GOP: bash gays, forget economy
Posted on Thursday, May 12, 2011 at 09:54 AM
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There's no need for the Republican party to focus on Americas economy; forget the threat of terrorism or rising education costs or the pain of high taxation.
Trust the GOP to know what's really important: gay marriage.
Soon they'll start every Congressional meeting by passing a gay marriage amendment.
Just look at Minnesota. They have already defined that marriage is between one man and one woman in a state statute, but this week their GOP controlled senate approved a ballot to allow voters to - you guessed it - constitutionally ban same sex marriage.
Who knew the land o'lakes was such a hot bed of sodomy? Who could have dreamed that the biggest threat now facing the state was the prospect of Adam and Steve shacking up together?
What this suggests to me is that the GOP is desperate, in panic mode in fact. This looks like a transparent political ploy, a big carrot if you will, to inspire the religious right to go to the polls in a desperate attempt to ensure Obama does not win Minnesota in 2012.
It's a pointless exercise, though, since eventually this - and all - anti-gay amendments will most likely be struck down on Fourteenth Amendment grounds.
But in the meantime gay bashing is still a handy vote getter for the GOP. And in the process we get to see who's putting hate to a vote. All those senators’ names will go on record and straight into the history books where they will be remembered for their crassness and their pathetic pandering.
How can we claim to stand against bullying and discrimination in the schoolyard when parents are doing it in the Congress and Senate? How many of us can still maintain that marriage is being “attacked” when our nearest neighbor Canada already has full gay marriage and no such onslaught has occurred?
Minnesota's neighboring state of Iowa already has marriage equality for gays and frankly not one heterosexual marriage can claim to have been affected by it. So it's quite clear that it's bias that's created this ballot.
Minnesota's neighboring state of Iowa already has marriage equality for gays and frankly not one heterosexual marriage can claim to have been affected by it. So it's quite clear that it's bias that's created this ballot.
I have friends in Minnesota and I have to say they're among the kindest, most tolerant and tough-minded people I have ever met. I’ve never met a Minnesotan I didn’t like.
I can't believe this just happened in their state.
I can't believe this just happened in their state.
37 Comments
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Pittsburghkid | May 15, 2011, 02:49 PM EDT
You have it wrong the Tea Party is gratiful for homosexuals. In every state that homosexuals campaign for rights the state turns Red. How could the Tea Party afford such good campaigner such as the homosexuals. The homosexuals are going to turn America into Tea Party Red.
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eiriamach | May 15, 2011, 08:25 AM EDT
jgdawson, thank you for your insightful reading of scripture. A 2008 article ("Why Not? Scripture, History, & Women's Ordination") in "Commonweal" by Robert J. Egan, SJ is also worth reading for its treatment of tradition: "the religious idea of tradition does not mean 'whatever happened.' All kinds of things have happened in church history-- some fortunate and some unfortunate, some glorious and some infamous--including a great many sins,... We all believe that God is at work in our history, but not in a way that diminishes our freedom or manipulates our choices. The Christian God is not a puppeteer. We believe the Holy Spirit makes its presence felt in our tradition, but the Holy Spirit is always free to do a new thing in our midst. Unbroken continuity might mean fidelity to God's grace; or it might mean stubborn persistence in our refusal of grace. By itself it doesn't prove anything.... The mere fact that the church has always ... said or done something a certain way does not in itself preclude critical reflection, spiritual discernment, even radical change-- or even reversal. This is apparently difficult for some Catholics to acknowledge or accept. But it isn't a theory. It is merely a fact of church history.... A library card and an open mind are all that are needed to confirm it.... That should teach us something about not trying to bind the future to the current stage of our own comprehension."
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seanomelbourne | May 14, 2011, 07:49 PM EDT
I wish you would keep your false Gods and right wing politicians out of the bedroom.
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jgdawson | May 14, 2011, 04:32 PM EDT
@eiriamach. Although I hear your desire for equality both for women and gays,I'm not going to wade into this quagmire of an argument as eventually it becomes a matter of opinion and judgement as each party fails to allow the other to have a differing opinion. What I want to address is your hurt and misunderstanding of scripture that has obviously been used a weapon or judgement stick against you or those you love. First, the bible does not teach that men are inherently better or are to control women as you alluded to in a previous post. I agree that those who have interpreted scripture that way have sought to control and manipulate just as the Pharasees did in the time of Jesus. But a careful study of God's word shows that God created man and woman in His image (i.e. represented only half of His character and attributes). Therefore, they Man and Woman are co-regents, join-heirs and responsible to represent their creator equally. Going back to the Eph 5 verse, this has been mistranslated for generations. Women only have to "submit" or come beside their husbands, husbands are to be willing to die or sacrifice for their wives, put their needs and wants first. Do you think it is possible for wives to actually want to come under the leadership of that type of man? Finally, I want to apologize and ask you forgiveness for the men and church leaders who have used the word as a means to control, abuse and otherwise prevent bright, intelligent women from assuming their rightful place as co-regents in the Kingdom. I also want to say that those who judged you or those you love do not represent the King or His Kingdom but the "religious" Pharasees of our day. Just remember, the ONLY people Jesus criticized in all the new Testament were the very same Pharasees who used the law to control rather than protect the people they were assigned to protect. Regards!
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AengusOg | May 14, 2011, 04:19 PM EDT
Marriage should be taken out of government terminology. Governments should simply process 'partnerships' of every description. Leave the fight over the term 'marriage' in the streets.
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eiriamach | May 14, 2011, 12:30 PM EDT
The argument for same-sex marriage is a strong one, based on justice. Over the centuries, we've written privileges and mutual obligations into marriage law. Married couples have favored tax status, favored insurance and inheritance status, and shared responsibility for the welfare of their children (although many children are now growing up in poverty because we cannot consistently count on men not to abandon and withdraw support from wives and offspring). The argument from justice that you need to reply to, then, is this: Fairness requires that the benefits bestowed by the state on spouses be equally available to every adult in a committed relationship. To exclude committed gays and lesbians from these benefits is inimical to justice; it treats some as unworthy of the rights and privileges that our form of government purports to defend equally for all (and thus it is also opposed to the law of God or natural law or whatever objective standard you wish to apply).
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eiriamach | May 14, 2011, 12:18 PM EDT
Gearoid4 writes, "The conviction that marriage is *solely* intended for one man and one woman as a union intended for mutual love and procreation is common to societies on a global scale." I have not denied that marriage throughout time has been a moral good insofar as it provides a stable environment for rearing children. But it is narrow indeed to consider this child-rearing function as definitive of marriage. Today women and men have lived less than half their lifetimes at the point that their child-rearing responsibilities end. Many, many marriages do not lead to procreation at all. My great-great-grandmother (born in 1798) gave birth 14 times, and even she was, at the time of her death, twice the age she had been when she last gave birth and all of her children were middle-aged at least. To confine your definition of marriage to those who are having and rearing children is ridiculous, and to base the rationale for marriage on childbearing is to denigrate human sexuality. If the sole rationale for marriage were child-rearing, then marriages would naturally end when the last child leaves for college or work, yet spouses still promise "till death do us part," don't they?
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eiriamach | May 14, 2011, 11:55 AM EDT
Gearoid4: What "argument"? All I see below is pontificating. No one has offered any argument remotely having to do with either religion or moral reasoning. (And as olovely and others point out, if it's a matter of social or political policy in the USA, we require sound moral reasoning, not an assertion of religious "authority.") Those who protest same-sex marriage here simply toss around words like "God" and now "milennia of tradition and religious ethos." Yes, there have been "millenia of tradition and religious ethos"--including, most notably, in your own religion--those that popes have invoked to rationalize race slavery, genocide of Jews and Muslims, burning at the stake for heretics and "witches," condemnation of democracy and freedom of conscience, exclusion of women from leadership, and, as I pointed out, control of women by men. Since ancient times, tolerant and enlightened societies have not interfered with homosexual unions. And Christ said not a single recorded word about homosexuality. You have offered no argument from revelation or moral principle or anything else against extending equal rights to homosexuals, so just what IS the argument you think I have ignored? I have called the rants of you and others what they appear to be: control- freak hysteria over the idea of marriage no longer representing the control of male over female.
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Gearoid4 | May 14, 2011, 08:42 AM EDT
@eiriamach,
Your idiotic dismissal of concerns of those who oppose the concept of gay marriage as 'cr*p' shows a low level of intellectual engagement with the argument. People who are not in favor of it are sincere in their beliefs and have a millennia of
tradition and religious ethos to back them up. The conviction that marriage is solely intended for one man and one woman as a union intended for mutual love and procreation is common to societies on a global scale. It is a lazy argument to call such people homophobes due to the above and other reasons.
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eiriamach | May 14, 2011, 07:53 AM EDT
This cr*p about marriage being "between one man and one woman" and "it's about religion and the Bible and the abomination to God part" shows such incredible self-delusion! Men who oppose same-sex marriage have a need to control, and they are drawn to religions that tell them it's "natural" for men to control women! That's the official ideology pushed by their brand of religion since Paul wrote that unfortunate comparison between the head of the church and the "head" of the family: "Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything" (Eph. 5:23). Women have always known that the man-controls-woman idea was an unnatural crock of s**t. And now same-sex marriage shows the world that adults can make lifetime commitments to each other based on love and equality and without superior/ inferior gender roles. Ooooh! That's a scary idea to the control freaks at IC: marriage without someone "strong" in control and someone "weak" for him to control? They cannot see the point. it seems "unnatural" to them. I should feel sorry for their wives, but I cannot believe any woman would be stupid enough or self-hating enough to marry one of these homophobes.
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olovely | May 13, 2011, 03:02 PM EDT
The majority of Americans have never read the bible and they certainly don't follow its commandments. US law doesn't find its mandate in the bible and never has. Gays want equality under the law; people who live according to laws written in the Bronze Age are free to make their own arrangements.
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feeneycj | May 13, 2011, 01:11 PM EDT
olovely, separation of church and state? you mean you want gays to have a church and state sanctioned marriage in the biblical sense and accepted same as a man and woman is accepted in the Bible.
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feeneycj | May 13, 2011, 01:08 PM EDT
I agree JohnKinMD, a civil union is what gays have, not a marriage. They need to get the terminology straight.
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olovely | May 13, 2011, 11:02 AM EDT
Putting an unfavoured minority's rights to a public vote is disguesting. Shame on the GOP for baiting and bashing gays for votes.
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