Politico reports this morning on the internal shift within the Republican Party on the gay marriage opposition issue, which has been taking place quietly for the past few years. The change has mirrored polling numbers, which show that public opinion has moved sharply in favor of gay marriage since 2008. But it’s still noteworthy that the Republican leadership in Congress isn’t just being passive on this. It has even worked to kill amendments that oppose gay marriage:
Even more than that, Republican leadership has evolved, too. It has quietly worked behind the scenes to kill amendments that reaffirm opposition to same-sex unions, several sources told Politico.
It’s not like the GOP has become a bastion of progressiveness on gay rights, but there has been an evolution in the political approach — and an acknowledgment of a cultural shift in the country. Same-sex relationships are more prominent and accepted. There are more gay public figures — including politicians — and it’s likely that many Washington Republicans have gay friends and coworkers. Just as important — there’s also a libertarian streak of acceptance on people’s sexuality coursing through the House Republican Conference.
Part of this is about the current political atmosphere. Republicans want to keep the message focused on jobs, the deficit and the economy – issues that will actually get voters mobilized. Bringing up gay marriage at this point would have no benefit for the GOP.
But there’s also the sense that the long-term trend is moving toward acceptance of gay marriage, even within the conservative movement. And Republicans just don’t have the appetite to fight a battle that will be lost, if not next year, then five or 10 years down the line:
Then there are those Republicans who have been fighting for gay rights for decades — people like Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Ros-Lehtinen, who has a transgender son named Rodrigo, was the first Republican to co-sponsor the repeal of DOMA.
“Also,” she wrote in an email to Politico, “the younger generation is not as fixated on many social issues, as important as they are to other folks. Marriage equality is an issue that is evolving in people’s minds and hearts. As with many controversial issues, the passage of time makes us more comfortable with change.”
If you want to get a sense of where the traditional marriage movement is heading, the recent controversy over the National Organization for Marriage’s leaked action plan – which called for driving a wedge between gay and black people after Proposition 8 – is a good place to start. As correct as NOM may have been from a tactical standpoint (the black community’s support for Prop. 8 helped kill gay marriage in California), the ick-factor here is incredibly high. Just look at the language: NOM said it was seeking to “drive a wedge between gays and blacks”; “provoke” gay marriage supporters into “denouncing these [African American] spokesmen and women as bigots”; and “fanning the hostility raised in the wake of Prop. 8.” This isn’t the language or the vision of a noble cause, and it certainly doesn’t sound like one that supporters can feel good about belonging to.
I am a rather secular man who rarely attends church services—but I still consider so-called gay marriage as something to oppose. It is a perversion. We can be tolerant to those engaging is such behavior—but marriage is about procreation and carrying out the huge responsibilities of raising children.
Hit the wrong button – meant to give you a thumbs UP! So whatever score you have, add 1 Positive to it. n nI am strong in my Christian Faith, but it is my study of Covenant, which pertains heavily to Blood Covenant and Marriage Covenant which has taught me much about the essential elements of a settlement of human beings that is beneficial to be a part of. And I find I agree heartily with our Founding Fathers who believed that our Form of government, the Republic, could not be sustained with Freedom for All, except by a moral and virtuous people, that this government is entirely inadequate for a people who have let virtue slide downhill. n nAnd we have seen what happens in degenerate conglomerations of peoples before. Degenerate and civilized simply cannot co-exist. And cannot raise healthy children capable of growing to mature adulthood able to support social structures that allow children to survive and thrive.
1) Long term homosexual pair-bonding has now been documented in something approaching 1,700 mammalian species. So your "perversion" statement is factually incorrect. Heterosexuality is not "normal" merely more common. Common does not = correct. 2) Plenty of heterosexuals elect to get marry and yet to not have children. Are you suggesting they be denied the right to marry as well? 3) There are plenty of gays and lesbians who have happily and quite successfully taken on the huge responsibilities of raising children, alone or with long-term same-sex partners. And there are countless cases of heterosexuals who have failed miserably in that regard. As for "tolerating those engaging is (sic) such behavior", how dare you reduce loving, exclusive, mutually supportive partnerships that frequently endure decades beyond common heterosexual marriages (without, I might add, the benefit of state sanctions and favorable legislation) to a "behavior" and what credibility do you possess to attempt to do so? I pity you for employing merely your own blind prejudices and your anachronistic, willful ignorance of reality as your guides to the issue.
OK so we should autolmatically end hetero marriages of people who cant have any more children. By age, design etc. n nBTw every responsible stuydy has shown that gay parents do as well as str8 parents, and what do we do about the close to 50% of single parents in some parts of the country. n nI'm not saying yoour a bad person, but you have to evolve on this issue. Bet if you knew a couple gay couples well, that change would quickly occur.
This isn't even about gay marriage — there is absolutely nothing that a gay couple can't do today under contract law. Yes, complex legal documents are involved, but there is nothing preventing a gay-friendly lawyer from drafting them (or a gay organization from hiring someone to do this) and posting them on the web. Gays & lesbians manage to register automobiles and buy houses, these are the same type of contractual documents and they could be downloaded from the web for the price of printer paper. n nThis is about something else — criminalizing homophobia. The ability to punish people for not having an approved gay-friendly view. This will enable them to take your children away from you, to have the police lock you up, and generally deny your right to quote Leviticus. n nBluntly, anyone who has any objection to homosexuality will be defined as mentally ill and forced to undergo "treatment" for that illness. To be subjected to hypnosis or CBT (which is essentially identical to what the North Koreans did to our POWs) to readjust your mind to have the "healthy" view toward such matters. n nTraining programs for social workers, school counselors and psychologists already require students to affirm their gay-friendly views, kicking out those who don't (that is what those two lawsuits are about, the two girls who had religious objections to homosexuality). These are the people being issued the mental health licenses, the people who have the power to take your children away from you, the power to have the police arrest you and drag you off to a locked psych ward — with you having no right of appeal. This is scary. n nThe DSM-V — the new definition of who is mentally ill — is said to be so expansive that it is said to cover everyone. I honestly would not be surprised to see "homophobia" explicitly defined as a mental illness in the next revision, but we already have people with the ability to define you as "crazy" on the basis of their opinion alone — without appeal — and all of these people are required to be pro-gay. n nThis isn't about gay marriage. No folks, it is about criminalizing anti-gay thought….
I am living in Canada, because I cannot sponsor my legal spouse for immigration. If you were to marry in Canada, with the same marriage license I have, you could. Can you explain to me what legal contract I can complete to end my exile? Can you explain to me why your "right" to punish me for being different than you, even though I have committed no crime, and have not had the benefit of due process, supersedes my right to live with my family in the country I was born in? Can you explain to me how allowing me to live in the country where I am a citizen and still expected to file taxes would "criminalize anti-gay thought?" How could a thought ever be criminalized in the first place? Are we going to wiretap your brain? You can't seriously be worried about your thoughts being punished, you are worried that you might not be able to turn gay people out of their homes or destroy their careers with impunity anymore. You never had the right to work deep scarring hardships on gay people in the first place.
What is icky about adopting effective tactics to defeat what is an abomination in the drift away from traditional marriage in America?
traditional marriage is n nThe wife is the property of her husband, usually forced into a marriage to a man she has never met to support buisness ties n nBlacks marrying was forbidden under traditional marrage n nInter-racail marriage was forbiddne in as many as 41 one states in the past – part of traditional marriage justified as "protecing the sanctity of the white race' n nEnough on this traditional biz.
It don't appear that I am rightly a Republican, anymore – since "Republican" is now long term for Marxist's toady's brown noses. n nYou cannot have civilization and utter debauchery at the same time on the same ground. And capitulation to total debauchery is not an alternative to Civil War. n nSir Winston Churchill: Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
Yup. If Gay Marriage is so popular, why won't the President endorse it? n
It will happen – not sure just when. Politics sux
I've wondered if some GBLTQs want to marry because they'd rather be straight. After all, marriage is the ultimate heterosexual institution. Arguably, to want to marry is to want to be straight. (Is there any research on this subject?) n nCould it be that to "support" gay marriage is to support what appears to be a non-threatening variation of traditional marriage between a man and a woman who want to conceive, bear, and nurture children. If this is true for some people and organizations, who glory in the approbation of other like-minded people and organizations, isn't this a compelling example of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called "cheap grace"?
Know ing a lot of gay people and their fiiends, I'm up to 23 people who are gay, and were in a hetero marriage. All these marriages failed, anywhere between 2 and 20 years. In most cases the ex's are still best friends. n nWhy did this happen – best answer I've gotten – "I was the 3rd of 5 boys – it was my turn – societal pressure n nAnother answer – I still love her – its just the sex was wrong. BTW this guy still works as a manger for the family buisness of his ex wife. Alongside her. n n
George Bernard once wrote, "The American white relegates the black to the rank of shoeshine boy; and he concludes from this that the black is good for nothing but shining shoes." So gay people's relationships are refused recognition in the law, and from that you conclude that legal recognition of relationships is inherently straight. I am so fed up with the circular arguments advanced by people who oppose equality under the law for gay folks, when you boil off the ridiculous stereotypes and assumptions (which are demonstrably false) all you're left with are people arguing from their own conclusions. If all you can say is that gay people oughtn't get married because you say so, then maybe it's time we stopped listening to you.
Think about it, every homosexual pairing has one "wife" and one "husband" – even when they ban the use of those terms – whether male or female "pair", one acts female and one acts male. So if they were truly homosexual, wouldn't both members of the "pair" be performing as the same sex gender? But even if there are 2 gowns or 2 tuxedos, we all know one always pretends to be "the other sex". n nThere-in lies the heart of the LIE! Besides, it was all Joseph Stalin's idea – and yet we all know what Stalin did with homosexuals caught under his reign. So we all know he is only using them as a "tool", and the last thing on earth HE had in mind was their well-being. n nFunny how Stalin who promoted it agreed heartily with Jews, Christians, and muslims, and all other Communist Dictators on the subject. n nYet American homosexuals love being used by Dim Marxists to destroy the homosexuals HONEST AND TRUE LEGITIMATE Civil Rights, by destroying the Constitution by using Homosexual issues to destroy DUE CONSTITUTIONAL processes. n nBut who loves a wrecking ball? Guess what those same Marxist Dictators will do with that wrecking ball when the Constitution is destroyed and there is nothing left for the wrecking ball to be used on but the new Dictator's regime? That wrecking ball will get melted down! n nCDC shows that wrecking ball is too expensive to maintain, anyway.
What entitles you to speak for gay people? Just because you are so self-centred that you project your sexual practices on strangers does not mean that it is so. Why are you so obsessed with the mechanics of gay sex in the first place? No one reduces a straight person's marriage to an act of vaginal penetration, and how do gay people "play the part" of the opposite sex anyway? Do straight women typically take it up the butt? Do lesbians grow a penis in order to ape a man? I'm thinking the only reason you spend so much time fantasizing (since you apparently aren't even casually acquainted with the reality of it) about the particulars of gay sex is because you have an all-consuming desire to do it. If so, please, do the world a favour, stop talking about it, and do it already. You're not proving anything by protesting so much.
The left can spam the voting on such sites as this all they want. And you can even make a few people in some segments of city life think there are more of you and that you have more political support than is factual. So then, if you get the war you are begging for, who is supposed to protect you from the Majority who are by then fed up with insurrectionists who have been stealing our CIVIL society and the safety of out Posterity from us? Once YOU help other Dim thugs get this civil war on the road and get these Conservative couch potatoes moving in self defense? n nWhen you get folks who by nature slow to anger finally moving, it is very hard to get them stopped again. And you won't like it when they get to cleaning house.
I think that if the Republicans cave in on gay marriage it will mean a serious step towards the collapse of civilization. The ancient civilizations collapsed when society lost sight of the importance of traditional marriage and family. So far about 17 civilizations have come and gone and usually the reason that they collapsed is the decline of morality. If people don't produce children there will be no young men for defense and to support the elderly. n nThere is a temptation to go with the popular view and disregard these matters. The sooner the Republicans cave in the sooner the US and the rest of the civilised world will collapse. n nGreg Byne
I agree with Ms. Goodman's thoughts on the "ick-factor" on the level that she is looking at them. What she is expressing, at its most basic, is the traditional (small "l") liberal view that an individual's basic humanity is more important than any political cause. Or as an 80-year-old PolSci professor once said "the liberal isn't willing to kill someone for a good cause." n nBut I suggest we need to look two levels deeper than her initial reflection on this. First, if we have moral objections to the "ick factor", how can we support Mitt Romney? These are the tactics that Romney and his supporters used to win the primaries — Romney never really had a Reagan-like message, he never was a beacon outshining everyone else. Instead, TeamMitt just engaged in what Ms. Goodman accurately describes as "ick factor" tactics. Michele Bachmann is brilliant — I have met her — and starting with her, they went about this like a corporate takeover. nIf these tactics are wrong, as Ms. Goodman suggests, then we need to reject Romney for having engaged in them. n nConversely, if we adopt the "politics ain't beanbag" philosophy, if such tactics are acceptable, then we *should* use them here. As SCOTUS ruled in the _RAV_ (crossburning) case, "St. Paul has no such authority to license one side of a debate to fight freestyle, while requiring the other to follow Marquess of Queensberry rules." The pro-gay folks are destroying people's lives, livelyhoods and futures. They are ruthless and brutal — why should we not respond in kind? n nBut let's go one level deeper. What exactly is wrong with making the gay marriage supporters into showing their true colors? What exactly is wrong with putting them into the position where they are forced to denounce African-Americans as bigots? All we are doing is forcing the gay activists to show everyone who they really are and the levels they will stoop to. n nWhat exactly is wrong with showing the African-American community that we, and not the left, share their religious values, which they consider to be quite important. If you have ever been in a Black home, and I have been in many, you will instantly realize just how serious many Black women are about their religion — they don't go half way on this. Every wall has at least one religious item prominently displayed, you simply can't look in any direction without seeing something of a religious nature. They are very much into Leviticus and the rest, they very much advocate strict moral standards in part because of what they see going on around them (drugs, gangs, teenage pregnancy, violence) and because they are terrified that their children will fall into that trap. I can't remember the number of mothers who told me they feared their sons would get killed in "some stupid gang thing." n nBluntly, many of them are into marriage because the guy who got them pregnant is long gone — and they see marriage as being "the guy who gets you pregnant has to stick around and help you raise the kid." This is what marriage was all about, btw, and they see it on that basic level. n nWe aren't calling anyone bigots — all we are doing is forcing the gay activists to do to others that which they already are doing to us. They choose to do this — it is their choice, they have free will and the ability to not do something if they don't want to. When a 110 lb woman uses a variety of martial arts skills to toss the 200 lb potential rapist to the ground, she doesn't use her own strength to do so. Instead, she just redirects his, pushing him off balance or such. And if he hadn't been trying to attack her, he wouldn't have fallen and gotten hurt. Whose fault is it — HIS — he made the choice to try to rape this woman and we all will agree that he got what he deserved. n nIt is not her fault that he is hurt — it is HIS. n nAnd so too with the gay activists. What exactly is wrong with putting them into the position of attacking other aspects of the Dem Coalition — not just African Americans, but also Hispanic immigrants, Catholics and the trade (as opposed to public sector) union folk. n nThis is what is being done to the GOP — and why are we still following Marquess of Queensberry rules when the other side isn't????
You know what's bigoted? Assuming that a black person is such a different entity than a white person that he is incapable of being a bigot. You know what's even more bigoted? A bunch of privileged white people, like Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown, cynically trying to appropriate and exploit and the history of black oppression to shield their callous and self-serving agenda from legitimate criticism. The irony is that the people who actually fought the good fight in the 60's for the inclusion of black people in law and society, are the ones most likely to say that gay rights issues are civil rights issues. This is historically true; the march on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech was organized by a gay man, the same man who taught King the principles of nonviolent resistance that he had learned from Ghandi in the fight against British colonialism. Take a look at John Lewis, Coretta Scott King, Nelson Mandela, and Bishop Desmond Tutu for a few examples of black leaders who fought apartheid and segregation and came out to denounce religiously-justified homophobia just as loudly. Their testimony is powerful not because of the colour of their skin, but because of the great works they accomplished on behalf of human rights and social justice.
I defend my dissertation in two days and hence don't have the time to go through all the logical fallacies here but let me just ask one question — does the fact that someone is right on one thing inherently make him/her/it right on all things? n nThe middle will cease to hold, and when both sides adopt the tactics of the gay mafia, it will be the gays and lesbians who pay the price.