the conservative case for same sex marriage

[PhilsFan]

He doesn't want to stick his neck out on the issue and turn it into one more thing conservatives can point to and say "look how liberally socialist communist Marxist he is!" And that blows.

[maycocksean]

Originally Posted by Canadiens1131

You're right on the head of the nail on this point (I know, WTF????????). Obama has had a very public, very lame, and very metric-driven "coming to terms about thinking about rethinking how he feels about gay marriage". I don't blame Barry for a lot of dumb shit that goes down in Washington, but this is one case where he is being embarrassing.

Yep.

Originally Posted by PhilsFan

He doesn't want to stick his neck out on the issue and turn it into one more thing conservatives can point to and say "look how liberally socialist communist Marxist he is!" And that blows.

And yep.

I heard his press conference on NPR today and he refuses to explicitly state that he supports gay marriage. Clearly he feels hedging on the issue is a political necessity which I is both unfortunate and understandable.

[kramwest1]

Originally Posted by maycocksean

I heard his press conference on NPR today and he refuses to explicitly state that he supports gay marriage. Clearly he feels hedging on the issue is a political necessity which I is both unfortunate and understandable.

Fingers crossed for a second term conversion.

[maycocksean]

Originally Posted by kramwest1

Fingers crossed for a second term conversion.

To me all the haters already assume he supports gay marriage as part of his plot to destroy America. And the people who support Obama seem more likely to also support gay marriage. So I wonder if the pretense is really necessary.

[MrsSpringsteen]

I don't see how hedging on it is for political reasons, since poll after poll indicates that more and more people support it. Or just have no issue with it. Maybe it has more to do with his religion. I don't get how someone like him can't be in favor of gay marriage and still reconcile that with his religious beliefs and be able to articulate that. I don't know if he wrestles with it at all because of any religious beliefs (don't think so) or if it's other reasons.

Or is it because you're President you can't come out in support of gay marriage? Like that's still some sort of taboo?

[kramwest1]

Originally Posted by MrsSpringsteen

I don't see how hedging on it is for political reasons, since poll after poll indicates that more and more people support it. Or just have no issue with it. Maybe it has more to do with his religion. I don't get how someone like him can't be in favor of gay marriage and still reconcile that with his religious beliefs and be able to articulate that. I don't know if he wrestles with it at all because of any religious beliefs (don't think so) or if it's other reasons.

Or is it because you're President you can't come out in support of gay marriage? Like that's still some sort of taboo?

I really think it is 2012 calculating. He has proven that he does what he feels is right versus what he may believe (I think the U.S. military stuff bares that out.). Whether he personally believes gay marriage is right or not, I believe he knows it is the fair thing to allow to happen.

A majority in the U.S. may support or passively not care about gay marriage, but those aren't necessarily the ones who get out and vote.

[INDY500]

Originally Posted by kramwest1

Fingers crossed for a second term conversion.

Quite a profile in courage there.

[deep]

He could pull a Dick Cheney and wait until he leaves office.

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by INDY500

Quite a profile in courage there.

you're right.

however.

i don't believe for a minute George W Bush actually wanted the "no fags allowed" amendment to the constitution he called for in 2003 after the MA supreme court ruling. nor do i think he cared one iota for the 2004 anti-gay amendments Rove got tacked onto the ballots beyond their political expediency.

you'll also note that most Republicans, especially Senators, have plenty of gay staffers and all are probably privately for same-sex marriage. just as they'd happily pay for abortions for their teenage daughters.

while Obama is certainly stringing the gay community along, it's the social conservative who really get played by the people they are supposed to be represented by

[yolland]

Quinnipiac Poll: NY Catholics, Republicans Like Cuomo

Almost two-thirds of New York voters reward Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo with a positive job approval rating after a legislative session that included an on-time budget with reduced spending, tightened ethics rules, a property tax cap, and passage of his bill to legalize same-sex marriage.

...[W]hite Catholic voters approve of the 53-year-old Cuomo by almost 3-to-1, or 62% to 22%, despite the Catholic Church’s staunch opposition to the gay marriage bill, which the Senate passed Friday and Cuomo signed shortly thereafter...Republicans also gave Cuomo positive marks, 53% to 26%. His approval among voters in his own party is a predictable 75-13%, while independents give him the nod at 61-19%, and voters in union households endorse his performance at 63-20%.

...Cuomo’s appeal among voters ran higher than several other first-term governors, Quinnipiac noted. New Jersey’s GOP Gov. Chris Christie had a 44% to 47% rating as of June 21; Florida’s Republican Gov. Rick Scott, 29% to 57% as of May 25; and Ohio’s Republican Gov. John Kasich, 38% to 49% as of May 18.

Sounds like most of NY's Catholics, at least, aren't nearly as worried as their appointed leaders about same-sex civil marriage trampling on their religious liberties.

[kramwest1]

Originally Posted by INDY500

Quite a profile in courage there.

Don't underestimate what Obama might do when he doesn't need to worry about reelection. He has an eye on his legacy.

[cobl04]

[anitram]

Editor's note: David Frum writes a weekly column for CNN.com. A special assistant to President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2002, he is the author of six books, including "Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again," and is the editor of FrumForum.

I WAS WRONG ABOUT SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

Washington (CNN) -- I was a strong opponent of same-sex marriage. Fourteen years ago, Andrew Sullivan and I forcefully debated the issue at length online (at a time when online debate was a brand new thing).

Yet I find myself strangely untroubled by New York state's vote to authorize same-sex marriage -- a vote that probably signals that most of "blue" states will follow within the next 10 years.

I don't think I'm alone in my reaction either. Most conservatives have reacted with calm -- if not outright approval -- to New York's dramatic decision.

Why?

The short answer is that the case against same-sex marriage has been tested against reality. The case has not passed its test.

Since 1997, same-sex marriage has evolved from talk to fact.

If people like me had been right, we should have seen the American family become radically more unstable over the subsequent decade and a half.

By the numbers, in fact, the 2000s were the least bad decade for American family stability since the fabled 1950s. And when you take a closer look at the American family, the facts have become even tougher for the anti-gay marriage position.

Middle-class families have become somewhat more stable than they used to be. For example: College-educated women who got married in the 1990s were much less likely to get divorced than equally educated women who got married in the 1970s.

What's new and different in the past 20 years is the collapse of the Hispanic immigrant family. First-generation Latino immigrants maintain traditional families: conservative values, low divorce rates, high fertility and -- despite low incomes -- mothers surprisingly often at home with the children.

But the second-generation Latino family looks very different. In the new country, old norms collapse. Nearly half of all children born to Hispanic mothers are now born out of wedlock.

Whatever is driving this negative trend, it seems more than implausible to connect it to same-sex marriage. How would it even work that a 15-year-old girl in Van Nuys, California, becomes more likely to have a baby because two men in Des Moines, Iowa, can marry?

Maybe somebody can believe the connection, but I cannot.

I remain as worried as ever about the decline in family stability among poorer Americans. But as for same-sex marriage, my attitude follows the trajectory described nearly 150 years ago by the English writer Anthony Trollope in his novel "Phineas Finn."

Two of his characters are discussing a proposed reform that has just been defeated in Parliament. The author of the reform is understandably dejected. His friend consoles him by pointing to the future:

"Many who before regarded legislation on the subject as chimerical, will now fancy that it is only dangerous, or perhaps not more than difficult. And so in time it will come to be looked on as among the things possible, then among the things probable; -- and so at last it will be ranged in the list of those few measures which the country requires as being absolutely needed. That is the way in which public opinion is made."

By coincidence, I am writing these words on the morning of my own 23rd wedding anniversary. Of all the blessings life has to offer, none equals a happy marriage. If proportionally fewer Americans enjoy that blessing today than did 40 years ago, we're going to have to look for the explanation somewhere other than the Legislature in Albany.

Time waits for no man...

[martha]

That's a nice piece. I can say that knowing that Saturday is my 22nd wedding anniversary.

[kramwest1]

Originally Posted by martha

That's a nice piece. I can say that knowing that Saturday is my 22nd wedding anniversary.

Congrats. Just had our 19th a week ago.
I look forward to congratulating more folks (all folks) who decide to take the plunge.


Glad to read about a converted Frum, too. He never struck me as a true believer.

[martha]

Thanks and congrats to you as well.

When California was a part of the 21st century for a few months, I met a lesbian couple who had been together 20 years and were newlyweds. They were both excited about being newly married, even though they had been together as long as we had.

My marriage never felt so threatened.

[Edge_Orchestra]

Originally Posted by canedge

Now only if America stops killing Iraqi and Afhgan civilians will we be getting somewhere.

Then clean up your toxic TV.

Then do something about your low ranking education system

Then lose some fuckin weight.

Sure you still aren't pissed the Expos moved to Washington DC?

LOL... I wanna be pissed at your post but... it's pretty much true.

[deep]

I don't know if anyone posted this,
but I think this is huge

on July 4, 2001 - Obama Administration officially joined the right side of history.

Associated Press

July 4, 2011
SAN FRANCISCO—
In a strongly worded legal brief, the Obama administration says the federal law that defines marriage as between a man and a woman is motivated by hostility toward gays and lesbians and is unconstitutional.

The brief was filed Friday in federal court in San Francisco in support of a federal employee's lawsuit contending the government wrongly denied health insurance to her same-sex spouse.


The Justice Department says Karen Golinski's suit should not be dismissed because the law under which her spouse was denied benefits — the Defense of Marriage Act — violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection.

"The official legislative record makes plain that DOMA Section 3 was motivated in large part by animus toward gay and lesbian individuals and their intimate relationships, and Congress identified no other interest that is materially advanced by Section 3," the brief reads, referring to the section in the act that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

Although the administration has previously said it would not defend the marriage act, the brief is the first court filing in which it urged a judge to find the law unconstitutional, said Tobias Barrington Wolff, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

The brief argues that gays and lesbians have been subject to a history of discrimination by federal, state and local governments and private parties. It also lays out the administration's position that sexual orientation is an "immutable characteristic," that gays and lesbians are minorities with limited political power, and that sexual orientation has no bearing on someone's ability to contribute to society and advances no legitimate policy interest.

Lawyers for a U.S. House of Representatives group that has stepped in to defend the marriage act's constitutionality did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Gay marriage: Obama administration backs lesbian employee's case - latimes.com

[The_Pac_Mule]

Glad to see Obama finally grew a pair and took a side.

[Irvine511]

fascinating.

Evangelicals and the Gay Moral Revolution
We have often spoken about homosexuality in ways that are crude and simplistic.

By R. ALBERT MOHLER JR.

The Christian church has faced no shortage of challenges in its 2,000-year history. But now it's facing a challenge that is shaking its foundations: homosexuality.

To many onlookers, this seems strange or even tragic. Why can't Christians just join the revolution?

And make no mistake, it is a moral revolution. As philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah of Princeton University demonstrated in his recent book, "The Honor Code," moral revolutions generally happen over a long period of time. But this is hardly the case with the shift we've witnessed on the question of homosexuality.

In less than a single generation, homosexuality has gone from something almost universally understood to be sinful, to something now declared to be the moral equivalent of heterosexuality—and deserving of both legal protection and public encouragement. Theo Hobson, a British theologian, has argued that this is not just the waning of a taboo. Instead, it is a moral inversion that has left those holding the old morality now accused of nothing less than "moral deficiency."

The liberal churches and denominations have an easy way out of this predicament. They simply accommodate themselves to the new moral reality. By now the pattern is clear: These churches debate the issue, with conservatives arguing to retain the older morality and liberals arguing that the church must adapt to the new one. Eventually, the liberals win and the conservatives lose. Next, the denomination ordains openly gay candidates or decides to bless same-sex unions.

This is a route that evangelical Christians committed to the full authority of the Bible cannot take. Since we believe that the Bible is God's revealed word, we cannot accommodate ourselves to this new morality. We cannot pretend as if we do not know that the Bible clearly teaches that all homosexual acts are sinful, as is all human sexual behavior outside the covenant of marriage. We believe that God has revealed a pattern for human sexuality that not only points the way to holiness, but to true happiness.
[howmohler] Getty Images/Comstock Images

Thus we cannot accept the seductive arguments that the liberal churches so readily adopt. The fact that same-sex marriage is a now a legal reality in several states means that we must further stipulate that we are bound by scripture to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman—and nothing else.

We do so knowing that most Americans once shared the same moral assumptions, but that a new world is coming fast. We do not have to read the polls and surveys; all we need to do is to talk to our neighbors or listen to the cultural chatter.

In this most awkward cultural predicament, evangelicals must be excruciatingly clear that we do not speak about the sinfulness of homosexuality as if we have no sin. As a matter of fact, it is precisely because we have come to know ourselves as sinners and of our need for a savior that we have come to faith in Jesus Christ. Our greatest fear is not that homosexuality will be normalized and accepted, but that homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Christ and the forgiveness of their sins.

This is not a concern that is easily expressed in sound bites. But it is what we truly believe.

It is now abundantly clear that evangelicals have failed in so many ways to meet this challenge. We have often spoken about homosexuality in ways that are crude and simplistic. We have failed to take account of how tenaciously sexuality comes to define us as human beings. We have failed to see the challenge of homosexuality as a Gospel issue. We are the ones, after all, who are supposed to know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only remedy for sin, starting with our own.

We have demonstrated our own form of homophobia—not in the way that activists have used that word, but in the sense that we have been afraid to face this issue where it is most difficult . . . face to face.

My hope is that evangelicals are ready now to take on this challenge in a new and more faithful way. We really have no choice, for we are talking about our own brothers and sisters, our own friends and neighbors, or maybe the young person in the next pew.

There is no escaping the fact that we are living in the midst of a moral revolution. And yet, it is not the world around us that is being tested, so much as the believing church. We are about to find out just how much we believe the Gospel we so eagerly preach.

Rev. Mohler is the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

R. Albert Mohler Jr.: Evangelicals and the Gay Moral Revolution - WSJ.com