republican candidates on gay marriage
Mitt Romney has a new campaign ad in Iowa proclaiming he hates gays I mean gay marriage more than the other major Republican candidates. Romney says, "Not all Republican candidates agree, but defending marriage is the right thing to do." Funny, I haven't heard any of the other Republicans, or even the Democrats for that matter, say that they don't like the institution of marriage. In fact, Giuliani likes it so much he's tried it three times. A classic straw man. Maybe Romney can run an ad saying "not all Republican candidates agree, but loving America is the right thing to do."
Romney also says in his spot, "As Republicans we must oppose discrimination and defend traditional marriage: one man, one woman." Old Mitt has been accused of flip-flopping, but this is more of a bait and switch. Who the hell is discriminating against traditional marriage, i.e. between one man and one woman? Answer: nobody. How would the fact that two men, or two women, might be permitted to marry possibly hurt anybody else's marriage? Answer: unless your spouse leaves you to marry somebody of the same sex, it wouldn't hurt your marriage one damn bit.
Romney, who supported gay marriage before he opposed it, is pandering to the still-significant anti-gay element within the predominantly Republican Christian right. Maybe Romney just hopes that by being sufficiently hateful, those same Christians will forget their traditional suspicion of Mormons enough to vote for him.
Meanwhile, Senator Sam Godboy Brownback from the evolutionarily confused state of Kansas has also been bashing gay marriage. In the Republican debate on September 5, he said "In countries that have redefined marriage, where they've said, 'Okay, it's not just a man and a woman, it can be two men, two women,' the marriage rates in those countries have plummeted to where you have counties now in northern Europe where 80 percent of the firstborn children are born out of wedlock. . . . And currently in this country -- currently -- we're at 36 percent of our children born out of wedlock."
Now usually the mainstream media just lets assertions like that go. But the Washington Post checked the claim, looking at divorce and birth-out-of-wedlock data in US states and European countries that permit gay marriage. The Post concluded, "We are prepared to be persuaded otherwise if more experts weigh in, but for the moment we can see no factual basis for Brownback's assertion of a connection between same-sex marriage and out-of-wedlock births."
In other words, he's just making it up, like Romney and others who fancy that somehow letting Will and Joe get married will damage the love Jason and Heather feel for each other in their marriage.
Romney also says in his spot, "As Republicans we must oppose discrimination and defend traditional marriage: one man, one woman." Old Mitt has been accused of flip-flopping, but this is more of a bait and switch. Who the hell is discriminating against traditional marriage, i.e. between one man and one woman? Answer: nobody. How would the fact that two men, or two women, might be permitted to marry possibly hurt anybody else's marriage? Answer: unless your spouse leaves you to marry somebody of the same sex, it wouldn't hurt your marriage one damn bit.
Romney, who supported gay marriage before he opposed it, is pandering to the still-significant anti-gay element within the predominantly Republican Christian right. Maybe Romney just hopes that by being sufficiently hateful, those same Christians will forget their traditional suspicion of Mormons enough to vote for him.
Meanwhile, Senator Sam Godboy Brownback from the evolutionarily confused state of Kansas has also been bashing gay marriage. In the Republican debate on September 5, he said "In countries that have redefined marriage, where they've said, 'Okay, it's not just a man and a woman, it can be two men, two women,' the marriage rates in those countries have plummeted to where you have counties now in northern Europe where 80 percent of the firstborn children are born out of wedlock. . . . And currently in this country -- currently -- we're at 36 percent of our children born out of wedlock."
Now usually the mainstream media just lets assertions like that go. But the Washington Post checked the claim, looking at divorce and birth-out-of-wedlock data in US states and European countries that permit gay marriage. The Post concluded, "We are prepared to be persuaded otherwise if more experts weigh in, but for the moment we can see no factual basis for Brownback's assertion of a connection between same-sex marriage and out-of-wedlock births."
In other words, he's just making it up, like Romney and others who fancy that somehow letting Will and Joe get married will damage the love Jason and Heather feel for each other in their marriage.
Labels: politics
posted by Don Q Blogger at 5:34 AM
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