I thought I had seen it all from the moralizing, anti-gay, bible beating mouthpieces, but I think this may take the cake. As commenter Justabill noted in a thread at Americablog, we’ve had these Republican Sexual Hypocrite reveals in the last month and a half:
* Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), cruising for potty sex, somehow “mistakenly” pleads guilty.
* Diaper David Vitter (R-LA) admits he’s a “bad”, “naughty” and “nasty boy” with hookers.
* former White house spiritual advisor and fallen megachurch pastor Tweaker Ted “I’m completely heterosexual” Haggard asking whatever fans he has left for money.
* former NC Republican lawmaker and Christian Action League president, Coy C. Privette — caught at the no-tell motel with a sex worker — also guilty.
* Mark Foley is back in the news, he won’t turn over his former congressional computer to investigators.
* Rep. Bob Allen, another Republican, caught asking to blow an undercover officer and willing to pay $20 for the pleasure; currently coming up with an excuse for the day (scary black men, thunderstorms) for his same-sex appetite.
With the hypocrite closet bursting open, and its occupants falling out on top of one another, there’s not a lot the Moral Values SetTM can do except wring their hands and fret about the state of things, right? They rallied the faithful in the evangelical pews and placed their faith in — and cast their votes for — publicly pious, “family values” politicians and community leaders who now are destroying the right-wing campaign to retake the secular culture back from the godless heathens, wanton women who dare to want to control their womb and sexuality, and the homosexuals.
As Nadine Smith of Equality Florida said in this article in the Florida Times-Union, Does private behavior matter?:
“It seems like the people who are the most vocal, the most condemning, the most judgmental, seem to be people struggling deeply with their own personal conflicts, and that’s where the scandals come from whether it’s the church or politics. It’s fairly routine. Find someone banging the drum of hysteria around an issue, and you’ll find someone, generally speaking, who is wrestling themselves internally.”However, you would be wrong if you thought the fringe right couldn’t come up with a “better” rationalization for all the moral falls from grace, as it were.
Should private behavior matter in public leaders? Some political observers say yes, arguing that morality is the only way to ensure a politician’s voting record stays consistent with his or her personal values. But others say the recent revelations only prove hypocrisy, and some politicians say public expectations can be unreasonable.Note to readers: bookmark this post; you will want to refer to the following mind-blowing quotes from this article time to time.
The fun begins after the jump.
First up, Jim Smith, editor of the Jacksonville-based Florida Baptist Witness:
“If someone’s walk doesn’t match their talk, of course it’s relevant. But a politician’s conduct “also has to be evaluated in light of other considerations, and we aren’t electing saints here,” Smith said. “All of us are fallen and subject to sin. We’re not looking for perfection. But we do want integrity.”They accuse the left of moral relativism and hair-splitting? On to Father Tony Palazzolo, priest and pastoral consultant at the Diocese of St. Augustine:
“Is it a one-time indiscretion, or a pattern? Was there an apology? Repentance? It seems to me your religious values determine how you make a decision about right or wrong and good and bad, and if you’re willing to compromise those values in your private life, it seems the same thing would hold true for a person’s public life.”How about this, from John Stemberger, of the Florida Family Policy Council Inc. (he’s working to pass a same-sex marriage ban amendment in the Sunshine State). The article notes that he suggests a “sliding scale” when evaluating a politician’s fall from grace.
“If I’m going to hire a plumber, their primary job is to do it right, and I’m not too concerned with their character and moral life. When does it become relevant? To be a lawmaker and then a lawbreaker means there has been a violation of trust. Character does matter.”Oh, so it only matters if you’re caught breaking the law. What this is really about is going back to the good old days where “forbidden immoral acts” occurred on the DL on Saturday night, and you turned up in church in your Sunday best the next day — and no one knows you broke your marital vows by blowing that guy in that highway rest stop, potentially exposing your spouse to STDs. That’s correct “Christian” behavior.
My personal favorite comes from Ralph Reed, the former executive director of the Christian Coalition, associate of Jack Abramoff, and frequent talking head when the MSM wants a rep from the far right:
Let’s be clear what voters of faith are saying. They’re not saying that every single politician who professes a conservative viewpoint should live up to that standard. It’s really the opposite. None of us are perfect, and we all fall short of God’s grace. A lot of times that gets lost when someone’s failing becomes politicized.”Yes, working to elect people to deny tax-paying, law-abiding LGBT citizens civil rights while those self-loathing pols cruise for gay sex makes perfect sense.
One frustrated Florida pol wants more reasonable standards for hypocrites. Republican State Senator Jim King of Jacksonville has been fighting off rumors that he was frequenting t*tty bars.
“I live a pretty good Christian life, but in the eyes of some people I’m being disrespectful because sometimes I like to drink wine with dinner. That’s frustrating. Elected officials are expected to live a totally different life than their neighbors.”Stay out of our wombs and bedrooms and then we’ll stop talking about the moral hypocrites when the stories hits the front pages.
159 Responses to “Desperate defense of the ‘values’ crowd: hypocrisy doesn’t matter”
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ah, but Pam. The bedrooms and wombs aren’t ours. They belong to the great sky fairy, and therefore any attempt to control them is acceptable, because it is doing the work of their imaginary buddy.
These are not reasonable, rational people we’re dealing with.
It’s worth noting that there’s no evidence Craig actually committed gay sex; it could just be an overzealous officer or a Democrat frame-up. More information needs to come up.
Even if he’s guilty: Somebody who murders once is obviously reprehensible. However, somebody who murders on a regular basis and advocates the legalization of murder is obviously much worse.
If you agree with that, then just replace ‘murder’ with ‘unnatural sex’ and it’s the same thing.
wow, observer, you are insane aren’t you.
Did I mention we’re not dealing with reasonable, rational people?
What constitutes “unnatural sex?” Sex with a robot?
love = murder?
There’s been plenty of evidence that this is something Craig does regularly. This is just the first time he’s been caught at it. by an officer of the law, rather than a newspaper reporter.
Wow, where to start…
We can go on about hypocrisy or about control issues or about self hating homosexuals, but I’m sure that will all be covered by other posts.
The gay issue in the case of Craig will be played up, but I find it to be a secondary issue. What I find interesting is the concept that an otherwise normal, loving, heterosexual, happily married man would just decide to have an “indiscretion” with another man in a public restroom or go visit some hookers in the absence of any duress or intoxication.
While I am obviously attracted to women other than my wife, I don’t act on this attraction because I respect and love my wife. Temptation happens. Fooling around with hookers or in a men’s restroom is a choice.
It makes me wonder what type of marriages these people have, and perhaps more importantly, why they stay in them?
I heard Tucker Carlson on the Today show this a.m., disclaiming about how Craig’s story is just about hypocrisy, and why is the media making such a big deal out of something that’s personal, etc. (Ah-haa, see if you can blame it all on the media!)
It’s not just hypocrisy. It’s that and much, much more. U.S. senators and representatives take an oath to
Consistent with this solemn oath, the Senators and Representatives are supposed to uphold civil rights to all citizens (as required by the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses). Not just represent their constituents, who may very well be a big, ole mob of hateful bigots.
The federal anti-gay legislation promoted by Craig and his ilk runs directly counter to their sworn duty to support and defend the Constitution. Supporting legislation which denies civil rights to a select few, like the ability to marry the person you choose, let alone the criminalization of “gay” sex, was Craig’s failure to abide by his oath. The fact that he is apparently also a self-hating gay person merely adds the taint of hypocrisy to his unconstitutional activities.
He’s a hypocrite, with benefits.
Political value.
Remember, Craig married his wife shortly after stories about a Congressman having sex with a page came out, stories which Craig publicly denied despite not having been accused. She came with kids already, too, which made it even better for his career.
wayward, I would say that someone raised to view all sex, even marital sex, as pathological and women/homosexuals as inferior non-people would not have many qualms about violating their wedding vows. This is about entitlement, as much as it is about a profound sense of psychic disconnect that leads them to commit those acts they most vociferously condemn.
How are the Democrats supposed to have been able to ‘frame’ anyone in this case? Unless the police officer who arrested Craig was flat out lying (a serious accusation), how can a man be entrapped into making a pass at another man? That claim is right up there with “I tripped and my mouth landed on his penis! At the exact same time his zipper failed and his pants fell down all by themselves!”
Granted, the toe tapping and touching seems like a rather unclear signal to me but I’m not a gay man, so I defer to those with more knowledge of such things. So Craig is now saying his guilty plea was a mistake? Pretty major mistake to make. But perhaps the Democrats used invisible mind control rays to force him to do so? After all, they possess formidable power when it comes to sabotaging innocent Republicans!
It makes me wonder what type of marriages these people have, and perhaps more importantly, why they stay in them?
They very likely have ennabling spouses who very much enjoy the money and lifestyle and prestige of “senator’s spouse”. Somehow, I suspect that Mrs. Craig either knows or knows but doesn’t want to know. Sex with Larry probably wasn’t on her agenda when they married or now. The lack of intimacy may even be a “perk” for her, who knows? She may even have her very own closet in her own bedroom.
My paternal grandfather was very likely a self-hating gay man - even my conservative uncle will vouch for that. My paternal grandmother was, in retrospect, a moderately functioning Aspy with little firm sense of social clues. Their marriage was a partnership based on a completely different sort of mutual care paradigm, and it worked and suited them just fine. My mother was always mystified and derisive, as was my great aunt, but, as I got older, I could see that it had worked well for both of them and the rest was none of my beeswax.
Don’t forget Glenn Murphy, the head of Young Republican National Federation, who was caught fellating a young man who was asleep.
The quotes from the folks that Pam (i think, who is “test?”) cites really come down to one thing in context, and I think it is telling.
What it comes down to is that what you say matters far more that what you actually do. If we disapprove of gay sex and you do it but say it is evil, you get a pass, but if you say it is okay and none of anyone’s business, then we will attack you (even if you are straight and not doing teh gay.) The show matters far more than the truth.
And it isn’t even about the votes, really. There would be some integrity in saying that you don’t care what someone does in private as long as they vote to support your political agenda as your representative. In essence, because you see social policy as more important than private behavior. THEN you can say people are all sinners, nobody is perfect, etc.
But that isn’t their point. Their point is that you have to publically disapprove as well as vote their way.
Because there is always only one right way to be, and anything other than the One Right Way is evil and must be fought.
Notice how two loving men or two loving women threaten the very fabric of society, but a lying sack who is cheating on his wife is simply “falling short” of God’s standard and should be given a pass, cause hey, at least he says he’s trying?
Oh, and Observer, thanks for the laugh. I love the “committed gay sex” line.
And now we have another new game. Let me try.
Even if he’s guilty: Somebody who states obviously bigoted drivel once is obviously reprehensible. However, somebody who states obviously bigoted drivel on a regular basis and advocates it as public policy is obviously much worse.
This could be fun!
Look, it’s Dana!
They’re not saying that every single politician who professes a conservative viewpoint should live up to that standard. It’s really the opposite. None of us are perfect, and we all fall short of God’s grace. A lot of times that gets lost when someone’s failing becomes politicized.”
So these people are advocating for behavioral codes that they admit NO ONE can actually live up to? And they are advocating for fairly harsh punishments for those who fail to live up their moral codes, too? But they themselves admit that “we all fall short”?
So why the hell do they want to punish people who “fall short of God’s grace”? Shouldn’t “sinners” get sympathy and help instead of legal trouble?
The part that pisses me off is that Republican officials expect to get away with violating they laws the created for everyone else. That’s the real issue: they advocate for harsh punishments for “unnatural sex”, but if they get caught doing it, they expect that “I’m just not perfect” will get them off scot free.
Fuck that: you advocate for anti-gay, anti-sex laws, you live by the laws. Period. If you can’t live by them, maybe you should, I don’t know, stop campaigning for them.
Either way, stop whining about it!
Both Bob Allen and Larry Craig whipped out their business cards like they were Get Out of Jail Free cards and expected the cops to step back in awe and confusion and forget about the whole situation.
They don’t just expect to be forgiven, they expect to never be arrested at all. If I were the arresting officer, it would make the bust just a little bit sweeter if the perp tried the “Don’t you know who I am?” game?
…and these are the people who think gay couples are going to ruin marriage.
Which is why some of the biggest perverts tend to be ministers. Especially conservative ministers.
I only want to note that “Coy Privette” would be a great adult-film-star name.
BTW, Blondie: “He’s a hyprocrit with benefits” - Priceless
>>>>It makes me wonder what type of marriages these people have…
Ummmmm…SHAM?!
Well, of course the religious right believes that personally following the moral code that one publicly advocates is less important than advocating a stringent code. They are for the most part biblical literalists, and in the Bible, Jesus clearly said, “let he who is with sin cast the first stone,” and then the crowd stoned the adultress to death … oh. Um … no, I guess it’s just hypocrisy.
AH yes, but only the repentent sinners. The ones who are freely admitting that what they did was wrong. They get forgiveness. Again, and again and again.
But the rest of us, unrepentant types who don’t even see that what we are doing is wrong need to get mightly smited until we see the error of our ways.
“It makes me wonder what type of marriages these people have, and perhaps more importantly, why they stay in them?”
It’s funny in looking at the responses; according to the right, Democrats are the only ones who possibly could marry for political or other convenience, be it the Clintons, or “Gigolo” Kerry’s marrying up several tax brackets (I can’t begin to say how many Republicans I know marry into wealth and their father-in-laws’ connections, but I suppose IOKIYAR.)
I’d rather be mightily smitten.
I’m not going to be repentant because there’s nothing for me to repent.
to the religious bigots (be they observer or dana or cookie or whomever): Your silly little book is meaningless here. It’s a rotten guide for human behavior, and an even worse basis for law in pluralist society. GET THE FUCK OVER YOURSELVES AND YOUR FAIRY TALES.
I don’t know - when Bill Clinton got a blow job out of wedlock it was a pretty big deal…
Ioiyar and act repentant. Or something.
Both Bob Allen and Larry Craig whipped out their business cards like they were Get Out of Jail Free cards and expected the cops to step back in awe and confusion and forget about the whole situation.
Bingo! And this is what pisses me off the most. They basically pulled the “But, officer, don’t you know IOKIYAR?”
I think the best response to the hypocrisy apologists is “He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword.”
It’s even in their precious Book!
Key words long term probably..
‘Self-loathing’ as rejection with ‘anger’.
Then the ‘projection’.
and finally the ‘hypocrisy’.
Goddam that’s a well worn path….innit?
Works for a whole lotta sh*it.
wayward:
There’s a joke in here about being married to liberal clergy and how perverted she is, but I just can’t articulate it through my laughter. It’s our intention to grow up and be a dirty old couple together.
Let’s put it this way folks - ministers tend to sometimes be . . well, my wife and I call them “2x4’s”, as in the, “he has all the personality of a 2x4″. They’re boring, stable people, who will have some touch of grace that makes them pastoral, but they are ultimately unexceptional but nice people.
And you never, EVER, think of them as sexual human beings. They’re clergy, and therefore asexual. No matter how many kids they have, or how liberal or conservative their theology. You’d think little angels transported sperm from man to woman when they slept in the same bed.
I could care less about the perversion. I do care about the hypocrisies of loudly calling out the sexual as sinful while trying to grab some outside the rules.
It’s the loud, harping on sex, conservative ministers whom are usually the offenders.
Congratulations, Dorothy. You’ve just put your finger on one of the biggest weapons in the psychological arsenal of many major religions: setting impossible standards.Moving the bar is easy when you’re dealing with the Infinite. When Jesus said that faith can move mountains, he (or his PR handlers) probably knew that anyone who tried to move a mountain this way and failed could simply be told, “Well, your faith wasn’t great enough.”
A close corollary to the impossible-standards ploy is recasting normal human emotions or appetites as something to be ashamed of. If you’re hungry, you’re greedy. If you’re tired, you’re lazy. If you have sexual feelings, you’ve “committed adultery in your heart.” And if you have sexual feelings for someone of the same gender, well…to hell with you. Literally.
(Puts on Andrew Dice Clay mask.) Oh, I don’t know. If she got married with an agenda not to have sex then I would say that’s pretty convincing evidence that she’s straight.Well, of course the religious right believes that personally following the moral code that one publicly advocates is less important than advocating a stringent code.
Sure, because while few are stupid enough to think that they could actually do away with homosexuality, wayward women, etc., they figure that closeting & insulting them is even better– it’s much more fun to mock those who suffer from ridiculous societal standards than to have everyone actually adhere to those standards. Conservatism’s all about putting a boot on someone’s neck, after all, whether due to gender, race, economic status, etc. As for the closeted conservative gays and sexual manipulators, as far as they’re concerned the taboos make their transgressions (and don’t forget they’re also exercising their inherent privilege) hotter and more satisfying. Wins for everyone who’s willing to invest in building a nice, proper facade, and people who want to be emotionally honest are the losers.
Completely OT, but because I’m all-day funked from the “Cooties” thread, here’s a “cheer-us-up”:
http://dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/08/29/338161.aspx
Karl is gonna be PISSED…
The question “does hypocrisy matter” is an interesting one, though, because as Pam reprinted in the earlier Freeper thread, some defenders of Craig are pulling out a tu quoque defense.
Let’s go ahead and state the obvious: Gore isn’t trying to make energy consumption illegal, and Edwards isn’t trying to make accruing wealth illegal. Jerks like Larry Craig openly advocate and legislate against homosexuality. There’s no comparison.
But even so, several conversations on this site have touched on the distinction between “personal morality” and “collective responsibility.” [1] [2] [3] It’s the kind of argument that the homobigots will try to throw in our faces, and we need to be clear on the distinctions in order to avoid chasing down red herrings.
Dorothy -
You know, there’s a parable about this somewhere - in some book I read. Something about a woman being accused of adultery and all these religious guys wanting to stone a women to death for breaking the law, and this radical hippy guy telling them that if they hadn’t sinned they were free to stone her. Something like that - it was probably Shakespeare or something.
Anyway, if Christianity had something like THAT in it’s makeup maybe this whole “set impossible standards and then punish people who can’t live up to them” wouldn’t be so prevalent.
The problem with crying hypocrisy about fools like Craig is that it draws more attention to their “character” as individuals. That is, because they fail to live up to their own professed values they fail as upstanding characters. The real problem is the ridiculous “values,” not their failing as individuals.
We all fail to live up to our own values and we all struggle. I can publically call for whatever liberal attitude/policy and still fall into the kind of judgmentalism that fuels conservatism. I think the most honest political strategy here isn’t to harass Craig for struggling and failing, but for believing such BS in the first place. Once Craig is out of office, the GOP will be done with his failing character, but their values will still be around.
YES!!!!
That is exactly the problem. The religious values of the Right, the values of the queer bashers is just plain fucked up. It’s not the hypocrisy. It’s worthless, hateful value system.
Bunnies please.
Can one bunny for pure incoherence?
Shorter PaulL. (via Barry Goldwater):
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of Republicans is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of Liberals is no virtue!
If it’s their guy, the Reichwing will say and do anything to avoid recognizing guilt and taking responsibility.
If it’s not their guy, there are no recognized limits to their behavior when it comes to attacking and destroying the threat to greater Rethuglicanism.
Seems really simple to me…
Another vote for bunnies.
They’re SO DAMN CUTE!…
And doesn’t it seem unfair that PaulL.’s rant only earns one damn bingo square? That’s worth at least two, isn’t it?…
Ooooo, I think that one is just BEGGING for a bunny.
Another vote for bunnification!
I thought of a corny joke I’ve always wanted to say.
“People say homosexuality is unnatural, but we all know that ‘hetero-’ is different.” xD
I sound ignorant, but what do the bunnies do?
they make things go away…more than that and Amanda will have me disappeared.
Bunnies! Please!
Kill yourself. I’m not even fucking joking. Stab yourself in the fucking femoral artery and bleed out, knowing your failure has made the world a darker place. There are no words to express how fucking moronic that was.
karpad: I was more thinking “Still have the original box your computer came in? Good. Pack it up and return it, as you’re too stupid to participate in rational discourse on the internet.” But sure, femoral artery works too.
Just because I’m smartass -
SNUGGLEBUNNIES!
(It’s a shame I can’t find a print of that)
This deserves to be quoted at least a second time. Bravo.SNUGGLEBUNNIES! SNUGGLEBUNNIES! SNUG-
So these people are advocating for behavioral codes that they admit NO ONE can actually live up to? And they are advocating for fairly harsh punishments for those who fail to live up their moral codes, too? But they themselves admit that “we all fall short”? - Dorothy
Yes.
That’s why I say Christian theocrats are possibly even worse than Islamic theocrats (not that I want any sort of theocracy).
At least the sternest of Talibs, if he found himself locking everyone up in jail on moral code violations would say to himself “if nobody can follow this code, perhaps maybe it’s my interpretation of the code that’s wrong … maybe Sharia is not as strict as we have implimented it to be”. However if, e.g., a Christian reconstructionist found himself locking up everyone and throwing away the keys on moral code violations, it wouldn’t faze him a bit — after all “we all fall short … so why is it a problem to imprison everyone forever?”
You’d think an appreciation of the fact that we humans are imperfect would lead to a greater tolerance and a sense of forgiveness. But all too often it leads in fact to an easy acceptence of punishment — after all, if we all are guilty, there is no such thing as an innocent person wrongly imprisoned — you know he’s guilty of something!
You give too much credit to the Taliban for being rational human beings. They actually believe the shit they were implementing and would continue to do it until they’d drained the country of humans. Bad example.
My number one fan, Jeff, wrote:
Well, Jeff, some of us think it’s a pretty good guide for society — and we vote. That you disagree is your right.
I have said before, back when Mark Foley was “outed,” that a politician has an obligation to make his private life public in this regard; hiding in the closet is a form of lying to your constituents, something with which I’d guess that Jeff would agree. But I’d bet that Jeff would also agree that neither Mark Foley nor Larry Craig would have ever been elected had they been honest with their constituents all along.
Question: is there now or has there ever been a congressman or senator who was first elected after it was revealed that he was homosexual?
ya know, I don’t like any theocracy. I don’t like extremism in any religion, whether they be Buddhist (look at Aum Shinri Kyo- they were a cult, but you get the drift), Christian or Islamic. I really think “I think the Islamic Theocrats are better than Christians” is a moot point. The moot point is that we don’t theocracy of any kind, period- right? The separation of church and state?
That’s the point- is that we no longer have the separation of church and state. when are people going to actually start demanding that we have it again, because a lot of the issues (abortion rights, gay rights, fundie rightwingers, etc) come from the blurring of this line.
Stoned your child to death for being disobedient? How about stoning me for being gay? They’re in that great guide for life.
and you still refuse to take responsibility for fucking up other people’s lives, Dana. You’re really a rotten human.
Did all these wingnut trolls usually run the AV equipment in high school? They are such excellent projectionists after all!
Question: is there now or has there ever been a congressman or senator who was first elected after it was revealed that he was homosexual?
Barney Frank
Personally I love the marrying your brother’s wife should he die.
Not to mention the being killed for eating seafood. Or wearing wool and cotton together.
Gotta love that bible as a law-book.
Tammy Baldwin
But I think Dana’s point is that jackbooted bigots like himself outnumber us so they get to do with us as they please, and they needn’t take any responsibility for any suffering they cause us, because it’s our just reward from his made up sky buddy and the Hiitler Youth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Frank
Here’s one for you, Dana. And I have voted for him, too.
Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis)
Dana’s point also stands, that there have been no non-incumbent, openly gay Republicans elected to national Congress.
So it may be true that neither Foley nor Craig would have been elected in their respective districts had they been out of the closet from the beginning. Hard to say though.
Question: is there now or has there ever been an openly gay person running for the U.S. Senate or House as a Republican?
Kolbe from AZ, and Gunderson from WI. Both were outed while in office (Gunderson with a drink thrown in his face at a gay bar).
Dana,
again, when are you going to admit to and take responsibility for the way you, your movement, and your party are consistently trying to make life less safe, stable and secure for queer folks?
Ah, Cris … so you’re saying that they can either chose to be an open, honest, upfront person with integrity … OR they can be a republican?
Did I get that right?
If the choice comes down to simply that, I’m voting queer EVERY TIME!!!
I trust them more.
I’ve been known to say that in the unlikely event I ever allowed a child of mine to be adopted and had to choose between a gay couple and a very publicly religious one, I’d choose the gays without hesitation. It’s a fairly safe bet that any kid of mine would do better in a more, shall we say, broad-minded household, after all. The funny thing is that no one has really tried to argue the point with me, because anyone who’s known me for five minutes would see the logic.
I’ve been sayin’ this for the longest time. Those who beat Bibles constantly are much worse off morally than those who are liberals.
Thanks for the names, MAJeff — but I meant to say “for the first time.” That is, how have non-incumbent, openly gay Republicans fared in national elections? Do they even get past the primary?
My real point is, Dana’s question requires some additional context. To guess whether Craig or Foley could have been elected if they were out of the closet from the start, it would help to know how openly gay candidates have fared historically in their respective districts. I suspect the sample size is too small to be helpful.
My gut tells me that Idaho would be very hostile to an openly gay candidate from either party. I don’t know enough about Florida to even guess about it.
No prob Cris.
I do know that ID has an openly gay member of the state leg, but I have a hard time seeing the state that sent Helen Chenowith and Bill Sali to Congress sending and openly gay person.
But that was also just Dana’s way of moving the thread. He still refuses to address the question of taking responsibility for his own actions in making the lives of queers worse.
OOOOOO, Paul got bunnied!!!
Bunny, bunny, BUNNY!!
fun bunnies, too
Super Bunnies + Walk Don’t Run =
I’m glad Paul was able to provide us with bunny-tainment through being an ass. It just goes to show that all can serve, no matter how good or bad…
I can already hear the gears of the Rethuglican spin machine grinding:
They will say: “Yes, he was gay, but at least he VOTED AGAINST gays. Better than a straight Democrat who votes FOR gays.”
I call it intellectual gymnastics.
Gawd, if it weren’t an insult to every beautifully crafted marguerita in outdoor cafeland, I would so love to toss a drink into that smarmy smug lord-invoking little prissyface.
This is the hair-pulling go-to “defense” Wignuttia tries to pull every time one of their hypocritical bloviating fools tumbles out of the closet, bathroom stall or prostitute’s phonebook.
Well, the demand is not and never has been for every single damn one, adding up to , is totally absolutely perfect … no …
That’s neither the standard nor issue of making the goddamn one who got caught answer for his goddamn verifiable, independently corroborated, out there for everyone to see caught on tape sleazeball actions.
In short, no one said the holier than moi Republicult bible thumpers were perfect … except THEM.
Just replace “unnatural sex” with “sex that Observer, personally, doesn’t approve of” and you’ll get a pretty good description of Observer’s position. Since this position was likely handed to him by the authorities, it’s also a pretty good description of the conservative position.
Another drive-by by dana…switch the focus and refuse to take responsibility for his actions in making queers’ lives worse.
typical.
Jeff wrote:
Less safe? Because I don’t support hate crimes legislation? I support people being prosecuted for their actions; if someone assaults a person because the victim is gay, I think the assailant should be prosecuted under exactly the same statutes as someone who assaults a person for any other reason; there ought to be no distinctions taken just because the victim belongs to some particular group.
I look at how the killers of James Byrd and Matthew Sheppard were treated. In neither case were hate crimes statutes employed (Texas had none; I don’t know about Wyoming), but the killers in both cases were tried and convicted for capital murder, murder not of a black man, not of a homosexual man, but simply murder of a person. That, to me, is the way it should be.
Less stable? How so? Half of all marriages end in divorce, and more and more people are simply shacking up these days. Are you suggesting that because a couple cannot get legally married, the state is somehow forcing them to break up? I concede that the states have the power to legalize same-sex civil marriage, and I’d be a lot less opposed to the notion if we could agree on a standard provision, to be written into the law, stating that no clergyman or church or religious organization could be subject to criminal penalties or civil liability for refusing to perform a same sex marriage.
Dana, stop being fucking stupid … we’ve already had this discussion, and it’s been proved and shown to you that a person committing a hate crime IS being prosecuted for their actions, in that they are not just victimising an individual, they are also victimising a community. And yet you stick to this line you’ve had since the beginning even though it’s been proven wrong in law, wrong in logic, and wrong on the facts.
You’re a bigoted arsehole, and the fact that you approach issues with a “la-la-la-la, I can’t hear you!” intention just confirms this.
I won’t even go into your disgustingly fucked-up position on marriage.
However, that said …
Just go away, Dana, please. Please just leave. I am asking you on a basic level of humanity and civility here. You do not ever contribute anything, and only ever repeat positions of bigotry that have been refuted time and time again.
So, I am asking you; leave please sir, you are not welcome here, and it would just be basic manners for you to do so.
I’m glad Paul was able to provide us with bunny-tainment through being an ass. It just goes to show that all can serve, no matter how good or bad…
I just repeated the talking points echoed on this blog.
Guess you guy can dish out criticism but can’t take it.
Just go away, Dana, please. Please just leave. I am asking you on a basic level of humanity and civility here. You do not ever contribute anything, and only ever repeat positions of bigotry that have been refuted time and time again.
Wow, Dana challenged your world view and you do not refute what she said. You just scream you’re wrong GO AWAY!!!!!
Strong woman indeed.
Can we have another couple bunnies please?
How about woodchucks? Bunnies are less serious of a pest.
You forgot the part about how we don’t really believe in free speech and tolerance
Oooo, I don’t know about that hon.
Back home in New Zealand, my parents bought a hotel when I was about 13 at a resort town in the mountains, in an area where historically rabbits had way back been released for food … an area where there also were no native predators for the rabbit.
This is a ‘Very Bad Idea’, in case anyone is wondering.
This is also the area that today they have, every year, the Annual Easter Bunny Shoot … where registered hunters and farmers would come from all over the country to shoot as many rabbits as possible in a given amount of time. Which is a LOT.
Only time in my life when I am pro-guns.
Bunnies are EVIL.
Sarah in Chicago: Oh, sorry for getting North America-centric there. We’ve had more problems with woodchucks than bunnies here in Indiana. Bunnies get it from both dogs and cats where I live, but woodchucks think they own your garden and your crawlspace.
But I’ll concede that in those parts of the world where white folk were stupid enough to transplant bunnies, that they are a serious problem, at the very least because no one has bothered to transplant woodchucks.
“Wow, Dana challenged your world view and you do not refute what she said. You just scream you’re wrong GO AWAY!!!!!”
First off, Dana in this case is a man. Has commented here at Pandagon for quite some time. Has a history of being stubbornly conservative right up to the edge (and to some, over the edge) of being offensive.
Paul, if you are not aware of the history of these commenter squabbles, shut up and butt the hell out. There are good reasons for Jeff and Sarah (and many of the rest of us) to have a very short fuse with Dana…
You, on the other hand are merely a pest. I’m sure there are other blogs where bringing up poor widdle innocent Lacrosse players and the Big Bad Negro Welfare Queen stripper is the height of witty repartee.
Find those blogs and share your bullshit with them. We don’t care to hear about it here…
Yeah, the hate crimes issue has been worked to death and has a long history here. Where Dana is wrong is that most U.S. jurisdictions have replaced discretionary sentences with a statutory shopping list of aggravating and mitigating factors which are used to make decision such as whether a convicted murderer should get a 40 minimum, life without parole, or the death penalty. Or whether judo-throwing a man with the gall to ask you to dance qualifies as second or first degree battery.
This grocery list includes a variety of cases where the status of the victim is important. Hitting a cop, child, or disabled person is almost always justification for enhanced penalties. And all hate crime laws do is expand language that has already been found constitutional in regards employment and housing law into criminal law.
Dana,
the level of intellectual disingenousness coming from you is amazing. Just admit it: You’re working to make the world worse for queers. Through your political organizing, through your party affiliation, and through your religious body. You are working to make the world worse for queers. That you can’t even admit that shows the levels of denial you have about your hatred, and that’s what your and your church’s attitude toward queers is based in: hatred.
Sarah, you’re serious? You’re actually in favour of large groups of cheerful Kiwis going out and gunning down thousands of bunnies on Easter? Holy. Shit.
(Pulls out small, red notebook. Adds another point under the page headed “Reasons I Like Sarah in Chicago”.)
Find those blogs and share your bullshit with them. We don’t care to hear about it here…
You are crushing my dissent.
You guys claim to be all open-minded and tolerance. Guess this is just a echo chamber for your crazy viewpoints that can not survive questioning and debate .
*cough*
Helllllllllllll yes.
Ahem.
When you’ve seen a whole hill-side actually move when a bunch of them start running, that’s the point where you put in an exception to a ban on virtually all private ownership of firearms.
Not to mention, having such a shoot on Easter is just … well … very much the Kiwi sense of humour, let’s just say that
love that strawman paul
Do we have bingo!?!
getting damned close…after all, we’ve gotten the “lefties are so intolerant of our bigotry!”
“You are crushing my dissent.”
Now THAT’S funny…
Paul, you’re crushing my confidence that all people can grow and learn. I guess you and The Derb share a lot in common…
To these Republicans, it seems like marriage is a ticket to something else, such as social respectability, money, or connections. The couple doesn’t really act like a “couple” either before or after marriage. Each remains in their own separate worlds. The idea that one would marry for love is a bit foreign. It’s really strange to watch.
Kerry may have married up a couple of tax brackets (twice), but he already had a prominent name and plenty of money.
I am not a big Bill and Hillary fan, but I have a lot of respect for them sticking together and working out their problems.
Sarah wrote:
Sorry, but I do not accept the notion that if someone assaults one person, he has assaulted everyone in the particular community. That’s simple fear-mongering. There is no reason to think that an assault on someone because he is homosexual is either worse or more acceptable than an assault on someone because the assailant wanted to rob him.
Oh, no, Sarah, I hear you; I simply do not accept your reasoning on some things.
One of the things about freedom of speech is that there is a concomitant right for you to ignore what I write. If you see the name “Dana” on the heading, you are absolutely free to skip over the message.
It’s clear to me that you don’t understand conservatives at all, and are not willing in the least to try. It’s so much easier, I suppose, to call people “arseholes” than it is to calmly refute actual arguments; if you can simply dismiss people as evil or malicious or whatever, then you can simply dismiss their arguments without ever having to actually think about them.
You are certainly within your rights to ask Amanda or Pam to ban me.
Jeff wrote:
Well, I certainly admit that’s what you believe any opposition to your political preferences means.
My church’s (and my) attitude toward homosexuals is based simply on scripture. Were the subject divorce, you’d find the me taking the same positions. You may not accept that, but it’s true.
I would never claim to be able to read your mind, Jeff; you might consider that you can’t read mine.
you still don’t get it. it ain’t about political prefernces. It’s about out lives. You just refuse to acknowledge that, on a consistent basis. You always try and bring it down to the political level. While that’s important, you need to face the fact that you and your church are bigots. end of story.
“how have non-incumbent, openly gay Republicans fared in national elections? Do they even get past the primary?”
And what’s the point of this exercise? To say that these folks have to lie in order to get elected? Is there some kind of “lesser of two evils” thing in there somewhere?
I say, if they can’t get elected being honest, then they have no business running for office in the first place.
There is no reason to think that an assault on someone because he is homosexual is either worse or more acceptable than an assault on someone because the assailant wanted to rob him.
As a matter of fact, assault committed as part of another offense, actual or attempted, is one of those statutory factors that mandate a bump in sentencing. So if you really mean that the assault of a gay person should be considered as equivalent to assault in the commission of robbery, you have already justified hate crime laws. (In Indiana I think that’s the difference from a misdemeanor to felony assault.)
“It’s clear to me that you don’t understand conservatives at all, and are not willing in the least to try.”
Speaking for myself, Dana, I feel I understand “conservatives” all TOO well.
I was born and raised in a very conservative family, in a very conservative (protestant) religion, went to very conservative private church schools until college, still live in a very conservative part of California, and still have a large number of conservative coworkers and acquaintances.
At heart, I’m probably still pretty conservative myself (in some respects) - albeit more in the Barry Goldwater “leave me the hell alone” way than in the current “we are free to investigate every aspect of your existence for your own good” version which has been popular for the last 20-years.
There are conservatives that I can respect, while I may disagree with some of their fixations.
But many “conservatives” are sad people who are a personal (or national) crisis or two from becoming fascists. They don’t see this in themselves, but it’s obvious to the rest of us…
And we can say the same about you and queer people.
And that, Dana, is at the crux of your blinkered obstinateness. This isn’t about banning, or not being banned. This is about manners and the civility to recognise where you are not welcome, nor have any reason to be except to engender discord and spread hate.
That you would not see such in my words, nor in the way people here react to you, while ultimately not surprising to me, is just saddening however confirming. Free speech is freedom from intrusion into one’s speech, and that was not done here. Rather instead, it was asked of you to yourself decide to do the mature and civil thing, though, of course, this apparently is too much for you.
The irony of that statement, Dana, is that I possibly have had more experience with conservatives than even mayhap you. From conservatives that I fervently disagree with yet strongly call friend … to the conservatives that sent me to pyschs and pinned me up against walls in violence to ‘change’ me.
Not to mention, of course, watching the conservative construction of reality from an academic perspective.
And that’s the thing Dana, we have heard all your arguments before, and have refuted them, and for the most part from people long before you. Merely parroting irrational talking-points does not an argument make, and where those parroting them retreat to that repetition, the only conclusion is that they are doing so because they would rather cling to their intolerant worldview that be forced to actually think. That then speaks to character, or rather the lack thereof.
You, sir, are named arsehole because your own behaviour describes you as such, not because it is some defensive throw-away line. You can claim polite disagreement on issues all you like, but the substantive nature of what you claim, and moreover do, names you so fervently such, our final use of such a term in calling you out on it is almost an anti-climax.
But then, given your fairly inevitable projection when it came to appealing to a possible better nature, you will, I expect reject this in some other glib fashion based on some self-righteous fantasy of taking a rhetorical John Wayne like stand.
You know what, Dana? I pity you.
No, Jeff, you’ve got it wrong: I do try to understand you and what you are saying. That I try to understand does not mean that I must accept everything you say as correct.
I would not interfere with your life in any way. If you want to live celibately or with one man or a whole group of people, I will not try to stop you, nor would I support the passage of any laws which would make such illegal. While I have a disagreement with the legal reasoning used in Lawrence v Texas, I have no problem with the outcome.
If you were walking down the street holding hands with another guy, I’d let you do it; if you said, “Hello,” when I passed, I’d return the courtesy. If someone assaulted you because he say you and another man holding hands, I’d both come to your defense if I could, and support full prosecution of the assailant for the crime of assault. But no, I wouldn’t support some sort of added hate crime statutes applying.
I suppose that’s not good enough for you.
You are interfering in my life by passing laws that make it illegal for me to marry.
And no, none of that changes a thing. Your beliefs are pollution.
how big of you.
Jeff wrote:
I thought that you lived in Massachusetts, where it is legal for you to marry another man.
You know, I even gave you a possible compromise above:
and you chose not to acknowledge it.
duh, there’s no need for such a provision. There’s no way to make a catholic priest do a ceremony that lies outside their belief system. This is pure disingenuousness on your part, and the part of other people who spread the LIE that priests will be forced to marry same-sex couples. Are priests forced to marry jews, or the divorced? no….
you’re a dishonest bigot.
It’s called the First Amendment. The government can’t force a church to provide sacraments to people who don’t fit that church’s ideology.
That was never an issue. The fact that there are demagogues who say (and dupes who believe) that teh Gheyz are out to persecute Christians doesn’t make it true.
Sarah, you’re serious? You’re actually in favour of large groups of cheerful Kiwis going out and gunning down thousands of bunnies on Easter? Holy. Shit.
Come now. There are very few Kiwis who would support this.
Bunnies should be gunned down every single fucking day of the year.
Dana: I would not interfere with your life in any way. […] I thought that you lived in Massachusetts, where it is legal for you to marry another man.
So, do you support Jeff’s Massachusetts’ marriage being recognised in every State of the Union with the full faith and credit of marriage law as it applies to heterosexual couples or does this “non-intereference with Jeff’s life” not extend to giving equal rights under the law to dirty homos?
“If you were walking down the street holding hands with another guy, I’d let you do it; if you said, “Hello,” when I passed, I’d return the courtesy.”
That’s just common decency. I would hope anybody would do those things…
“If someone assaulted you because he say you and another man holding hands, I’d both come to your defense if I could, and support full prosecution of the assailant for the crime of assault.”
Glad to hear it!…
“But no, I wouldn’t support some sort of added hate crime statutes applying.”
Ever hear of “gay bashing”, Dana? If some nut chose to assault MAJeff and his friend - out of pure hatred of seeing two men hold hands - you don’t see that as being a problem?
What if somebody assaulted people because they’re Black or Asian, or women, or (in your case) because they’re white Catholic men? You don’t see what’s wrong there?…
Dana, I have a question. In earnest:
Is this just a game to you? Is this just about winning an argument? Tweaking the “moonbats”?
I have to ask, because I notice that while MaJeff talks about how ideology becomes policy which has an effect on real people, you consistently bring it back to ideology. Do you consider MaJeff’s invocation of real-world effects to be an emotional distraction from logical arguments? Do you simply not like to think about/not care about what your beliefs - and, more importantly, the large number of people who share your beliefs and work to have them made into laws - do to real people? Or do your consider your beliefs to be more important? Do you believe that keeping homosexuals as second-class citizens is for the greater good somehow?
Or is this, as I asked before, all a game where winning is what really counts?
If it were based in scripture, you’d be agitating for my stoning to death.
Sarah wrote:
Well, Sarah, ignoring me personally for the moment, it would seem pretty clear that the arguments you believe you have refuted so successfully before weren’t so successfully refuted to the majority of the voters.
If your statement was accurate, I’d be in a very small minority; I’d say that the results of actual referenda on same-sex marriage would indicate that I am not. That you may consider me to be whatever epithet you choose is your right, but it still leaves you with the problem that your arguments have not persuaded the majority of voters.
Mike Ess wrote:
I see it as exactly the same problem as if people were assaulted for any other reason. “Gay bashing” is a crime because it is an assault, not because the victims are gay, but because they are people.
The fact that a majority of people believe something does not make it right, and in fact the founders of your country realised this and attempted to build in provisions to prevent such.
You’re seriously stretching here.
Didn’t you hear, MA Jeff? It’s all about “Hate the sin, love the sinner”.
Pure bullshit.
“I see it as exactly the same problem as if people were assaulted for any other reason. “Gay bashing” is a crime because it is an assault, not because the victims are gay, but because they are people.”
If it was as simple as “they are people” there would often be no assault. It’s specifically because they ARE LGBT, Black, Asian, Arab, women, etc., that the assault takes place.
To the sick mind of the person assaulting them, those characteristics are all the justification needed for the assault - not who they really are, not because of a personal beef between them, not because of a business deal gone bad, etc. The target fits a particular profile, that’s it.
As has been pointed out previously, the same “extra punishment” is common in many other cases, such as the victim being in law enforcement. This is certainly not a new idea.
We all agree that people should not be assaulted or murdered. Some us believe also that it’s much worse when that assault or murder takes place simply because the victim was seen to be part of a hated group…
Implying that if a gay person wants to live without celibacy that you will try and stop them. In doing that you put your finger right on why people here are starting to hate you: you hate their ability to be free, to live their lives as free people able to make their own decisions. You would prefer a theocracy where you get to make their decisions for them, and have the power to enforce those decisions. After all, if you didn’t have the power to stop them then how else could stop them?And you whine when they call you out as the theocratic, bigoted fascist that you are.
Dana, I am white. My wife is hispanic. Before 1967, there were many states where “the majority of voters” found such marriages unacceptable, and made them illegal.
Then came Loving v. Virginia, when the Supreme Court - not a legislative body, not representing the majority of voters - made marriages like mine legal. “The majority of voters” in many areas probably continued to consider interracial marriages unacceptable for a long time afterward, some right up until the present day.
Was the majority right in this case, by simple virtue of being the majority? Or did interracial couples have a right to marry that the majority was simply failing to acknowledge?
Dana:
“holding hands with another guy, I’d let you do it”
You’d “let” him do it? Is it really your place to “allow” (or not) such things? And should all/any of the rest of us even care if you “allow” it or not? Why or why not?
“no, I wouldn’t support some sort of added hate crime statutes applying.”
If a gay man is attacked because he is in the wrong place at the wrong time, randomly, then hate crimes laws would not apply. Hate crimes laws address crimes that are committed *because* the victim is gay (and/or whatever other category applies). So (the reasoning goes), if the same gay man was attacked *because* he is gay, then this is more of an offense — the same physical facts of the attack apply, and to that point the penalty should be equal, but then there is the added offense of singling out a minority and thereby conveying a message to an entire community, a terrorist message, if you will.
Any ideational system that condemns people for loving each other is an ideational system the world would be better off without.
On the one hand, people who advocate for personal freedom and equality before the law. On the other, people who want laws and punishment based on books of uncertain authorship and written in a primitive, angry culture with a vicious tribal god. Okay. Put that way America… Choose.
As Fark.com said of Craig; “He’s so far in the closet, he’s in Narnia.”
I normally try to stay out of this sort of thing, bad for the blood pressure.
But Dana, you would only have any basis for your “I wouldn’t want to interfere in your life but I disapprove” line if you position was to support absolute equality and full marriage and workplace rights, and THEN say that you disapprove.
You are welcome to disapprove. There are plenty of legal behaviors I disapprove of, and other behaviors (like murder) that I fully support interfering with.
When you advocate denying people legal rights, you ARE interfering, and you advocating interfering, and any attempt to say you aren’t is simply a lie. Whether it is because you are fooling yourself or knowingly lying is for you to evaluate.
But you do not get to play the “I’m not anti-gay” card when you clearly, deliberately, publicly and repeatedly ARE anti-gay.
SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP.
Jeff wrote:
If you believe that “there’s no need” for such a provision, why would you oppose adding it? According to you, it would be, at worst, simply redundant.
However, there actually is a need for it. Please note that I wrote it to protect a clergyman and church from civil liability and criminal prosecution. The First Amendment does not prohibit an agrieved citizen from filing a lawsuit claiming an injury; the fact that there have been successful lawsuits against many churches for other injuries is enough to tell you that the First Amendment does not shield churches from such.
I have been comparing the coverage of the Vitter and Craig cases, and watching the hypocrisy of the so-called values voters and pundits in how they rage about the wrongdoing. I know that they are free to froth at Craig because they hate gays more, yes, and because any Craig replacement would be a Republican appointed by a Republican governor as compared to Vitter’s replacement would be appointed by a Democrat, yes, I get that too. But there was something else, and I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Then I got it. There is remarkably little right-wing froth at Vitter simply because while he has certainly sinned in their eyes, he has sinned within an acceptable framework within their values system: he has bought women’s subservience and services.
A key component of fundamentalist Christianity is that women stand in a subservient relationship to men. So, whether they realize it or not, the fundies are giving Vitter far less severe condemnation simply because they are, in their heart of hearts, quite content to treat women like prostitutes: do as you’re told, fuck when you are told, obey, take the money, don’t make demands of the man other than the ones that he contracts for.
The fundies dislike the fact that Vitter broke his marital vows. But they do not rage openly against him as they do Vitter because they are mentally and morally comfortable with fiscally and sexually exploiting women.
You’re being very vague here, Dana. As written, this paragraph seems to suggest that you want clergy and churches protected from all civil liability and criminal prosecution, and you can’t possibly mean that. If somebody breaks their leg because the church neglected to salt or sand their steps when it was icy, there’s no reason that they shouldn’t be able to sue. If your preacher molests your kid, I’m sure you’d want to file criminal charges.
What they are protected from, by nothing less than the First Amendment, is performing rituals for people who, by the terms of their faith, don’t qualify for them. If your church forbids gays (or people of different races) from marrying, then the government cannot force it to perform a wedding ceremony for them, because it can make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or the free exercise thereof.
Sure, someone could file a lawsuit, but it would be promptly thrown out of court on First Amendment grounds.
Note that this protection will still be in place if “the majority of voters” decide that gay marriage should be legal. The Constitution and Bill of Rights exists to protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority.
I don’t know who told you - or why you came to the conclusion - that churches will somehow be forced to recognize gay marriages if they become legal. It’s not true. If/when/where gay marriage is legal, it means that gay couples can get a marriage license at the county clerk and enjoy all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of the legal state of marriage: making medical decisions if your partner is incapacitated, filing joint tax returns, being each other’s next of kin for the sake of inheritance, etc. If gay marriage became legal on a national level, it means that those rights, privileges, and responsibilities would be recognized wherever a couple moved. Period.
Oh, before anyone brings it up:
“Homosexuality is a sin…” is not hate speech (not in the legal sense, anyway).
“…so homosexuals should all be exterminated before they can molest your children” is.
BTW, Dana, I’ve asked you some questions. They weren’t rhetorical. What are your answers?
I don’t know who told you - or why you came to the conclusion - that churches will somehow be forced to recognize gay marriages if they become legal. It’s not true.
Sereph, that’s not going to stop him repeating the same stupid line again and again whenever gay marriage is mentioned.
Seraph wrote:
Sorry that I wasn’t as specific in the comment you cited, but I had been very specific here, writing:
The First Amendment begins, “Congress shall make no law . . . .” The incorporation of the Bill of Rights via the Fourteenth Amendment extends that to state action as well, but it does not shield churches from civil liability. If same sex marriage is legal (as it is in Massachusetts), and a homosexual couple goes to a Catholic priest, requesting a nuptial Mass, and the priest refuses, how can you be certain that a jury will not agree that the priest specifically, and the Church in general, with the couple’s claim that they were harmed by that refusal?
Heck, Jeff has made the claim in this very thread that I, specifically, and the GOP in general, have specifically harmed gays by not supporting same sex marriage. I think that he’s wrong, but he isn’t insane, and there’s no particular reason to think that a jury couldn’t come to the same conclusions.
I’d never make or accept a claim that something is so obviously unconstitutional that the courts will throw it out, because I’ve seen too many instances in which it was very obvious to me that something was unconstitutional and would be thrown out by the Supreme Court, and was wrong. And it’s hardly only conservatives who’ve guessed wrong about Supreme Court decisions: witness the liberal outrage over the Seattle School District case.
Seraph wrote:
I just finished an answer, and it disappeared into either the spam or moderation queue; it contained two links, which was probably the trigger. I’m not sure how often the hosts check the queues on weekends, but it’s there.
I can’t. Juries can be stupid. However, I can be pretty confident that a judge will throw it out of court before it even gets that far.
In any case, as far as I can tell, courts prefer to err on the side of religion. Here I’m thinking of pharmacists being allowed to refuse to dispense birth-control drugs because they conflict with their religion, or churches being exempt from hiring or keeping employees that conflict with their doctrine.
BTW, as you keep pointing out, gay marriage is legal in Massachusetts, and has been for three years. Has anyone actually filed such a lawsuit?
He’s not wrong. Gays are denied rights that they, as American citizens, are owed. If my wife is incapacitated by illness or injury, I can make medical decisions for her. If my friend Scott’s partner Randy is similarly incapacitated, Scott might be allowed to make such decisions…or the doctor could decide to be a dick about it and insist on calling Randy’s legal next-of-kin (wasting valuable time in the process…and yes, this has happened). If Randy dies, Scott is not his next-of-kin for the sake of inheritance, as I am for my wife. Unless Randy has made a will (unlikely at their age), Scott is legally a stranger. Don’t even ask me what would happen with their three kids.
Everyone working to keep gays from marrying - working to keep them as second-class citizens - is attacking my friends Scott and Randy. Period.
All of that having been said, one right that no American citizen has is a right to membership in a Church, or the right to demand the sacraments thereof. The Seventh Day Adventist church will not perform a wedding ceremony when one member of the couple is a member of the church and one is not (though, oddly enough, they will perform the ceremony if neither member of the couple is a member of the church), and the government has no jurisdiction over that. Churches can excommunicate members or restrict membership at will, and there’s nothing the government can do.
Furthermore, a church is not denying a gay couple the legal rights that I mentioned above. Refusing to perform a ceremony doesn’t deny them the rights to make medical decisions or inherit property. It just means that they have to find another church or get married in a civil ceremony, which is all that even straight citizens have right to.
In contrast, a county clerk who refused to issue a marriage license could be fired or sued, because that clerk is denying the couple their legal rights
Yes, well, you’re not exactly demonstrating a deep understanding of Constitutional law right now. What on Earth makes you think that the law you’re proposing would protect anyone if THE FIRST AMENDMENT won’t?
Once again, I have to ask: is this at all serious to you? Are you arguing in anything like good faith? Or are you just playing “gotcha” with the lefties?
I can’t. Juries can be stupid. However, I can be pretty confident that a judge will throw it out of court before it even gets that far.
In any case, as far as I can tell, courts prefer to err on the side of religion. Here I’m thinking of pharmacists being allowed to refuse to dispense birth-control drugs because they conflict with their religion, or churches being exempt from hiring or keeping employees that conflict with their doctrine.
BTW, as you keep pointing out, gay marriage is legal in Massachusetts, and has been for three years. Has anyone actually filed such a lawsuit?
He’s not wrong. Gays are denied rights that they, as American citizens, are owed. If my wife is incapacitated by illness or injury, I can make medical decisions for her. If my friend Scott’s partner Randy is similarly incapacitated, Scott might be allowed to make such decisions…or the doctor could decide to be a dick about it and insist on calling Randy’s legal next-of-kin (wasting valuable time in the process…and yes, this has happened). If Randy dies, Scott is not his next-of-kin for the sake of inheritance, as I am for my wife. Unless Randy has made a will (unlikely at their age), Scott is legally a stranger. Don’t even ask me what would happen with their three kids.
Everyone working to keep gays from marrying - working to keep them as second-class citizens - is attacking my friends Scott and Randy. Period.
All of that having been said, one right that no American citizen has is a right to membership in a Church, or the right to demand the sacraments thereof. The Seventh Day Adventist church will not perform a wedding ceremony when one member of the couple is a member of the church and one is not (though, oddly enough, they will perform the ceremony if neither member of the couple is a member of the church), and the government has no jurisdiction over that. Churches can excommunicate members or restrict membership at will, and there’s nothing the government can do.
Furthermore, a church is not denying a gay couple the legal rights that I mentioned above. Refusing to perform a ceremony doesn’t deny them the rights to make medical decisions or inherit property. It just means that they have to find another church or get married in a civil ceremony, which is all that even straight citizens have right to.
In contrast, a county clerk who refused to issue a marriage license could be fired or sued, because that clerk is denying the couple their legal rights
Yes, well, you’re not exactly demonstrating a deep understanding of Constitutional law right now. What on Earth makes you think that the law you’re proposing would protect anyone if THE FIRST AMENDMENT won’t?
Once again, I have to ask: is this at all serious to you? Are you arguing in anything like good faith? Or are you just playing “gotcha” with the lefties?
Dana, your comment that churches need protection from being forced to perform same-sex marriages is bullshit, and has been for years. Why? Because no one can force a church to marry them, period.
My parents were married pre-Vatican II. My dad was divorced, and even though he was willing to convert and have any kids raised Catholic, my parents still couldn’t be married in the Catholic church.
The situation may be different now, but if it has, it’s because of Vatican II — a change in Church policy, not government pressure.
It seems to me you’re more afraid some churches will perform same-sex marriages and the ones who don’t will lose asses in pews. Afraid of a little religious capitalism? Tsk.
The First Amendment begins, “Congress shall make no law . . . .” The incorporation of the Bill of Rights via the Fourteenth Amendment extends that to state action as well, but it does not shield churches from civil liability. If same sex marriage is legal (as it is in Massachusetts), and a homosexual couple goes to a Catholic priest, requesting a nuptial Mass, and the priest refuses, how can you be certain that a jury will not agree that the priest specifically, and the Church in general, with the couple’s claim that they were harmed by that refusal?
Um….
You do realize that religious ceremonies have absolutely nothing to do with what is legally considered marriage, right? You are aware that a couple can be legally married without ever setting foot in a church, right? Therefore, you’re aware that the example you provided is entirely stupid, right?
Seraph wrote:
Seraph, Catholic Charities has already lost on such an issue. It is the position of the Catholic Church that artificial contraception is inherently immoral and sinful, but the California Supreme Court has held that if Catholic Charities provides any prescription drug coverage or medical care for its employees, it must, under the state’s Women’s Contraception Equity Act, provide contraceptive services for its employees.
The United States Supreme Court held, in Employment Division v. Smith, that the First Amendment’s free-exercise guarantee “does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a ‘valid and neutral law of general applicability,’” simply because “the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes).” Put differently, that the act burdens the religious beliefs or regulates the religiously motivated practices of Catholic Charities does not make the law unconstitutional, because the act’s requirements “apply neutrally and generally to all employers, regardless of religious affiliation, except to those few who satisfy the statute’s strict requirements for exemption on religious grounds.”
The next test will come in Massachusetts: if an employee of the Church is part of a legal same-sex marriage, and the employer offers any specific benefits to married couples, the law will almost certainly require the Church to accept that person’s legal marriage, effectively requiring the Church to recognize a homosexual marriage.
I’ll ask you the same question I asked Jeff: if you believe that there’s no need for such a provision, why would you oppose adding it? According to you, it would be, at worst, simply redundant. I suggested a compromise which would allieviate many of my concerns, which would actually accommodate your wishes, and all I encounter is resistance even to that.
Yes, I am writing in complete seriousness. I choose my words carefully, and mean exactly what I say.
The only area where the churches (etc) may be vulnerable to being “forced” in this regard might be grey area of provision of non-religious services. For example, two lesbians would have no standing to sue a church for refusing to marry them. They might have standing to sue for, say, that same church for refusing to rent its banquet hall to them for the reception.
Like this, for example. The fact that the couple couldn’t even win that one before a Canadian Human Rights tribunal which are often excessively friendly to claims of discrimination (using the rationale that their “remedial” nature permits it) demonstrates that American conservatives have little to fear from this sort of legislation.
They may appeal. But I haven’t found any information on whether they did or not.
Definitely Republicans have a hypocrisy problem with Craig and others, because of the moral standards they they believe in and the politicians’ failures in that regard.
Democrats, on the other hand, do not have this problem as they really don’t have standards when it comes to moral issues. They pretty much are OK with whatever anyone wants to do, so the hypocrisy issue doesn’t usually apply to them.
You may want to check out your definition of hypocrisy. Liberals do have morals, we just don’t require that everyone adhere to our own.However, we do concern ourselves with hypocrisy, namely in the disjuncture between what one professes and what one does.
Since we feel less compunction to cover up our moral positions on things, since there is less judgement on those of others as I said above, there is not so much of said disjuncture, and hence less hypocrisy.
Dana, your examples are irrelevant. Religious organizations aren’t exampt from any and all laws that conflict with their doctrine. Santeria practitioners have all sorts of problems with animal cruelty if they want to sacrifice a rooster. Mormons had to agree to live within US bigamy laws before Utah could become a state. Cases about employee benefits (one of which hasn’t even been filed yet) have nothing to do with churches being forced to perform rituals for people who, by church doctrine, are not eligible for them. The former may or may not be constitutional (the California Supreme Court is not the US Supreme Court, after all. The latter is not. Blatantly.
However, if such a waste of time of a law will actually win an ally, I’m all for it. Tell me how I can assist you in bringing about a law that will protect clergy from civil and criminal liability for refusing to perform a gay marriage (I work in a law office, and I will check for language that either protects clergy from other liability or discriminates against gay marriage itself), and I will do so. After you give me an agreement, in writing, under your real signature, that you will desist from your efforts against gay marriage. Even better will be showing me verifiable evidence of beginning to work for gay marriage. A receipt for a donation to an organization that supports gay marriage would be ideal.
Do we have a deal?
This is a fairly typical conservative argument, the rather repellent semantic game that American conservativess play around the word “morality”. In the mainstream media and conservative / right-wing / Christian discourse, the word is taken to mean, almost exclusively, sexual morality. Improper Sex = Immoral; Immoral = Improper Sex. A closed loop. Taken from such a foolish and limited starting point, a conservative is correct in stating that Democrats lack “morality”, in the way that a man in a hole is correct when he looks up at somebody on the ground and says, “you’re taller than me”.
The notion of “morality” having wider and more noble definitions (both as word and goal) escapes conservatives. What would such a wider definition be? A reasonable working start might be this: societal morality in its positive sense is the the proper, dignified personal, political and economic treatment of one’s fellow humans; societal morality in its negative sense is determining those acts which injure others and making them both illegal and socially unacceptable.. You’ll note that I said societal morality. Other kinds of morality within subgroups are inevitable, especially religious subgroups, (don’t each pork or god will hate you… that sort of thing).
This is where conservatives, especially religious conservatives, err. They believe that their particular subgroup morality is the same as societal morality and, if it isn’t, it should be made to be so. So-called sexual morality, absent harm to another, does not matter a great deal to liberals and progressives. You’re right, michael carr, we don’t have many standards in that regard because it is not up to us to set standards regarding things between consenting adults in a free society that are none of our business. We don’t tell divorced people that they can’t hold office, we don’t tell pork-eaters that they can’t own property, we don’t tell women that not wearing a burka merits a death sentence, and we don’t tell gay people that they can’t get a civil marriage. We care about civil liberties, which is where we can put the boots to the old canard that gays are seeking special privileges. They’re not. They are merely seeking basic civil rights and dignities that you and I take for granted.
Which brings us back to sex and “morality”. We have seen over the past few decades that liberals and progressives do care more about America’s constitution and thus its democracy, economic, judicial and legislative systems. Conservatives don’t mind if years of those magnificent achievements go down the tubes; they only care about telling people not to bonk. Liberals don’t give much of a damn about sexual identity or choices from a public policy level. Our morality is too caught up in things that do matter. We don’t believe that it’s right that your neighbour doesn’t have enough food to feed her kids, or will never be able to afford a life-saving operation which the citizen of every other first world country takes for granted. We think that everybody should be able to vote, to have their vote counted and to have that count determine who wins. We care about going to war when we need to, and not when a tiny group of men wants to and has to twist facts in order to launch a war that could not happen without the lies.
Deal with it.
Dear seeker6079,
You came up with 3 big paragraphs of gobbledegook about whatever. In the meantime, Ted Kennedy has been a senator for decades(Chapaquiddick), Barney Frank is still around, and Gerry Studds was reelected by his constituents after having sex with underage pages. Democrats don’t care about these things.
Democrats also have their leaders telling us not to drive SUVs, and use energy efficient light bulbs, while they live in 29,000 sq. ft. homes, fly around in Gulfstream jets, and have utility bills 20 times the normal household. That is hypocrisy.
“You came up with 3 big paragraphs of gobbledegook about whatever.”
Now that’s criticism. What about those big words? Do they also hurt your widdle noggin?
Wouldn’t be a big surprise, since you couldn’t keep to your line about hypocrisy not applying to Democrats (because they have no moral standards, y’see) for two whole posts.
Thanks Michael, for providing in one sentence the essence of conservatism: if things require intelligence to understand, conservatives either can’t or won’t address them. Bravo!Well, homosexuality is not a moral issue. Period. If you’re insisting that it is, in particular that being gay is immoral, you’re a bigot, pure and simple.
Begone bigot.
6079, well said…
BTW, does this new “silver biscuit” come with bigot or troll repellant? Or really cool bunny clips? (Haven’t figured out the secret decoder part yet)
Laugh at the fools. Pisses ‘em off.