“‘There is a growing feeling among conservatives that the only way to cure the problem is for Republicans to lose the Congressional elections this fall,’ said Richard Viguerie, a conservative direct-mail pioneer.” More trouble for the GOP: The Christian Right looks ready to desert the party in 2006 unless “Congress does more to oppose same-sex marriage, obscenity and abortion.” “‘I can’t tell you how much anger there is at the Republican leadership,’ Mr. Viguerie said. ‘I have never seen anything like it.’” And November’s perfect storm blows stronger…
Tag: Gay Marriage
Straight Talk on Gay Marriage.
“‘Obviously, it’s a very difficult issue and evokes a lot of emotions,’ Feingold said in a telephone interview yesterday. ‘I think it’s something ultimately that people throughout the country will accept, but it’s not an easy issue.'” Unlike many of his Dem colleagues (and potential rivals in 2008), Feingold comes out for legalizing same-sex marriage. “Feingold noted that removing the prohibition against gay marriage would not impose any obligation on religious groups. He indicated that no religious faith should ever be forced to conduct or recognize any marriage, but that civil laws on marriage should reflect the principle of equal rights under the law.“
Brownback Attack.
Conservative freakshow Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), now head of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on the District, threatens Washington DC to back down on its plan to recognize gay marriages (by allowing joint filing for same-sex married tax returns.) Less government? Local control? Surely, it’s obvious by now that today’s GOP is much more interested in policing the bedroom. If you’re still voting Republican these days for any other reason, how much more proof do you need?
A Moment of Clarity.
In a surprising (yet very likely vetted and scripted) exchange, Dick Cheney distances himself from Dubya’s hard line against gay marriage. What a compassionately conservative way to make news the week before the convention, no? Sure, Cheney probably does harbor some reservations about the religious right’s goofy stance on gay marriage, given his family relationship to the issue, and I suppose I should give him credit for mentioning them aloud. But, it’s hard to buy his second-thoughts now, when he’s been so silent on the topic these past few months…it’s too convenient by half.
Defending the Champ.
Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns joins with civil rights leaders, John McCain, and – oddly enough – Orrin Hatch to obtain a retroactive pardon for Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion in history. A hero to black America during the Progressive Era, Johnson was convicted under the 1913 Mann Act for the then-heinous crime of dating a white woman. You’d think Jackson’s story might cause Senator Hatch to reflect on the appropriate role of the State in private relations and persuade him to rethink his support of the pathetic Marriage Amendment. Baby steps, I guess.
Party Crasher.
At least McCain gets the message. The Senator from Arizona came out forcefully against the doomed and ridiculous amendment yesterday, arguing: “The constitutional amendment we’re debating today strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans.” Um, have you looked around your own party lately? It’s not the Dems pushing this garbage.
Culture War, 2004.
As the Senate GOP tries to schedule embarrassing votes for Johns Kerry and Edwards, Richard Rosendall of Salon remembers the last election cycle the GOP invoked the culture wars so heavily: 1992. Thanks again, Pat Buchanan.
Hate and No. 28.
So, in an attempt to appease the stark raving Right, Dubya now wants a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Good God, what a colossally stupid idea. Since when did it become “conservative” to encode goofy prejudices into our founding document? And can someone please explain to me what jurisdiction the federal government has over the ecclesiastical institution of marriage anyway? Ridicky-goddamn-diculous. Surely Bush and Rove can find some other way to get out their base besides threatening to tinker with the United States Constitution.
The Last Debate, the First Deserter, and the Primal Scream.
The Dems held one more for the road last night in New Hampshire and, given that a rather bland Kerry didn’t stumble, it’s starting to look dire for Dean, who was subdued and chagrined most of the evening and only now seems to be turning the corner on his Muskie Moment. Edwards did reasonably well despite invoking states’ rights (which never sounds good with a southern accent) to support his convoluted gay marriage position. And I actually liked Clark better than usual, and thought he handled his recent party switch as well as he could.
But, I have to say, I was extraordinarily irritated by the way the whole Dubya Deserter thing played out last night. First Peter Jennings tells Wesley Clark that Michael Moore’s deserter comment was “a reckless charge not supported by the facts” and asks him if it’d have been “a better example of ethical behavior” to contradict him. Clark doesn’t go either way on it, claiming not to know all the facts. (Which is lame — What’s the point of having a General in the running if he’s not going to call out Bush on exactly this question?) Then, once the show’s over, Fox News pulls out Team Bespectacled White Guys (Mort Kondracke and Fred Barnes), who both immediately argue that Clark irreparably damaged his candidacy by not refuting this baseless charge, yadda yadda yadda.
Um, am I missing something? It’s been substantiated quite well that Bush seems to have gone AWOL by the Boston Globe and others, and I’m not talking about the six or seven critical hours on September 11 when he was toodling around above the Heartland. While absence of evidence isn’t necessarily evidence of absence, Dubya seems to have disappeared from the Air National Guard for almost a year between 1972-73, conveniently right before a drug test (an offense for which he was grounded), and, to this day, he has never satisfactorily explained where he was. (In fact, as the Straight Dope notes, later reports in The New Republic (by Ryan Lizza, if I remember correctly) even cast doubt on the half-hearted “some recollection” explanation Dubya gave during the 2000 campaign. (By the way, this all happened several years after Bush scored in the underwhelming 25th percentile on the pilot’s aptitude portion of the entrance exam, thus having to rely on his congressman-daddy’s connections to jump the year-long waiting list for the Air National Guard in the first place.)
Does all of this prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that Dubya pulled a Cold Mountain? Well, no, but it’s definitely enough to suggest that Bush has some serious explaining to do. (And he revoked any “youthful indiscretion” type-defense when he began parading around in flight gear on the USS Lincoln.) So, I mean, c’mon, now, a baseless charge about Bush? At this point it seems more correct to say that the bases were “Bush-less.” Next thing you’ll know Fox News will be screaming at John Kerry for perpetuating the “vicious rumor” of Dubya’s DUI.
At any rate, regarding other matters, I didn’t see Diane Sawyer or Letterman last night so can’t ascertain how Dean damage control went there, but I did catch the Dallas-Laker game on TNT, and during Inside the NBA EJ, Kenny and Charles must have played the Dean Scream about thirty times…in fact Ernie had it connected to his desk button. “Nash kicks to Dirk, Dirk from the corner…YEEEEEAAAAGH! Sacramento’s up big in the third…YEEEEEAAAGH!” And so on, so on. Pretty much the first political content I’ve ever seen on the show, and, yeah, it was funny every time. Poor Dean.
Moon, Mars, and Beyond.
“I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon,” once quipped Jerry Pournelle. “I never dreamed
that I would see the last.” Hopefully, we can now prove him wrong. Dubya officially announced his space plan in front of NASA’s DC headquarters today, and the upshot is this: More scientists, less entertainers, a Research Lab in every city, and he’s going to disband all the Spearmen and Pikemen still lying around so he can build the SS Planetary Party Lounge.
Ok, just joking…some of y’all out there might think that was funny. At any rate, the plan is the ISS by 2007, the CEV by 2014, the moon by 2015, and Mars thereafter. Say what you will about election year boondoggles, but I still think creating and funding long-term goals for NASA is a wise investment. (Besides, if you want to cry election-year boondoogle, you don’t need to go any farther than Dubya’s ridiculous $1.5 billion marriage-promotion plan.) NASA still has serious organizational and cultural flaws, sure, but I think it’ll be better able to address them if there’s at least some semblance of a “vision thing” to build on.