Will Democrats finally get a clue?

[Patrick]

Will Democrats finally get a clue?

OF COURSE they won't! Next victim: Hillary!

 

[TragicMonkey]

FWIW, I think in the absence of uniform state laws regarding what does and does not constitute a marriage, we do need a federal law (not an amendment). Otherwise, what happens to the gay couple that gets legally married in Massachusetts, moves to Utah, then wants a divorce? Utah regards the marriage as a legal nullity, refuses to grant a divorce for a marriage that it refuses to recognize in the first place.

And this may shock you, but I have no problem with gay marriage being recognized throughout the nation. Unfortunately, it's going to be some time before the rest of the country gets past the "ewww, gross" factor and realizes a gay couple's being married is no threat to anyone else.

But the time will come.

I agree with the need for a nationwide decision. Leaving it up to the states is going to cause legal problems. But I think that it won't go the route of legalizing gay marriage. What I see happening is the creation of sex-blind civil unions, basically marriage in all but name, purely state creations with no religious element. Heterosexual nonreligious couples will pursue these as well. Eventually civil unions will replace marriage, legally. All married couples will have is a civil union plus religious element--it won't count any differently, legally, than a civil union.

Which would be a roundabout way to do it, but it would a) keep the government and religious elements separate, and b) get around the whole "tampering with sacred institutions" business. The religious could look at the plain civil unions as "living in sin" all they want, religiously....as long as their own marriages carried no more legal weight than the civil unions.

Plus it would avoid that really frightening "M" word. Who really wants to hear that crop up in an otherwise charming relationship? Shudder.

 

[easycruise]

Re: Re: Re: Bingo

I find that kind of "slicing and dicing" disgraceful and dishonest. Kerry was much more consistent than the "paint him a flip-flopper" campaign made him out to be. People want comforting one-liners in times like these, not provisionalism and lengthy justifications that take paragraphs to explain. If the world really were as simple as the average "NASCAR Dad" believes, the one-liner soundbite method would be OK. Unfortunately, we live in a complex world; one in which nuances need to be considered, and REconsidered in the course of making sound decisions. Scared people have overwhelmingly affirmed their preference for simplism over critical thought....and that's a damn shame.

You are sounding elitist with that Nascar Dad comment. Your "nuanced" is another person's "indecision". Face it, Kerry was never consistent and your putdown of that ad is just ignoring the obvious. Here's an example. Kerry says we need a "global test". Well, we had one with the first gulf war. Saddam invaded Kuwait and raped and pillaged, we had all sorts of countries lined up with us ready to go. Kerry voted "NO" on that war. What more of a "global test" did he want? He wanted to wait to consider more "nuances"? Come on, give me a break.

 

[patnray]

What mjv said! They will continue to let the republican spin machine roll all over them. They haven't the wisdom or courage to sieze the moral issues and make them their own. They will continue to let the republicans frame the debate in terms favorable to the right.

Spiro Agnew said the liberals were "an effete corps of impudent snobs." The democrats have spent the last 30 years trying to prove he was right...

 

[Anathema]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Bingo

You are sounding elitist with that Nascar Dad comment. .

Was it elitist of Republican campaign organizers to coin the term, and for them to go to great lengths to "distill their message" to simple terms, as the focus groups of "NASCAR Dads" indicated they should? It's not a pejorative, it's a demographic descriptor that the Republicans defined.

 

[Upchurch]

Please provide a quote where he cited the Bible or some other religious authority as primary justification for opposing gay marriage.

I never said it was his primary justification, however on February 24, 2004, Bush said the following (source):

Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening the good influence of society.

Indicating that Bush believes that marriage is a religious insitution. (I agree that it is also cultural, but it is arguable whether or not it could be considered "natural".) While I suppose it is possible that he opposes it soley for the "ew" factor or some misguided attempt to pander to those who oppose it for either the "ew" factor or religious reasons, the rhetoric he uses is too similar to that of religious rhetoric (i.e. "one man, one woman", "marriage needs to be defended from the gay agenda", "it's unnatural", etc.) to be entirely coincidental.

And ultimately, other than religious, there is no somewhat reasonable justification for attempting this constitutional travesty.

FWIW, I think in the absence of uniform state laws regarding what does and does not constitute a marriage, we do need a federal law (not an amendment). Otherwise, what happens to the gay couple that gets legally married in Massachusetts, moves to Utah, then wants a divorce? Utah regards the marriage as a legal nullity, refuses to grant a divorce for a marriage that it refuses to recognize in the first place.

I certainly have no legal expertise, but I was under the impression that there was something in place (courtesy, I suppose, if nothing else) that said that one state would/should recognize the legal status imparted by another state. A state's driver's license, for example, is recognized as valid in all other states, thereby negating the need to hold multiple licenses when driving across state lines.

Regardless, I'm really not questioning your positions on these issues. I'm not even really questioning the Republican party's positition on these issues. In fact, there are many principles of the traditional Republican party I'm in complete agreement with. Bush has more or less abandoned those principles, imho, in favor of this freaky Moral Majority/Religious Right garbage.

 

[AWPrime]

Even the 'liberals' are becoming more right every time just to get nominated.

Where will it end?

 

[Savagemutt]

I certainly have no legal expertise, but I was under the impression that there was something in place (courtesy, I suppose, if nothing else) that said that one state would/should recognize the legal status imparted by another state. A state's driver's license, for example, is recognized as valid in all other states, thereby negating the need to hold multiple licenses when driving across state lines.

You're thinking of Article IV, Section 1 of the ol' Constitution: " Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State."

This was source of much hoopla when --- which was it, Hawaii? --- was considering legalizing gay marriage a few years ago.

 

[Tmy]

I can only reply to you, and those that have expressed opinions close to yours, that if you don't know where the middle is then it is no wonder that you can't seem to move toward it.

I'm not even sure you'll understand my reply but I no of no clearer way to write it. My thread-title implication stands, even though I wrote it simply as a way to garner thread participation: You have no clue. The Middle is not where you think it is.

HA HA! Listen Rob, Im from Massachusetts. THE MIDDLE IS WHERE I SAY IT IS!

How can you say the Repubs are in the middle when the crazy out of it Demos are not. THEY ALMOST WON!!!! If they were so far off the middle they'd lost in a landslide.

 

[Rob Lister]

HA HA! Listen Rob, Im from Massachusetts. THE MIDDLE IS WHERE I SAY IT IS!

How can you say the Repubs are in the middle when the crazy out of it Demos are not. THEY ALMOST WON!!!! If they were so far off the middle they'd lost in a landslide.

I hear (read) you Tmy. But perhaps you would be better off thinking of it as a very slow-moving lava-flow, not a land slide. Just make sure you don't get trapped between two flows coming together in a sissor-like fashion. Slow as it is, you'll never outrun it.

 

[BPSCG]

I never said it was his primary justification, however on February 24, 2004, Bush said the following (source):

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening the good influence of society.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Indicating that Bush believes that marriage is a religious insitution. (I agree that it is also cultural, but it is arguable whether or not it could be considered "natural".)

That's a l-o-n-g way from saying same-sex marriage is wrong because "the Bible says it, I believe it, and that's all there is to it." The same-sex marriage debate has, I think, made a lot of people think about what marriage is and is not, why it exists, and so forth. I think that's the primary reason support for the concept has gone from low single digits less than ten years ago to widespread, if not majority support today.

But it's still foolish to deny that marriage is - or at least has been - tied up with religion since as long as there has been religion. The vast majority of weddings happen in places of worship, not city halls. There's a reason for that - the reason being that people still largely regard marriage as at least partly, a religious ritual and a religious institution. You can no more talk about what marriage is, ignoring the religious aspects, than you can talk about Thanksgiving and ignore the turkey.

Now you can argue about whether Bush is right or wrong when he says "Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening the good influence of society", but that's hardly the argument the religious nutjobs would make; you know what kind of argument they would make. If Bush had simply said, "Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural roots without weakening the good influence of society" you might have argued the point but you would not denounce him as a religious zealot. Why should he be so denounced for throwing in religion as one of marriage's roots? He was making a perfectly defensible point - a point that does not require an epiphany like Saul of Tarsus's on the road to Damascus. If that point leads him to the same conclusion about same-sex marriage as the intractably devout, that does not of itself make him one of them, any more than the fact that 1inChrist and I both supported the same candidate for president makes me a religious zealot.

the rhetoric he uses is too similar to that of religious rhetoric (i.e. "one man, one woman", "marriage needs to be defended from the gay agenda", "it's unnatural", etc.) to be entirely coincidental.

But people who are not religious fanatics also use those terms. Face it, people hear a buzz-phrase, pick it up, and spout it off next chance they get ("run-up to the war", "jump-start the economy" are two egregious examples). It's all too often a convenient substitute for thinking. I'm not saying they're right (I say they aren't, so that's settled); I'm saying they don't give the issue a lot of thought because "ewww" short-circuits what little thinking ability they are capable of to begin with.

My bet is that Bush has thought about this issue at some length, including areas of it that we as plain folks (and not elected officials) don't worry about. You can bet he's heard the arguments, on both sides, and decided where he stands. My sense of him is that he's at the core a decent guy who wants everyone to be happy (I don't know him any better than you do, so don't ask me to prove it) and if he thought it wouldn't cause significant social disruption, would be in favor of it.

But I think he honestly believes it would cause significant social disruption if same-sex marriage became the law of the land today. So he says he's against it, and puts it in terms that both thoughtful people and people like 1inChrist can accept. Maybe you can fault him for not being a leader in the fight to make it the law of the land, but again, that hardly makes him a religious zealot.

But like it or not, marriage is tied up with religion. Read Tragic Monkey's post elsewhere on this thread for what I think is a good, thoughtful way of resolving the issue.

And ultimately, other than religious, there is no somewhat reasonable justification for attempting this constitutional travesty.

I agree that what defines marriage has no business in the Constitution. But we do need some kind of nationwide standard. Again, I think TM proposes something workable.

ETA: Note to self: There's a good poll in this, somewhere.

 

[BPSCG]

What I see happening is the creation of sex-blind civil unions, basically marriage in all but name, purely state creations with no religious element. Heterosexual nonreligious couples will pursue these as well. Eventually civil unions will replace marriage, legally. All married couples will have is a civil union plus religious element--it won't count any differently, legally, than a civil union.

Which would be a roundabout way to do it, but it would a) keep the government and religious elements separate, and b) get around the whole "tampering with sacred institutions" business. The religious could look at the plain civil unions as "living in sin" all they want, religiously....as long as their own marriages carried no more legal weight than the civil unions.

I like this.

Had this dispute with a friend some months ago. He's even more conservative than I am (yes, it's possible). He has no problem with civil unions. "Give 'em all the same rights as married couples. Just don't offend me by calling it a marriage. I know that's not completely logical, but just give me that and I can accept the rest."

I wonder how many more people otherwise opposed to same-sex marriage feel that way. Is this a compromise that would have wide acceptance? I know 1inChrist wouldn't like it, but people like him don't matter, any more than people who hate mixed race marriages matter.

 

[easycruise]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Bingo

Was it elitist of Republican campaign organizers to coin the term, and for them to go to great lengths to "distill their message" to simple terms, as the focus groups of "NASCAR Dads" indicated they should? It's not a pejorative, it's a demographic descriptor that the Republicans defined.

I'm not so sure that the GOP defined that. Remember, it was the Clinton democrats who defined the term "Soccer Mom" from which the "Nascar Dads" evolved from. Are you projecting?

 

[SezMe]

...snip...

My bet is that Bush has thought about this issue at some length, including areas of it that we as plain folks (and not elected officials) don't worry about. You can bet he's heard the arguments, on both sides, and decided where he stands.

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I do have a quibble with the above snippet. Those who have written about Bush's style - both supporters and detractors - indicate that he gets most of his input from his immediate staff, who all share his perspective. On this, and so many other issues, one of my concerns with this administration is that he is NOT getting both sides of the argument.

Secondly, Bush himself says he does not think about the issues. He is proud to be a "gut player." Let's not give him credit where credit is not due.

 

[SlippyToad]

I know it wasn't an issue in this campaign, but support for gun control is deeply entrinched, historically and culturally, on the democrat side. I'm not saying gun control is that major of an issue. But it is big enough to compell gun owners who would otherwise vote democrat to vote republican based on the issue alone.

Well, the dems, if you have noticed, have pretty much given up on the issue. I know I have. Even Michael Moore's movie on the topic, which I have not yet seen, was said to have been unable to really come to the conclusion that weak gun control laws had anything to do with the number of gun deaths in the US. He ended up (I'm paraphrasing a review I read) pointing the finger back at the culture, rather than the ownership of guns.

What killed Dems this time around was spinelessness, and the inability to surmount wedge issues regarding a phony and misdirected war on terrorism, and fricking gay marriage. The economy's lousy performance, looming national debt problems, and ham-fisted war planning were overlooked in favor of these two largely nebulous and (in my opinion) relatively unimportant topics.

I guess things aren't bad enough yet to motivate more people to change the channel. But the century is young . . .

 

[SlippyToad]

Even the 'liberals' are becoming more right every time just to get nominated.

Where will it end?

Politics in a two-party system swings like a pendulum. When one side is down, they build a coalition to get themselves back on track and start finding ways to distinguish themselves and get voters interested in their issues.

When one side is up, they remember being down, and how much it sucked, and they gather as much power as is possible to themselves. They run dirty campaigns, put empty suits in as many districts as possible to drive up their numbers and cushion themselves during losses, redistrict, gerrymander, whatever. They also make sure that anyone who wants to access the government has to go through them. If they're smart they try to reach across the aisle and work with the opposition, but lately here the side in power has decided they don't need to even bother to try.

What happens when the side that's up stays up for awhile is they begin to corrupt themselves. They decide that every gain is worth the gain alone, regardless of the principles that put them in power. Once the up-side becomes sufficiently corrupt, the public's distaste with that corruption begins to drag them down, and the opposition party scores some gains. They use wedge issues or simply point out the poor performance of their oppositon, cherry-picking the lousy ones, the empty suits, the party drones, and gradually peck away.

Sometimes the end for a party comes as a sudden and disastrous reversal. Think Carter / Reagan. That was the end of a long period of consolidation of Democratic power, undoubted corruption, and so on. The core issues of the Democrats have never gone away, but when one party solves the core issues of their constituency, they start looking around to pick up even greater majorities, and they end up picking up nutbars of all descriptions. The Dems got involved in a really ill-advised war, lost the Presidency to Nixon for awhile (someone who was so corrupt and venal even the Dems looked good next to him) and finally blew it with Carter, a guy too honest to play the game the way it needed to be played, but surrounded by a party made up of hacks and people who had no new ideas.

That was almost 25 years ago. The pendulum has swung all the way to the other side. The Republican party is full of empty suits, carpetbaggers, nepotists, and total party hacks who will do whatever it takes to keep warm bodies in their places. The ticks and leeches are feeding on the body and the pile has grown so big it's just shy of tipping the whole thing over.

Forget about the so-called "mandate" of Bush. Look at how freaking close this election really was. Look at what motivated the people voting against him. If the Democrats had fielded a candidate more courageously, with less ridiculous heding of bets, we would have wiped the floor with these people. I liked Kerry, genuinely, but he was the wrong guy to put against Bush. He was too careful with his candidacy, and in his bid to get everything exactly right he over-analyzed the small things and blew one or two of the big ones.

Right now I and my friends are talking about what we need to do to get the party going again. Daschle losing his seat was probably the best thing that happened to us. Next election I will register as a Democrat, not an independent, and I will get my butt out in the primaries, and start finding people who are motivated, smart, and not too windy to compete. And I think the real wedge issues of economy and poorly-managed national affairs will finally begin to kick in for us once we quit trying to win elections based on issues our parents and grandparents won on 30 and 70 years ago.

 

[a_unique_person]

I know the title of this post is inflammatory, and for that I apologize. Still, the question is out there.

Dems are losing political power big-time in the US of A. Yet another election where the house, the senate, and the exectutive not only remain in power but extend their power.

The Reps are perfectly willing to move to the Middle but the Dems seem intent on moving further to the Left. The Reps could easily be dis'ed for this because it is (IMO) a form of pandering. The Dems, on the other hand, are cutting off their nose to spite their face. That deserves even more dis'ing. The left is important (in my view) because it tends to balance power of two important aspects of politics: the pragmatic and the idealistic.

Neither is worth a damn without the other.

Lieberman could have easily beaten Bush. You goofed.

The Dems are to the right, Bush is just pushing even further to the right.

According to one analysis I just heard, it was the 'faith' based policies of anti-gay marriage that got the fundies out. Nothing to do with any actual policies to run a country or a super power, or budgets or deficits, just idiotic hate of people who are different. That's why the Dems don't have a clue, they aren't that far to the right.

 

[garys_2k]

I liked Kerry, genuinely, but he was the wrong guy to put against Bush. He was too careful with his candidacy, and in his bid to get everything exactly right he over-analyzed the small things and blew one or two of the big ones.

Nope. Kerry was almost universally described as "the most electable" back during the primary runs. He had the verteran record, the commanding posture and voice, and was seen by the primary voters as the guy most likely able to beat Bush.

Kerry lost because, well, he had flip flopped on the key issues and couldn't make up his mind which constituency he was playing to. Gay marriage IS a big issue in the U.S. and any politician had better be prepared to deal with it, consistently, every time it comes up.

 

[BPSCG]

Bush has more or less abandoned those principles, imho, in favor of this freaky Moral Majority/Religious Right garbage.

I read this in Ann Coulter's column today. Yes, I know, she's the She-Demon of the Right, but could anyone tell me whether this is accurate or not?

...and at the last minute, Bush started claiming he was in favor of civil unions, just like John Kerry.

I mean did Bush say this (not did Ann say it)? Context? Certainly doesn't sound like the position that a Bible-beating fundie would take.

FWIW, Coulter wrote the above as criticism of Bush.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I mean did Bush say this (not did Ann say it)? Context? Certainly doesn't sound like the position that a Bible-beating fundie would take.

Looks like Bush is for civil unions as a states' rights issue, but in favor of a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6338458/

Which puts him in the same position as Clinton with his "don't ask, don't tell"--too far left for the right, and too far right for the left. Compromise: the art of making sure nobody gets what they really want.