Gay Marriage and 2A....

[JAD]

Those of us who support religious freedom and the right to life could say the same thing about the second amendment issue.

[GardoneVT]

IMHO
The republican party has made 2 major tactical errors, 1)anti gay rhetoric, 2)anti abortion rhetoric.
In both cases you alienate people that might vote pro business, pro 2nd amendment if they were not, being condemned on the 1 hand(gays), and told how to deal with their bodies (women/ anti abortion).

Both women and gays have the right and need of the means to protect themselves like anybody else. Many also own businesses. This might tend to make them vote conservative/republican if they were not being subjected to anti gay and anti abortion rhetoric.

I think that the republican party loses more votes than it gains doing the anti gay , anti abortion stand.

Behold, the Schrodinger's Party dilemma.Either the GOP ceases its championship of "traditional" anti GLBT/anti Feminism and is abandoned by voters yearning for the 1950's again, or it maintains its current contrarian position and becomes abandoned by voters under 44.

[JTQ]

I tend to believe the Republican presidential candidates have lost more votes during their last four losses because they weren't conservative enough rather than because they were too conservative.

[LostDuke]

I agree Sir. One point regarding my earlier comment about Greece. There are two big factors that distinguish us from the Greeks. First, the dollar is the reserve currency. Second, we can print money.

...


One last point, I was invited to leave this country if I felt it so bad. This is a common progressive suggestion and quite ignorant. As COL Jessup once said, "You like me on that wall, you need me on that wall." Guys like me form the tax basis for the progressives. When we leave, the shit gets real - just ask California and Greece.

Allow me to clarify my comments and to add a further one that fits into my point.

When Bush won the election against Al Gore I heard the same kind of cries here in New England. We are doomed, welfare will be dismantled, the economy will be destroyed by greed, you name it. At the time, I told the same things I am telling you now, because I think people that make all this fuss about the other side winning are so boring and in the end always wrong.

Bush did mistakes, Obama did mistakes. Both got some things right and guess what? In the end there was no End, we are still doing fine. Would it have been better without Bush invading Iraq and setting up a mess like no tomorrow? Would it have been better had Obama showed any inkling of having a clue about the Middle East? Yes, of course.

But the point is we are still here, still doing well. Obama was supposed to start a Caliphate on the Potomac, and if that was the plan he sure is a patient fellow. Gas was supposed to go $6, our military to crumble and our cities to go to dust while we were being disarmed and raped by Talibans on the same day.

Enough already, from one side and the other. Elections that are always won are not elections, are a travesty. Ask the Russians who is going to win next. I don't want that, so it means I have to be prepared to loose some, win some. I think we would all be better off if we'd be willing to listen to the other side and willing to tone it down a notch.

The other side is made of Americans too, you know? They love their country just as much as you, and you should respect that. My son is headed to Kuwait on a Blackhawk and is a fervent democratic supporter. Is he not on the wall enough for you? Is not a good citizen enough for you? Do you think you know something he does not? Please.

The last point is in reference to your comments on Greece. Yes we can print money, but I think what we have over Europe is not that. Collectively they can print all the money they want just as much as we can. The difference is that our union is enormously stronger, a compact like no other on this planet. There is our strength, and that is why I remain optimistic, and I will remain optimistic no matter who wins the next election.

[BaiHu]

Since the left controls the media and mediation of presidential elections, I'd say the bigger problem is nary a Republican can keep on message with "that's a state's right issue and I'll never engage in social engineering, because that's not the job of the president." Instead they always get caught up in the "litmus" questions.

For the record, which Republican has ended abortion or destroyed gay rights? Oh, that's right, none.

I like what Limbaugh said recently and I paraphrase: "Republicans used to be the party of opposition, but now they're are the party of fine tuning the liberal agenda. They exist solely to sell socialist ideas to their conservative base."

[Jeep]

let me state clearly and unequivocally that mixing as you do pederasts with consenting adults is introducing a criminal element that has nothing to do with discussing the right of gays to marry.

looseduke: If you go back and look at what I said, I wasn't addressing same-sex marriage in those passages. I was specifically addressing your point on repression and your pointing to Alan Turing--neither of which dealt directly with same-sex marriage. My point on that was simple--the history of repression to which you pointed is more complex than I think you credited.

[cclaxton]

Friend of mine has a blog post up on the topic: Same sex marriage, Tolerance, MYOB, Get Off My Lawn & the Constitution

As for me:
1) The Constitution of the United States does not give the Federal Government any role in defining, authorizing, or outlawing marriage between two (or more) consenting adults of any variety that I have been able to find.
a) It does give Congress the power to regulate Interstate Commerce. While the wedding industry is certainly lucrative, I don't think it can rightly fall under the definition of "Commerce."
b) It is true that Congress, and SCOTUS, have taken a fairly broad interpretation of "Interstate Commerce". Somehow, even though my bank and my insurance company are forbidden from doing business across state lines, the Interstate Commerce clause justifies the travesty formerly known as ObamaCare, now SCOTUSCare.
2) The Ninth Amendment says that "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
3) The Tenth Amendment says that "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Personally, FWIW, I believe in a strict interpretation of the Constitution. If it ain't covered, and one must strain at gnats to put it there, it ain't there. Universality of my driver's license can easily be read into the Interstate Commerce clause. And if I'm traveling, the legality of the device with which I choose to exercise my Second Amendment rights across a probably arbitrary line could be as well. (Certainly there have been enough violations of FOPA by the NY/NJ Port Authority over the years to justify a Federal Case...)
(Although Constitutional Overreach on the subject of marriage has a long, dishonorable history: The two planks on which the Republican Party was founded were 1) Freeing the slaves, and 2) Telling Brigham Young he had to pick one and divorce the rest.)

This would be a better argument if the Federal Gov't didn't already assert authority to regulate marriage: The IRS provides a Married, and Married Filing Jointly filing status, the Congress has passed a number of laws regulating marriage or marital status. Moreover, the 14th Amendment requires that no state shall deny any citizens equal protection of the laws. Marriage is a legal contract. (Yes, there can be a religious aspect to marriage, but that is optional and not the legal part of the relationship.)

But for me this is about FREEDOM. Here in America we pride ourselves on being the most free society: Freedom of Speech, of Expression, of The Press, of Assembly, of Association, to own and use firearms. To me the ability to marry someone who you love and want to marry is about the FREEDOM to do that. Just like the FREEDOM to own firearms and to carry and to defend ourselves. We may not agree with homosexuality, but I would hope we all agree in the FREEDOM to marry who we choose.
Cody

[Robinson]

IMHO
The republican party has made 2 major tactical errors, 1)anti gay rhetoric, 2)anti abortion rhetoric.

In both cases you alienate people that might vote pro business, pro 2nd amendment if they were not, being condemned on the 1 hand(gays), and told how to deal with their bodies (women/ anti abortion).

Both women and gays have the right and need of the means to protect themselves like anybody else. Many also own businesses. This might tend to make them vote conservative/republican if they were not being subjected to anti gay and anti abortion rhetoric.

I think that the republican party loses more votes than it gains doing the anti gay , anti abortion stand.

Those two issues are not the same. If a politician (or any person) truly feels abortion amounts to the destruction of a human life then he or she should stand against it, election results be damned.

Leaving the side issue of child raising out of it, gay marriage doesn't hurt anyone and the GOP should just move on.

[HCM]

Those two issues are not the same. If a politician (or any person) truly feels abortion amounts to the destruction of a human life then he or she should stand against it, election results be damned.

Leaving the side issue of child raising out of it, gay marriage doesn't hurt anyone and the GOP should just move on.

Well said.

[OnionsAndDragons]

Those two issues are not the same. If a politician (or any person) truly feels abortion amounts to the destruction of a human life then he or she should stand against it, election results be damned.

Leaving the side issue of child raising out of it, gay marriage doesn't hurt anyone and the GOP should just move on.

I agree that one should try and make actions line up with beliefs. If a politician genuinely believes that abortion is the killing of a human, they should take a stance against it. What I think does these folks great disservice is the stances they take.

You can't reasonably try and force law based solely on religious thinking upon an entire population that is comprised of many secular peoples and those of vastly differing religious beliefs. That's one problem.

An even greater problem is the Republican party's seeming desire to increase the likelihood of our youth to be put in positions where an abortion seems like a logical decision. If Republicans would get with the program and the facts, stop pushing abstinence only sexual ed, and properly inform kids about prevention and risk, then I could take them seriously regarding a stance against abortion.

Most other developed nations have far better teen pregnancy numbers than we do. They also have factual education about sex and reproduction, and preventive methods, that is widely and easily available to the people at greatest risk.

Seriously; drop the instances of unplanned pregnancy and you directly drop the number of abortions. If someone were truly serious about abortion being killings, and wanted to stop killings instead of having an issue to fight about, they would support proper fact-based education.


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