Two-thirds of Republican voters haven’t made up their minds about who to vote for in the upcoming primaries, but right now Mitt Romney and Herman Cain are in a dead heat, followed by Rick Perry at a distant third. And despite the fact that 58% of Republican voters would like the gay marriage issue dropped in favor of focusing on more pressing, important things, nobody is dropping it. It’s just that it’s so much more fun than talking about the economy!
On Sunday, Herman Cain appeared on MEET THE PRESS, where he mentioned that he’d let the states decide on same-sex marriage. Many conservative pundits are concerned about this position.
Forget the complete technical fallacy of his “9-9-9” plan! Forget his absurd assuredness that the disillusioned masses will “rally around tax reform where the wealthy pay less and middle-class and lower-income folks pay more”! Forget the fact that he’s never held any executive office of government! What’ll really do Cain in is the fact that he’s not in favor of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
GREGORY: Same-sex marriage. Would you seek a constitutional ban for same-sex marriage?
CAIN: I wouldn’t seek a constitutional ban for same-sex marriage, but I am pro-traditional marriage.
GREGORY: But you would let the states make up their own mind as they’re doing now?
CAIN: They would make up their own minds, yes.
Upon hearing this, Rick Santorum, the Duke of Hate, apparently immediately emailed Jennifer Rubin, author of The Washington Post‘s “Right Turn” column, which “offers reported opinion from a conservative perspective.” Rubin quotes Santorum’s email:
“I have been a longtime supporter of states’ rights. However, I believe, as Abraham Lincoln dd, that states do not have the right to legalize moral wrongs.”
Aw, that ‘ol Abe Lincoln character, telling states they didn’t have the right to let the majority vote on the freedom and humanity of the minority. Abraham Lincoln, that guy who thought it was wrong for human beings to enslave other human beings, regardless of how the people profiting from slave labor felt about it.
Just like Rick Santorum. He continued:
“Mr. Cain, Governor Perry and Congresswoman Bachmann all believe 50 different definitions of marriage is fine. But I strongly disagree and will continue fighting for traditional marriage between one man and one woman.”
Rubin also spoke to Penny Nance, executive director of Concerned Women for America:
“States need an opportunity to choose a constitutional amendment. I find it disappointing Herman Cain doesn’t see this as a viable option and is missing this opportunity… I think he will find that position problematic.”
Rubin (very busy, this one!) then spoke to Christian conservative leader Gary Bauer, who said:
“His answer misses the whole point. The left will not permit each state to decide. They have mounted a well conceived plan to have the federal courts order every state to recognize the same sex marriages performed in every other state. The Defence of Marriage Act prevents that now. Eventually a constitutional amendment will be needed.”
Rubin points out that Rick Perry took the same position Cain is taking in his book but has since changed his tune. Perry’s publicist:
“Governor Perry is a strong advocate for traditional marriage between one man and one woman. Furthermore, Governor Perry supports a federal marriage amendment defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Governor Perry was the lead advocate for such an amendment to the Texas Constitution — an amendment that Texas voters overwhelmingly approved. Until the day comes when our U.S. Constitution is amended to say the same thing, Governor Perry believes that states should have the right to make their voice heard on this issue.”
Therefore Rubin seems somewhat suspicious of Governor Perry but is far more suspicious of Cain, because Cain is not in favor of seeking a constitutional amendment. However, she adds: “As a practical matter and for the foreseeable future, Cain and Perry are on the same page because a constitutional amendment is not in the offing any time soon (and likely ever).”
rick perry pondering how much he hates gay people
That’s a valid point, but it’s worth mentioning that we’ve already got The Defense of Marriage Act, which the Obama administration has refused to defend in court and which it seems Rick Perry would be willing to defend, were he in charge.
Perhaps the right is flipping out that DOMA might get overturned and would like to immediately replace it with a stronger, more universally oppressive amendment. After all, DOMA is currently being challenged in court — but Team Totally Wrong is standing their ground that DOMA is constitutional. They’re arguing that gays & lesbians shouldn’t count as a “suspect class” subject to “scrutiny,” (Conditions required to prove that DOMA is not a reaction to logic or science or facts but rather has been driven by discrimination against gay people.)
Here’s Team Totally Wrong’s explanation on why gays aren’t suspect to heightened scrutiny:
“A spate of recent news stories only confirms the conclusion that homosexuals are far from politically powerless,” the filing says, arguing that the court should deny Golinski’s motion for summary judgment in her favor. “Accordingly, gays and lesbians cannot be labeled ‘politically powerless’ without draining that phrase of all meaning.”
Anyhow, despite Rubin’s skepticism, Rick Perry is standing by his homophobia and anti-gay policies against all odds. Rick Perry’s wife Anita Perry says it’s been a rough month for them as they’ve “been brutalized and eaten up and chewed up in the press” for brutalizing and eating up and chewing up homosexuals. Specifically, Perry recently equated homosexuality with alcoholism.
Speaking at North Greenville University in South Carolina last Thursday, Anita said:
“It is a comfort to know that I am in this place where I can feel the presence of God. We are being brutalized by our opponents, and our own party. So much of that is, I think they look at him because of his faith… We still feel called to do this… We didn’t have to do this. We are doing this because we want to do this. Because we want to save our children…we are fighting for the soul of our country.”
Rick Perry is fighting for the soul of our country! OUR SOUL, YOU GUYS.
What about Mitt Romney? Does he hate gay people enough? Well, Obama’s strategist David Axelrod has feelings about Mitt Romney’s flip-flopping on gay rights. On Sunday, Axelrod appeared on ABC’s This Week, where he was asked if he thinks Romney will be the GOP nominee this year. Axlerod said it seems Romney’s campaign is “stuck in neutral” and blames this stagnant state of affairs on “this question about what his core principles are.”
Axlerod pointed out that while running for Massachusetts governor and U.S. Senate, Romney was “a pro-choice, pro gay rights, pro environmental candidate” and now, running as a GOP candidate for president, he’s suddenly anti-choice, anti-gay rights and anti environment. Axelrod answered: “If I were Governor Romney, I’d be worried about all these changes in position and what kind of message that sends to voters.”
If you’ve not yet seen it, Romney’s performance in the 1994 Senate Debate will blow your head open:
But of course, to bring it back around, if there’s one candidate who we know won’t budge on the issue, it’s Rick Santorum. I read an interesting column in the SFGate today called We Need More Pro-Family Policies by E.J Dionne, which addresses issues Santorum raised in last week’s debate about “the breakdown of the American family.” Santorum said:
“You want to look at the poverty rate among families that have … a husband and wife working in them? It’s 5 percent today. A family that’s headed by one person? It’s 30 percent today. We need to do something.”
WHADDYA KNOW?!! Two people earn more money than one person! Huzzah! I hope Santorum didn’t have to pull out his calculator for that one. Anyhow, Santorum did a little more academic heavy lifting when he shared that “the word ‘home’ in Greek is the basis of the word ‘economy.” Furthermore, he thinks we need “a policy that supports families, that encourages marriage, that has fathers take responsibility for their children. You can’t have a wealthy society if the family breaks down.”
What’s breaking down the family, Rick Santorum? Same-sex marriage, duh!
If same-sex marriage becomes the norm, “marriage then becomes, to some degree, meaningless.” Forget that obviously same-sex couples, unable to accidentally get pregnant, are some of the best candidates when adoption and foster agencies seek to place neglected children into a two-parent household.
Also every child DOES have a father. All of them do. That’s how babies are made. And last I heard, there wasn’t an Absentee Fathers Coalition refusing to return to their families or pay child support until same-sex marriage is made illegal nationwide again.
E.J Dionne points out: “Before we ask what is to be done, what we shouldn’t do is blame gays and lesbians for disrupting the heterosexual family. We straight people have done a fine job of this all by ourselves.”
Dionne suggests that for a more pro-family society, we ought to look at our policies on sick leave and family leave, which are “among the most antifamily in the developed world” and also look at making tax policies more helpful to families raising children, which he points out “can’t be yet another excuse for cutting taxes on the wealthy.”
Anyhow, those are good points and lest I diverge from the topic of this post — Republican Points — I’ll just wrap it up by telling you that today GOP Hopeful Michele Bachmann will be traveling to Arizona, where she’ll be discussing her plan to erect a fence around Mexico.
“I have been a longtime supporter of states’ rights. However, I believe, as Abraham Lincoln dd, that states do not have the right to legalize moral wrongs.”
Great! Another slimy politician invoking images of slavery to sell their illogical/bigoted/dumb ass point. Rick Santorum is as vile as it gets. So, either he, and others, think that slavery was simply a states’ rights issue or that marriage equality is somehow comparable to slavery. I can’t decide which pisses me off more.
Don’t you know that the whole Civil War was only about state’s rights? And economic freedom for the South? This slavery pish-posh was a distraction.
Marriage equality will only enslave the hetero community into accepting us homos. That’s not fair!
I wish I had that sarcasm font. And I like using the word pish-posh.
Didn’t you guys see the clip where someone asked Perry about Martin Luther King Jr and Perry replied that he supported MLK’s message from freedom, including freedom from taxation? D’oh. I give these guys props for staying on message, but maybe now they need to learn when to go OFF message when asked about civil rights heroes.
how do these idiots manage to feed themselves?
Sometimes, when I see your posts, I want to change my avatar to a picture of Quinn Morgendorfer, and reply to whatever you’ve said in some sort of Quinn-esque way. But, then, I remember that would be too much effort.
Yea, but Herman Cain is gonna erect an ELECTRIC FENCE plus some unspecified “technology” to keep folks outta the US. Beat that, Michelle! All of them = idiots.
i feel like the GOP platform is to make people located in specific geographic areas poor and angry enough that they’re vulnerable to GOP propaganda about how the liberal elites have ruined washington and think they’re better than everyone else. aside from the obvious things like private health care and lower taxes for rich people, all their social policies are totally backwards –
+ abstinence-only education and illegalizing abortion: increasing likelihood of children born into poverty or homes otherwise unable to support a child, thus putting burden on the state to care for the children
+ making gay adoption illegal: increasing likelihood of foster or otherwise unparented children being cared for by the government instead of foster parents or adoptive parents
+ cracking down on federal drug laws: the marijuana industry has provided a lot of good jobs for people in states where it’s legal, cracking down on those employers will kill those jobs, increase foreign drug trade and lead to more people in jail on the state’s dollar for buying/selling
+ stopping immigration: increasingly likelihood american business owners won’t have anyone to do their less desirable jobs like fruit-picking, forcing them to outsource and employ people overseas or go out of business
+ making gay marriage illegal: wiping out the potential growth industry the gay marriage business has provided in many states
It’s just really hard to swallow, all of this
I was reading your whole list and before finishing it I took a screen cap of it. Because, seriously, that’s one rad list to carry with me and throw at people when they are being stupid. Then, I read the last sentence in your post.
…
Is it terrible that the first thing I thought was “That’s what ze said about Santorum! GET IT?!” This is what my brain does from time to time when I read about the GOP, it reverts to my (always gender-neutral loving) 13 year old self.
As the rush-ites would say, ” MEGA DITTOS.”
“Forget that obviously same-sex couples, unable to accidentally get pregnant, are some of the best candidates when adoption and foster agencies seek to place neglected children into a two-parent household.
Also every child DOES have a father. All of them do. That’s how babies are made.”
Assuming that both the gay people are cis, yes. Sometimes there are babies that truely have two mothers!
So I was just starting to skim this rather than read it because it was depressing me, when… Soul Eater! O_O Liz and Patti actually look rather nice in black…
…Sorry, I don’t actually have anything valuable to say.
The GOP thoroughly alarms and confuses me. Their economic policies, their social policies…. Hell, pretty much every policy they’ve put forth in an attempt to win this upcoming nomination for the next federal election makes me very, very sad, and very, very scared. I’m tired of being scared and sad.
What the fuck, Mitt. What the fuck. We need a time machine to bring back the guy from 1994 because that one at least sounds like he has a soul.
Look at this: http://www.signorile.com/2007/09/happy-pride-from-mitt-williard-mitt.html
Romney’s people handed this out in Provincetown back in the day.
Ouch. The absurdity of the GOP hurts even more than the anti-depressant currently stuck in my esophagus
“‘a policy that supports families, that encourages marriage, that has fathers take responsibility for their children. You can’t have a wealthy society if the family breaks down.'”
I accept that I am not a mental heavyweight like Rick, but, well, am really struggling to understand how this is incompatible with same-sex marriage?
That Romney video is interesting. I’ve really wanted Romney to win because if he does somehow win the general, he is clearly more moderate than the other GOP picks (despite his lurch to the right). It will be tough for a guy like him to get out of a GOP primary. The thing is, I worry that he may be a stronger general election candidate than the others. I mean, he’s sort of uptight and fake-seeming, and he is a Mormon (no offense to all you Mormon gays, but Mormonism has some seriously nutso beliefs involved), but he also seems measured and moderate, which I think the American people would prefer.
I mean, Perry seems like a strong leader, a tough guy, maybe a down-to-earth charmy fella, but after G.W. will the American people elect someone so anti-intellectual and seemingly blindly stubborn in partisan principles?
Will they elect Ron Paul, who legitimately believes in crazy conspiracy theories?
Will they elect any of the other bozos that no one is even talking about?
Anyway, if they want to talk about gay marriage, I say who cares. Anytime where they aren’t talking about creating jobs and fixing the economy is time wasted, if you ask me. This will probably be the last presidential election they can really try to use the gay marriage wedge issue. Let them have this one.
Some sick part of me wants one of the idiots to get elected just to see what (s)he would do. Have you heard Herman Cain’s alligator-moat-Mexico-US-border plan? The 9-9-9 tax deal is exactly what an ex-CEO of a pizza chain would come up with too. Rick Perry? He won’t get anything done on Sundays and if there’s a revival, that’s a whole weekend. Then he can get history wrong on international TV and call it a week.
Only the small masochistic part of me with a dark sense of humor wants to see this. The part of me that wants to live past the age of 30 doesn’t.
This should not even be an issue but if people supposedly defending traditional marriage should really regroup as not to look like hypocrites.
Oh the GOP. You’ve never made any sense to me.
Also, interesting that they would pick Abraham Lincoln as support towards their anti-gay policies. Poor Abe. They do not see the irony.
Yeah, it’s weird especially considering the slight controversy about what happened between Lincoln and Speed.
Exactly.
‘Rick Perry’s wife Anita Perry says it’s been a rough month for them as they’ve “been brutalized and eaten up and chewed up in the press“ for brutalizing and eating up and chewing up homosexuals’
*note to self: do NOT read AS in the ‘silent study zone’ ever again… it is not a place that is open to laughter*
What I’m most upset about is that I’ve been out for like four years and no one has given me the world destroying gay-agenda I keep hearing about.
Also, I’m sick of both sides… whatever happened to personal and public accountability?
Hate the fact I won’t be 18 until after elections… Oh well, it is cool that my mom hates hearing about politicians who think that marriage is only one man and one woman. I loved the cartoon of the legal, legal, illegal. Definitely forwarding that and the first picture to friends:]
I know this article is from a comedy website but this is the best piece of writing about the REAL meaning of marriage I have ever seen:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-you-know-its-time-to-get-married/
It’s written by a straight guy, but, you know, change the pronouns.
I thought this was relevant because of all the discussion about what marriage is ‘supposed to be’. As far as I’m concerned, marriage is ‘supposed to be’ about love.
“RICK PERRY PONDERING HOW MUCH HE HATES GAY PEOPLE”
gahahah