For two decades, since Steven Hotze pushed Betsy Lake out as chairman of the Harris County GOP, religious activists locally and nationally have pushed the Republican Party into indefensible, bigoted, and ultimately futile stands on a whole series of “culture” issues that mean a great deal to them and matter little or none to anyone else. The effort has run the party’s once-powerful center-right, business-friendly coalition onto the rocks, completely alienating a younger generation, ending the party’s relevance in urban areas and the north, and saddling an otherwise attractive commercial agenda with nearly impossible baggage.
What have these religious fundamentalists accomplished for all the damage they’ve done?
The Mayor of Texas largest and most important city is now married to her longtime, same-sex partner. Same-sex marriage is now legal in Utah and Oklahoma. In short, the Religious Right has accomplished none of their ridiculous and embarrassing goals while turning the GOP into the Party of Bigoted Jerks.
What is the Harris County GOP doing about it now? Suing the city over same-sex spousal benefits. The Party’s leading Imam, Jared Woodfill, issued the following fatwa this week:
“Why does she wait to get married in another state after the election? Why does she give same-sex benefits to couples married in other states after the election?” Woodfill said. “This is a mayor who is bringing California and New York values to Texas, and these are values Texans don’t subscribe to. Texans have defined their position on marriage in the form of a constitutional amendment.”
It was a mistake to build an agenda around these issues in the first place. It is utterly idiotic to double down on them as they continue to fail. Someone has to take Republicans’ feet off the pedal of the culture wars before we drive this bus off a cliff.
Congratulations Mayor Parker. I’m sorry it took me and so many other Americans so long to recognize what you and others were experiencing. Best wishes.
Chris Ladd is a Texan living in the Chicago area. He has been involved in grassroots Republican politics for most of his life. He was a Republican precinct committeeman in suburban Chicago until he resigned from the party and his position after the 2016 Republican Convention. He can be reached at gopliferchicago at gmail dot com.
GOPLifer 
So now Putin is saying that Russia needs to “cleanse” itself of homosexuality if it wants to increase its birth rate.
This is some interesting new biology here. Please Vlad, explain the mechanism to me. Exactly how does the presence of gay people cause straight people to have fewer babies?
Of all the issues at play in the culture wars, none have been as fascinating to me as the emergence of gay rights. I fully support the right of homosexuals to marry (actually, I think maybe the legal concept of marriage is becoming obsolete), but I acknowledge how fundamentally radical a shift this is in our culture. After thousands of years of marginalization, homosexuals have made enormous strides in an expanse of time that is just a tiny blip in the long march of human history. Just a couple of decades a go, not even liberal Democrats would have taken up this issue. Now it’s downright mainstream. Amazing.
I have a couple of thoughts related to this topic. First, as America becomes more diverse, religious conservatives are going to have to understand just how important secularization is not only to the stability and freedom of citizens, but also to the preservation of their own beliefs. Right now, they’re too caught up in trying to maintain the traditional place of power and influence they’ve had for so long in this country to realize that change is inevitable, and that the Christian religion will never be under threat as a result as long as we maintain a strict devotion to secular government. This is quite obvious to most of us.
My second idea may sound radical on the surface, but I don’t really think it is. I believe it’s time we reassess our legal concept of marriage and reduce it down to its bare essence: a legally recognized contract between consenting adults who wish to share property and parenting responsibilities. I don’t even think it needs to be restricted to merely two individuals; it could be open-ended as far as the number of people entering into such a relationship is concerned, and what genders are included. Call it incorporation or something, I don’t know. The religious/intimate relationship we know as “marriage” would still exist. My marriage would remain as it always has been, my family would remain the traditional heterosexual union with child that it is. But legally-speaking, we’d just remove all the cultural baggage associated with the term. Why should the state place any additional constraints on human relationships beyond these? The usual slippery-slope phantasms that are usually brought up when redefining marriage comes up for debate would still be as silly as they always have been. Sex, legally-speaking, would have no relevance whatsoever.
” don’t even think it needs to be restricted to merely two individuals; it could be open-ended as far as the number of people entering into such a relationship is concerned, and what genders are included”
That’s where I have to disagree with you. Group arrangements are likely to be mostly polygamy, and that creates the same sort of troubles you see in places where the ratio of females to males is skewed too much towards males. You have too many young males with no prospects for marriage, and that is destabilizing to a society. In the cults that allow men to have multiple wives, they have the problem of all these “extra” young males, and they often deal with them by kicking them out of their society and into ours. We’re better off restricting it to just pairs.
The reason I don’t agree is that there is no way to prevent polygamous relationships. How could the government prevent adults from living with one another in whatever number, and in whatever arrangement, they choose? The recent case involving the “Sister Wives” reality television family is one example. Why did the government go after these people? It is not for me or anyone else to condemn the relationships of consenting adults, even if they have children. If there is abuse or neglect in the home, that’s one thing; simply calling a polygamous marriage abusive by definition seems unjust.
I was also thinking, though, that this could allow a family to assign parental rights to more than just the two natural parents; they could include grandparents, or aunts or cousins or whatever, so that the family could decide for themselves who will be involved in the rearing of the children, and who might have legal standing in cases of emergency. I don’t think it would complicate it all that much. You could give the natural parents the first right to initiate such contracts and the right to dissolve them if you want. I think it would work just fine. And again, sexuality would be completely irrelevant as far as the law is concerned.
“The reason I don’t agree is that there is no way to prevent polygamous relationships. ”
Preventing them is one thing, legally recognizing them is another. I’m setting my standard for legal recognition based on whether one could reasonably show or anticipate a harm to society. One could expand on the property rights, custody rules, etc. to accommodate 3 or more, but it does not address the prospect of potentially cutting lots of males out of the marriage pool. If one man has ten wives, that creates the side effect of having nine other men who might like the get married but can’t. I really doubt that the guys with ten wives are all that likely to allow another man or two to join the family group. Young, unmarried males are the most likely to behave in ways that are destructive to a society. The nut job polygamous cults solve that problem by exiling extra males; we don’t have that option even if we ignored moral objections. You can look at some of the Third world places where a preference for sons has resulted in a shortage of marriage women- it’s going to create social problems for years to come. I think you are free to you as you wish as long as you aren’t hurting others. I ‘m not for encouraging polygamy through legal recognition for the reason stated above. Skewing the sex ratios has bad results, and polygamy is a de facto skewing of that ratio.
When I was young, I didn’t understand why gay people wanted to be able to live a more public life.
I felt no hatred, but I didn’t understand why staying in the closet was so difficult.
I was dumb.
A couple of weeks ago, I went to a same-sex marriage celebration. It took place in Texas so it wasn’t a marriage ceremony — that took place in Maryland. All in all, it was a fine event.
I am happy for the couple. They’ve been together for 10 years.
But there was a sadness, too. The couple is not young, in their 70s.
Not all the guests were same-sex couples, but some were and in the same ago group, too. At our table, one same-sex couple had just celebrated their 40th anniversary.
What the hell were we doing, denying some Americans the right to their pursuit of happiness?
It’s interesting to see comments conflating the Tea Party with the religious right, when in fact these are two separate wings within the GOP. The Tea Party came into being over fiscal issues; the Tea Party doesn’t have a dog in the social issues hunt. (There have been some concerted efforts by the religious right to co-opt the Tea Party, and the left is more than happy to assume this is the actual state of play, but it’s not.)
We conservatives rightfully decry the persistent, pernicious, and ongoing attacks by the left on our mainstream religious institutions and cultural values. Most egregious are the attacks on religious freedom that carry the force of law, e.g. the HCA’s treatment of employers with a Christian moral leaning, viz. with respect to contraception and abortion services. Any person who truly values freedom must object to such intrusions by the state.
At the same time, the religious right seems quite content to force its own morality on others via the force of law. Laws banning gay marriage (or even, in the not too distant past, homosexual conduct) are blatant abridgments of personal freedom. The hypocrisy on both sides of the political divide is simply breathtaking.
It’s really very simple, folks. If you are going to stand up for freedom, you have to stand up for freedom for *everybody.* Period. This used to be a free country; let’s make it that way again. We need to let each other live as we choose. Is that really too much to ask? (Apparently it is, when Washington feels it must decree what kind of light bulb I can purchase.)
And although I’m not a big fan of pants suits, the bride and bride are certainly displaying those special, precious, joyful grins that only appear in wedding photos. I wish them all the best.
I’m all for your concepts of accommodation until the social glee rams into fiscal reality. And to ignore the assaults on religious freedoms to pay for the social largesse we are going in debt over is not an issue of equal accommodations. It is collective insanity or intentional subjugation.
or probably both
Don’t get me wrong, DanMan. Being free shouldn’t entail somebody else paying for your particular brand of freedom. If Sandra Fluke wants to play the tramp, she can buy her own danged condoms.
@ Tracy Thorkelson and DANMAN – Sandra Fluke was only asking for insurance coverage for birth control. It still amazes me the amount of disinformation that those on the right are still so willing to spread no matter how many times it is proven wrong. One question for the two of you, why is there no outcry from the Right about Medicare/Medicaid paying for Viagra and other ED medications? Should taxpayers have to foot the bill for some old man to continue to have sexual relations?
“This used to be a free country; let’s make it that way again.”
Actually, the country is becoming more free. In the past minorities were marginalized from participating in society, women had few rights, and homosexuals were forced to live in the shadows. The past 40 years have been a great time in our history when it comes to the expansion of freedom. I am sorry but you can keep your version of freedom.
As for employers with a Christian leaning if they chose to participate in the public marketplace then they must play by the rules just like everyone else. I grow tired of the conservative cries for special treatment and the right to ignore the rules everyone must play by.
The tea party has never been on fiscal issues and the past few years have proven it over and over again. When this group continuously elects politicians that instead of focusing on fiscal issues instead introduces dozens of anti-abortion bills and to this date has yet to produce a jobs bill that isn’t some corporate wish list of destroying environmental protections. Plus the tea party led government shutdown and threat to ruin the full faith and credit of the nation unless the President and the Senate Democrats caved into their demands to defund the Obamacare.
Turtles, you are correct in pointing out the great strides in political and social freedom for minorities over the past several decades. However, in countless other ways all of us are considerably less free than our parents’ generation. Most of this erosion is in the area of economic freedom (which is, in my view the most basic and important form of freedom). When the government controls the prices of goods you purchase (e.g. health care), or dictates what products you *must* or are *allowed* to buy (health care, automobiles, toilets, washing machines, light bulbs, etc., etc., ad nauseum), you are fundamentally less free. As my elderly mother puts it, we now live in an economic police state.
This issue of personal freedom in the marketplace is a touchy one. Barry Goldwater, an original supporter of the Civil Rights Act, withdrew support from the final bill because it forced private businesses to serve everyone. I think Goldwater was *partly* wrong in this; a public business housed in fixed places of business (e.g., stores, restaurants, etc.) that opens its doors to serve the public should serve the *public*, meaning everybody.
On the other hand, a private business that you have solicited to enter you home or partake in your private event should not be *forced* to serve you; that’s simply ridiculous. I.e., Elane Photography should not be forced to provide services for an off premises private event (a gay wedding) that conflicts with the business owners’ religious beliefs.
The critical difference is whether you go into the public space of the business, or your invite the business into your private space. It’s all about the *direction* of the invitation to do business, and the public vs. private nature of the transaction. A public invitation to a public space must be an invitation to all. Conversely, any person or business should have the option of declining a private invitation to a private space. Free markets are based on free association and mutual consent; we need to be *very* careful about how we allow government to interfere in free market transactions.
Similarly, it ridiculous that the government should intrude into the private employment contract to dictate what kind of *benefits* an employer *must* provide. That’s utter nonsense, and a complete anathema to *free* markets.
As for your pronounced Tea Party bigotry, why don’t you just attend a meeting of your local Tea Party. Walk a mile in the other man’s shoes.
And Turtles demonstrates how you cannot fix stupid. Although I have been a TEA Party member from the start, and every rally attended dealt with only the fiscal issues, Turtles, who has never attended or participated really knows what is up. So, you cannot fix stupid.
“When the government controls the prices of goods you purchase (e.g. health care), or dictates what products you *must* or are *allowed* to buy (health care, automobiles, toilets, washing machines, light bulbs, etc., etc., ad nauseum), you are fundamentally less free. As my elderly mother puts it, we now live in an economic police state.”
Well Tracy, those ” good old days” of all that “economic freedom” are gone and they aren’t coming back. Why? The gov’t controls are a symptom, but they’re not the real underlying cause. The causes that there are so many more of us than in your mother’s day. Everyone’s choices have an effect, and the more people, the bigger the effect. You can always swing your arms more in the empty room. It seems to me that the people who complain the most about limits placed on choices tend to be the ones not directly impacted by the externalities generated by those choices. It much easier for people in the MidWest gripe about requirements to clean up their energy production ( which yes, makes it cost more) because the prevailing winds blow all the pollution into the NorthEast. You want old fashioned toilets, and lush lawns and golf courses in the desert, and the people way down at the end the water supply get a trickle if that ( the Colorado River is people’s exhibit A here). I’m going to make a prediction- the price of meat is going to someday go up, way up. Can’t say exactly when, but I’ll bet within most of our lifetimes (assuming most people here to be in their 40s & 50s). Why? Because the agricultural practices that produce cheap, plentiful meat are environmentally destructive and morally questionable, and they can’t be sustained.
TThor: “However, in countless other ways all of us are considerably less free than our parents’ generation. Most of this erosion is in the area of economic freedom (which is, in my view the most basic and important form of freedom). ”
This is spoken like a White dude with a comfortable income and a pretty comfortable life struggling under the yoke of oppression in the early 21st century. It is a wonder we can even get ourselves out of bed in the mornings.
The required purchase of curly light bulbs and low-flow toilets certainly does make us considerably less free than a whole bunch of folks in the 40s, 50s, and 60s who could not eat in certain restaurants, could not be in certain parts of town after dark, who could not vote without overcoming fun hurdles, who could not get into good schools, and who had to spend at least a little mental energy trying to ensure they did not piss off powerful folks who could have them killed without worry of police involvement.
I mean, sure, those folks had some unfortunate things going on in their lives, but they had the economic freedom to sit on a high-flow toilet in the warm glow of an incandescent light, flushing away to their heart’s content. That is true freedom.
Your attempt to characterize the Tea Party this way is a total sham. Sorry. I don’t buy it. There is nothing particularly unique or new about the Tea Party; it’s mostly the same people that made up the old Reform Party, this angry populist wing of the GOP that was once the domain of the Democrats. I associate the Tea Party with many of those who left the Democratic Party; you can draw a direct line from the old Dixiecrats right up through the present Tea Party, a group of John Birchers, nativists, and Baby Boomers who never joined the counter culture. It’s this strain of populism that runs through American history from its earliest days to the present day. The Tea Party’s signifying tone is outrage. It is fundamentally incoherent, ideologically empty and intellectually vapid. Most people who subscribe to the Tea Party don’t really know what they want, they just know they’re pissed off and they want the country to hear about it–constantly. It will drift away given enough time, but it will come back again in a decade; it’s like this chronic wart that pops up from time to time on the backside of American politics.
bwahahahahaha!!! keep it green anse!! recycle that trope
TThor
“As for your pronounced Tea Party bigotry, why don’t you just attend a meeting of your local Tea Party.” Walk a mile in the other man’s shoes.”
You assume I have never been to a tea party rally. Also, I do not have to attend a dog show to know it is about dogs.
“Walk a mile in the other man’s shoes.”
I could say that about the tea party when they are labeling unemployed people takers and calling women that want to make their own reproductive choices sluts. I maybe wrong here but you seem to be under the impression that I am incapable of see the actions of the tea party and understanding the comments made by their supporters here on this blog and the old Chronicle website.
I am neither blind nor oblivious to the actions of the tea party so please do not try to convince me my eyes are lying to me. Now I will admit that not all members hold the distasteful beliefs that many of the members love to display but there are enough to make the group unpalatable. I am not speaking of bigotry but the overall vile behavior and sheer meanness displayed by its members.
I Googled Tea Party Anchor Baby and surprise I got website after website of tea party groups that were raging on the Hispanic children and the desire to strip away the 14th Amendment.
http://teapartyamerica.blogspot.com/2010/08/change-14th-amendment-no-more-anchor.html
http://charlestonteaparty.org/part-7-news-articles-on-the-14th-amendment-birthright-citizenship-and-anchor-babies/
http://www.teapartytribune.com/2011/09/22/airborne-%E2%80%98anchor-baby%E2%80%99-attempt-shows-folly-of-u-s-%E2%80%98birthright-citizenship%E2%80%99/
One thing I did notice about these tea party groups is that they short on fiscal issues and long on social issues. But again who am I to believe you or my lying eyes?
Why yes, a woman wishing to obtain birth control is a tramp. Wow.
As for the Tea Party not having a dog in the gay marriage hunt, I guess it begs the question, who are the Tea Party politicians?
It certainly does seem as though the Tea Party darlings are very much the same as those happily against gay marriage, but I guess this could be a “No true Scotsman” thing.
I have been involved with Tea Party types since at least 1973. The ones out there today are no different than the ones back then, but back then there was no one that knew how to throw enough money into the right places to take over the Republican Party. The joy these people have of forcing their lifestyle on the country will prove to be short lived as one by one their “Laws” fall to the Constitution they all claim to uphold. I don’t think they will ever understand that making the US a better place does not involve making it into the Dictatorship they desire where ever aspect of your life is controlled by a government that can lock you up if you don’t march to their music.
If you need an example of this then just read the Texas Republican Party Platform. It is on-line, and while there is very little about economic security or freedom from the government there is page after page of personal behavior that they vow to destroy.
No need to read it since they don’t either but I can sure look at facts in front of me and see if you think the repubs are controlling yet accept what we’re being put through now is not worse well your age is obviously impacting your judgment. Obamacare alone is going to extract an annual $8k to $12k of after tax income on those that draw a paycheck.
Insurance is supposed to buffer an emergency. This mess is the emergency.
Actually the impact these people are having is on a state level in many states. If Romney had won it would be on a national level. And if you are refusing to read what the Republicans are pushing for then how can you defend them? And they don’t read it either? They wrote it! Before you spend one more minute defending Conservatives in Texas it might be to your advantage to know just what it is you are defending. You might see something in there you strongly oppose, and if you do then by voting Republican you are harming yourself.
And…. Insurance is not at the heart of Conservative though since I have met few that even understand much about it. But the way you live your life? They understand that and are quick to let you know if you meet their approval. If you mention the word ‘freedom’ to them they will let you know that freedom is something they define, not you, since they are the experts on the Constitution.
And if you really want to warp their brains.. Ask them a question about the 14th amendment.
Show me where I’ve defended the repubs and don’t bother defining my political philosophy, you out of your league trying to do so. All of you tarts are amusing defining that which you hate and know little of as evidenced by your descriptions. The GOP used to offer at least lip service to fiscal restraint, the dems remind me of 60’s dead enders. That was the main reason my votes were typically to the repubs. I am what they refer to as an unreliable undercount.
I can see what the dems promote and I do not agree with much of it at all. I would be much more accepting if they discussed the financial implications of their schemes like flypusher calls for but they refuse to do so, a concept it appears the repubs are drifting towards.
A typical Conservative remark. When challenged they tend to fold up and hurl insults. Like I said, I have been dealing with hard right Conservatives since at least 1973 and have seen many of the more famous Conservative operations from the inside out, so pulling the hate and blah, blah, blah nonsense will not impress me.
Continue to support the Tea Party if you want to, but please try to find out something about it. Get involved, meet those at the top, let them know you are one of the true followers.
And the Tea Party started recently? Anyone that thinks that knows very little about Conservatives.
Old Dispatcher, warrior of all things righteous, knower of all knowledge, keeper of the flame of ignorance or something like that. Whatevs bub.
Who is forcing whose lifestyle Oldman? It seems the homosexuals are in this case.
Wanting equal rights is not forcing anything. It is the counter to the bigoted views of some people that are trying to protect the legalized discrimination they have institutionalized.
I see the conservative, religious argument against same sex marriage to be based primarily on 2 things: that sexual orientation is a choice, and that sexual practices that can’t lead to procreation are wrong. Science is blasting holes in reason 1. As for reason 2, you are entitled to choose your own personal standards to live by, but not to encode them into law in a free society unless you can demonstrate, in a secular manner, why what you want to ban is so harmful.
The religious argument regarding procreation is damn silly. A priest or nun aren’t suppose to procreate. http://www.psa91.com/christianfear.htm
What would you consider harmful in the context of life partners be flypusher?
Nothing. But my point was about the state declaring certain sexual acts between consenting adults to be illegal. Remember Lawence vs Texas? The law that was struck down never should have been passed ITFP.
So brothers are okay? Two elderly sisters maybe? A group like sister wives? I’m not concerning my comments to sex. I’m talking recognizing committed partners under whatever arrangement they deem bonds them. Is there any limit to what should be recognized?
Our liberal lesbian mermaid got married…how sweet.
Ma Parker looked us all in the eye in her very first run as a councilman and declared she would not make her sexuality an issue in her efforts to demonstrate she was a fiscally conservative watch dog of our city’s finances and her years as an analyst at Rob Mosbacher’s firm gave her that credibility. I believed her.
I haven’t voted for her since as she has proven to be pretty much a single issue promoter of all things gay and is the only member still serving of the gang that has turned our budget upside with the pension plans she sits on the boards of.
As I’ve said and still believe. It is first and foremost about the money. Always was and always will be. Any destruction left in the path of that objective is just desserts for the ones advocating for it.
Congratulation to the mayor and her partner. They have been a couple for 23 years, raised a family and have been an asset to the community. That’s commendable IMO.
Remember Jebby and his constant pronouncements that gays were lower income and contributed nothing to the economy? The good old Chron days…..sigh.
I believe their son was literally tossed out into the streets by his bio-family when they found out he was gay. So very likely they saved his life.
I didn’t know that fly. That’s terrible. I’ve never understood how parents could just toss out their own children because of their sexuality which they cannot help. Good for those two ladies.
literally tossed into the streets? not physically tossed out of the house mind you. He was, in a fashion reminiscent of Charles Dickens, LITERALLY tossed on to not one!! but multiple streets!!!
And GG, like a big mouth bass hitting a spinner, hits it and takes off!
Do you have an anecdote generator or are these stories written down and categorized for future use?
Dan, I heard that story from the man’s own mouth during a TV interview. His family kicked him out and he was living on the streets in the Montrose area, which is a very dangerous place for a teen. Parker and her partner took him into their home and he became part of their family. Leave it to an odious troll like you to mock a story that shows the best in one’s fellow humans if those humans happen to have different political views than yours.
A damn shame this blog doesn’t have an ignore function, but one can make do with DIY if needed.
Legal barriers to gay marriage are indeed falling faster than I think anyone imagined. At some point soon the SCOTUS will rule on a case in which a couple legally married in one state is denied benefits in another, and all these state amendments will be tossed on the dustheap. However, attitudes take longer to change than laws and this still seems to be a winner for the GOP amongst their core far right base. The Houston Chronicle’s article on this today did not include a comment section. I don’t think anyone has to guess why.
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Mayor-Parker-marries-longtime-partner-5150872.php?cmpid=houtexhcat
Is it really their core or is it just a noisy, strident minority? I like to think that it’s just that because most of the self-identified Republicans in my family and circle of friends are more like Chris or my father. Concerned with fiscal issues, not social or moral ones.
I wish they had permitted comments. Sunlight is the most potent enemy of these malignant attitudes, even when they are stated anonymously. Bring them all out. Let them be seen and heard, and let them live or die on merit the same way that racial segregation or women’s rights were tested.
The umbrage being shown by the extreme Conservatives comes from their fear of the inevitable. The only real damage it does is to Conservatism, which has to do the one thing many Conservatives detest the most: it has to evolve.
The problem is they don’t believe in evolution.
@GG
Interesting, they don’t believe in evolution, but swear that evolution precludes homosexuality from being genetic.
While the issue may still win local primaries, I think the point Chris is making is that winning primaries is not to be confused with doing the work of governance. If winning means your constituents lose, then it is time to re-think the platform.
Bravo my good man!
Here is what the party is up against.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/16/oklahoma-lawmaker-being-gay-is-not-a-civil-right-its-a-human-wrong/
I commend you on this but you’re applying reasoning where reasoning doesn’t apply and where is isn’t welcome. For these extremists,the only authentically Conservative response they have to this kind of change is unreasoning, irrational emotionalism.
All the “reasoned” arguments they have attempted against same-sex marriage have fallen under reasoned examination. It doesn’t threaten traditional marriage; marriage cannot be based solely upon the possibility of biological procreation (i.e., Louie Gohmert’s “plumbing” model); and defending traditional marriage solely on semantic grounds while permitting gays to engage in “contracts” is no defense. It has all failed.
Their arguments have boiled off all the intellectual camouflage. What remains is all that was ever there–they hate gays, and they want gays to know it, live with it, and be subject to it; and they want the law to legitimize this hate so they can inflict it freely as they choose. (It’s regrettable that the animus works both ways sometimes. This is an old fight, and the feelings run high; however, gays haven’t demanded that childless straight couples be prevented from marrying, or that divorce be illegal, or any such extreme. Many Conservatives take it as an attack when gays presume to ask for simple dignity.)
Obviously, the casualty here isn’t homosexuality or heterosexuality or the institution of marriage. The damaged parties are the GOP and the Conservative movement. This “doubling down” on illogical and irrational positions means that for these extremists, reasoned argument itself has failed as a way to create law. The irony is so plain it barely needs stating: in their perverse, futile expression of “patriotism” they are attacking reason itself as the foundation of law. These patriots are traitors to the fundamental intellectual tradition of their own nation. They are failing because what they demand for America is profoundly un-American.
“These patriots are traitors to the fundamental intellectual tradition of their own nation. They are failing because what they demand for America is profoundly un-American.”
Brother you summed it up perfectly.
The religious right are destined to be left in the scrap heap. Times change, marijuana will be legalized and so will same sex marriage. These old farts are becoming tedious. Just saw this today.
http://bobcesca.thedailybanter.com/blog-archives/2014/01/house-gop-lets-audit-rape-victims-for-tax-fraud.html
It’s fascinating and quite telling that these old guys obsess about gays and women’s vaginas.
I can guess what this article is about without reading it. Whoever is writing it does not want abortion funding for victims of rape and incest to have to prove it actually occurred. Abortion funding is probably the biggest or at least one of the top three issues democrats use to raise funds. Like I said, follow the money.
I personally find abortion disgusting. I imagine most commenting on this page don’t even think about it in any terms other than a political cudgel. Even I would say abortions in the case of rape/incest or medically necessary reasons are valid for subsidizing but there dang sure better be a police report backing up the rape and incest cases or they didn’t happen. I don’t know of anyone advocating for elimination of medically necessary ones but I have heard some very specious carve outs in this arena too. Y’all are pro-choice, as am I. How about choosing to pay for the consequences of your behavior yourselves and quit raking political capital off it by making it a federal issue? oh yeah, its for the children…
No, actually the point of the story is the continued alienation of women by the far right.
Why would a requirement to confirm an abortion for rape and incest in order to write down taxes be an alienation of women GG? Sounds to me like you don’t want the women to report these incidents. Could that be it? Is it so personal that these women shouldn’t be required to report the incidents, just claim it? Care to extend this scenario?
More solutions in search of a problem. If I was out for tax fraud, it shouldn’t be too hard to come up with a scheme that was much more lucrative. Seriously, if you try to claim more than one abortion that ought to raise some red flags. And what’s it going to net you? $25? $50? $100?
This is just like the “safety standards” in the TX law. They don’t have the guts or honesty to state their true intent ( ban abortion), so they dream up obstacles and inconveniences. I so loathe their dishonesty.
Do women actually claim abortions on their taxes. I confess the few women I’ve known who had them have never mentioned it.
once again GG leaves the irony on and walks away…
GG did you happen to even read what you linked?
“More solutions in search of a problem.” ah, the old voter ID gambit, its so rare it can’t be happening. Make an effort to make sure it doesn’t and it’s a war of dem constituencies. War on wimmin!!!!
If you’re going to claim a that problem merits legislature, the burden of proof is on you. Where’s the stats on abortion tax fraud? How much $ is the IRS losing with this scam?
Of course Dan. Maybe we just interpret things differently because we are different people with different philosophies and values and perhaps even different genders.
Fly, you have a point about the tax fraud. It would be ridiculous.
When the IRS is involved, in every other circumstance you are required to prove your claim except this one apparently. We’ve had over 50 million performed since Roe. If it is not going to be tracked why wouldn’t every woman that had an abortion, whether wealthy or not, apply for it? From GG’s link:
“Verifying that someone was raped could be left up to personal interpretation.”
That gets to the lefts cover that that guy Akin in Missouri was trying to articulate when he got creamed. You guys want the woman to be able to declare she was raped if she so desires. Whoopie Goldberg’s famous question “But was it rape-rape?” was very telling to those of us listening. In a sane world that would be a terrible occurrence that should be investigated. In liberal world it is an excuse to expand a funding mechanism that gets funneled to dem candidates.
I’m having a hard time determining who the victim is other than the ones paying for something they had nothing to with ie: current taxpayers or future ones.
I think Akin was getting “creamed” for a lot more than that. I remember “women can’t get pregnant from rape” and other such idiotic statements.
Akin not only made the totally biologically incorrect claim that women’s bodies could reject rapist sperm (“shut that down”), he also tried to craft legislation based on that falsehood. That is ignorance at its most dangerous, and he richly deserved every molecule of the backlash he got.
Dan, if you want us to believe a problem exists, show us the data, not your speculations. How much $ does the IRS lose to tax write-offs for terminations of pregnancies falsely attributed to rape?
again fly, like voter fraud its hard to quantify if you can’t require proof but as GG article makes clear, the very act of requesting it is headlined as a tax audit, she can’t connect the request to confirm a rape actually happened to anything more than a tactic to alienate women from whatever bogeyman she imagines and you demand the scale of cost to weigh the implications of the law. You have just walked into my world simply by asking the question. I don’t need to quantify the cost of something I find disgusting when it comes to me paying for it.
It’s much easier being consistent. There should be no federal mechanism to have me pay for your abortions. Period. Go have as many as you want. Keep it to yourself or blare it from the mountain. Just keep me out of it.
Roughly 30% of Americans itemize their federal taxes.
Yes: these old guys obsess about gays and women’s vaginas.