Consistently against torture.
Who Would Jesus Vote For? gives 10 reasons why gay marriage is UnAmerican, including:
1. Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.
and
7. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
Now I feel informed.
via Reddit.
Sean Larson takes a look at how messy things get when we’re forced to live in a “separate, but not exactly equal” world of domestic partnerships:
I now pronounce you wife and wife. You may keep the alimony.
When Ron Garber’s ex-wife started living with another woman, he made his alimony payments. When she took the other woman’s last name as her own, he continued making the payments. When she entered into a domestic partnership with the other woman, meant to carry the same benefits as marriage, Garber decided that he was probably done with the alimony. After all, California law states that alimony stops when the person receiving the payments gets remarried, so Garber felt that he was in the right.
How do you think things worked out for Ron? Sean gives the rest of the story on his site.
AMERICAblog has posted John Edwards’ responses to the Human Rights Campaign’s survey of presidential candidates, and overall, looks very good, but the statement below by Edwards shows that he hasn’t quite come all the way to accepting gays as equals quite yet:
John Edwards on civil rights for gay and lesbian Americans
I believe that couples in committed, long-term relationships should have the same rights, benefits, and responsibilities, whether they are straight couples or same-sex couples.
To me, it sounds like Edwards is applying a higher standards to the relationships of same-sex couples than applies to opposite-sex couples. For example, opposite-sex couples don’t have to be committed or in a long-term relationship to get married, and immediately receive all of the legals rights bestowed upon them through marriage as soon as the ink dries.
Gay people will not be truly equal until their marriages can be as screwed up as those of opposite sex couples.
Savage is on point as he berates Mary Cheney for the hypocrisy of her sudden expectation of privacy for her gay family after enabling gay bashing to score political points as she worked for her father’s campaign:
You kept your mouth clamped shut when your father needed the political support of assholes like Dobson. And now that your dad is a despised lame-duck VP, dad’s gay-bashing political allies feel free to treat you with the same contempt with which they have long treated other gay and lesbians. And now you cry foul?
Cheney’s pregnancy and future family are going to move acceptance of gay families further to the right, which is a very good thing.
A lebsian couple lives on my block.
They have a son.
They don’t have family health coverage if they work as public employees of Tim Pawlenty.
They don’t deserve family health coverage if they listen to Michele Bachman.
The child is likely the dependent of only one of the two parents, so if one parent dies, it’s possible that the other mother who’s raised him would not receive custody of the child.
Mary Cheney knows this is absolutely insane, and Gay Jim Crow laws like “Domestic Partnerships” are nothing but discriminatory concessions by people who aren’t ready to accept people for what they are.
Cheney has press access, a great story to tell, and could change America’s thinking on issues like this a LOT faster than would otherwise happen if she cared to.
Will she? So far, sadly, no.
Looks like Mrs. Perfect’s been busy reporting on all the dangers we face in the world today. Last time, it was the dangers caused by women holding positions of power in the Catholic church, which is someone ironic coming from a woman in some sort of a non-official role associated with the church.
Now we hearing from Mrs. Perfect (seriously, that’s her real name) about the dangers our children our face when educated by a gay teacher who happens to read a story about a child with two mommies like Mary Cheney’s child will have. Apparently, the teacher mentioned that he plans to adopt a child. Imagine the . . . um . . . horror?
I figure you probably think I’m making this up, so head on over to mfc.org to see the story. Here’s a link to it, but it looks out of context with no navigation when linked to directly because their web site was probably built by someone who went to a school that didn’t have science, and computer science was close enough to be considered dangerous.
Back to the story: It’s stuff like this that makes me understand why such a large percentage of home schooled children are indeed home schooled. There is simply no way parents who are offended by something so mundane could make it through a school year. If parents think there children are being harmed by hearing reality based stories read by teachers, or personal stories about adoption, they’re going to need to shelter their children.
Both parties win through homeschooling. Schools can get back to educating children rather than dealing with irrational controversies, and parents who will never be satisfied with schools that focus on educating their children the only way they see fit.
Mary Cheney’s pregnant. Congratulations, Ms. Cheney. I hope you and your long term non-legally bound partner the best of luck. I’m sure you realize that your partner will have no rights to your child, may not be able to visit you in the hospital during childbirth, may not receive custody of your child should you happen to die before your child turns 18, and probably wouldn’t receive life insurance benefits since you can’t get married due to the political positions taken by the people who elected your father.
What will life be like for the Vice President’s grandchild? Will he or she grow up in a world where his or her parents relationship is considered second class? Dick Cheney has stated that issues like gay marriage should be left up to states to decide. Will Mary Cheney and her partner continue to live in Virginia, or will they move their family (thus jobs and taxes) to a more gay-friendly state? While Cheney clearly has the resources to do so, is that the best option we have today for gay couples?
I stumbled across this snippet of illogic over at AmericaBlog:
Carrie Gordon Earll, a policy analyst for the conservative Christian ministry Focus on the Family, expressed empathy for the Cheney family but depicted the newly announced pregnancy as unwise.
“Just because you can conceive a child outside a one-woman, one-man marriage doesn’t mean it’s a good idea,” said. “Love can’t replace a mother and a father.”
It’s hard to find more ass-backwards than that. Can a mother and a father replace love? Based on Earll’s logic, Mary Cheney’s child should be taken from what would likely be a loving relationship in a stable lesbian partnership and given to a married hetrosexual couple.
Potential loophole. Should gay male couples get together with gay lesbian couples, have two legally binding male-female marriages, then go back to living their content gay lives?
Live Savage, I can’t understand why people are threatened by providing equality of other humans living in this country. Will hetrosexual couples refuse to marry and procreate if homosexuals can marry? Who could possibly say yes?
Same-Sex Marriage Wins by Losing – New York Times
When my widowed grandfather remarried in his 60’s, he wasn’t seeking to further the well-being of his children, who were grown and out of the house. He was seeking the security, companionship and legal rights that marriage provides. The survival of humankind was the furthest thing from his mind.
These defeats have demoralized supporters of gay marriage, but I see a silver lining. If heterosexual instability and the link between heterosexual sex and human reproduction are the best arguments opponents of same-sex marriage can muster, I can’t help but feel that our side must be winning. Insulting heterosexuals and discriminating against children with same-sex parents may score the other side a few runs, but these strategies won’t win the game.