and FEET STOP!!! YOU ARE KILLING ME HERE>>>STOP!!!
I have an update on Barrie’s gay stance.
So I just left the hair salon which is the heartbeat of the female and gay communities. Just regular folks, not political junkies like us.
The general consensus of a group of men and women in the liberal capital of the world where I live is:
Great position Prez Barrie took on gay marriage, but I am really concerned about the economy and 2 wars and how are we going to take care of the returning injured vets and jobs and so on and so forth. They recognize it as election year talk and understand that real issues and solutions are being ignored.
They all voted for Obama in 2008 though…
Who the hell is Barrie? Aren’t we being a little juvenile? Can’t you make a point without acting like some five tear old?
It’s my pet name for him.
Always has been.
The ie spelling is for fun and yes I am being childish.
sigh, if it makes you happy I will spell it Barry on my grown up days angel.
Sometimes I am respectful and say Prez Barrie…
WOW! Nice dose of Anecdotal male bovine fecal matter!! Thanks!
Hahahahahahahahahaha!!! You crack me up secular.
Sec is just jealous.
I didn’t know you had a weakness for champagne and caviar lovers.
I always took you for a beer guzzling, fast women chasing, and pick-up driving cracker.
*whispers* since you say you don’t have any peckerwood in you.
hush angel.
Just goes to show you are as equally incorrect in ALL the dumb things you say or assume! Nice to know you can be counted on.
Same as before Ms Taylor…I’ll wait until “after” the “election”(if he wins)…after, he’s thoroughly challenged by the courts, by Congress…by the Law of the Land, and any other serious oppsition that “will” present themselves.
My personal opinion………?
He “W I L L” have to reckon with these realities…AGAIN!!!!
I am also very greatful about what President Obama said. I didn’t go to my best friends wedding because I was too upset (sad not angry) that I couldn’t get married also because I was gay. I think the economy is going to be a big factor in the election. I still think its going to be close. I think the battleground states and just that, the battleground states, there up for grabs. They will swing back and forth I am sure. I was not going to vote for Romney, that was out of the question for me, but now its between President Obama and maybe Gary Johnson or another Independent. I really wish the Republicans were not as backward as they are, I hate saying that about people, but its true. I don’t want a one party system also. Look what each party does when they get a majority, the Dems with Supak Amendment and the forced healthcare bill, and the Republicans, its too long of a list to start.