It looks like I was wrong when I wrote that immigrants are the new gay. It looks like gays are the new gay:
President Bush will promote a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage on Monday, the eve of a scheduled Senate vote on the cause that is dear to his conservative backers.
The amendment would prohibit states from recognizing same-sex marriages. To become law, the proposal would need two-thirds support in the Senate and House, and then be ratified by at least 38 state legislatures.
Is there ONE single person on the planet who does not recognize this is nothing more than an election-year stunt? Is there one human being on the planet who thinks this amendment has a decent chance of passing?
Bush should be ashamed of himself, and if he doesn’t have enough decency to manage that, I am ashamed for him. This administration can not end soon enough for me.
Ben
Immigrants were the new gay until the Republican “leadership” realized that it was damaging them far more than it was the Democrats. So they switched back to the old standard. Really with Iran failing to gain traction and the lack of any real serious terrorist attack it’s the ONLY thing they can fall back on.
Punchy
You’ve gone full circle. Welcome aboard, Mr. Cole. You’re expected to hug a tree on Monday, recycle on Wednesday, and bash GWB every Friday. Well done.
Faux News
Well John, I think most married folks here on BJ would agree that Gay Marriage is THE biggest threat to their marriage. Not finances/debt, adultery, “irreconcilable differences”, horrible in-laws, rotten kids, etc…
So please allow me to allay those fears. Brian and I will be married in Ptown Mass soon. All are welcome to attend the ceremony.
Jeff Gannon
Faux News
yet another jeff
They’re throwing every scare tactic in the box at this election.
DougJ
It’s pretty easy to why this works: it motivates religious nut jobs to show up and vote Republican, but it doesn’t motivated anyone to show up and vote Democrat.
If you’re a Republican who wants this to stop, then refuse to vote for Republicans who do this sort of thing. Until enough people do that, this will continue.
Steve
But what is the Democrat plan to stop gay marriage? They criticize this amendment to cover up the fact that they have no plan of their own.
edmund dantes
They will stop using it when it stops working. Unfortunately (and contrary to what people want us to believe) this country (which has made some great strides) still has a long long (fill in as many as you feel necessary) way to go until crap like this and crap like this on immigration, etc. is no longer viable.
DougJ
And at least you know the Republicans stand here — marriage is between a man and a woman, a HUMAN man and a HUMAN woman, not man on man, woman on woman, man on dog, dog on man, woman on dog, or dog on woman.
Have the Democrats staked out any kind of clear position on man on dog marriage? Gee, it couldn’t be that their afraid of the powerful Man on Dog lobby operating out of Hollywood. No, they’d never let something like that affect their moral judgements.
Jim Allen
Careful — the wingers are going to come after you just like they did the Dixie Chicks, and look what happened to them. They ended up number one. Think you can handle that?
neil
Is there ONE single person on the planet who does not recognize this is nothing more than an election-year stunt? Is there one human being on the planet who thinks this amendment has a decent chance of passing?
Sadly, Yes! I don’t know what it is with you elite Pajamas Media bloggers and the idea that the political process is just a big kabuki dance that everybody understands. In fact, most people — those ‘middle Americans’ who you conservatives love to say we don’t understand — do take this sort of thing at face value, they do not recognize that it is an election-year stunt, they will become furious at the obstructionist, homo-nup-loving liberals who successfully defeated it, and maybe some of them will even vote in November.
At which point John will sighingly explain to us that with national leaders like that crazy, angry Howard Dean the Democrats will never be able to connect with people, blah blah blah.
DougJ
I don’t think that’s true at all. I suspect that if you took a poll, most would say that they thought it was an election year stunt. Anyway, most people don’t care about gay marriage very much. The point is that there is a small percentage of people, say 15 percent, who are fixated on this isssue and are more likely to show up to vote if this issue is in the air, as it were.
They’re not expecting to sway votes with this necessarily. They’re just trying to get more whackos to show up and vote.
mark
the people who should really be ashamed of themselves are the ones who knew Bush was an incompetent, pandering moron and voted for him anyways.
croatoan
President Bush has called for this before. The same suckers who fell for it in 2004 will fall for it again this year.
It’s not gays or immigrants, it’s gays and immigrants. According to this kooky attack ad, “America would be nothing but one big fiesta for illegal aliens and homosexuals.”
ppGaz
Good post, John.
As I said the other day, the Founders clearly intended for marriage to be between One Man and One Woman. They were so sure that nobody would even consider any other option that they deliberately left it out of the Constitution.
Bush is simply out to fix that mistake.
orogeny
DougJ,
Come to Alabama some time of you don’t think that folks take this kind of crap very seriously. Preachers, politicians and small local newspapers trumpet the “threat to traditional Alabama values” that gay marriage represents. To a lot of these people, homosexuality is the equivalent of pedophilia or bestiality. We’re in the primary season right now, and I have yet to see a Repub’s advertising that doesnet include the code words “protecting the institution of marriage” or something equivalent.
ppGaz
Meanwhile, the world’s largest ball of paint is going to get the funding it deserves from Dept of Homeland Security, to protect it from terrorists. Now, you have to give the Republicans credit for doing something useful this year.
( Ball of Paint reference, courtesy DKos )
Punchy
Take a biologist’s approach to this. How does one legally define a man? Genotypically? “One X, one Y”? What about XXY individuals (Klinefelter’s)? Would they say “Two X’s make a woman”; but XXY is a man, and women can be XO (Turner’s).
If it’s based on genitalia, what are hermaphrodites? What about those with sex changes? Their genotypes and phenotypes are exactly opposite…
One may laugh at this, but I guarentee this would end up in court. If you can’t adequately define a man and woman in legal terms, what kind of amendment can you enforce?
Andrew
“America would be nothing but one big fiesta for illegal aliens and homosexuals.”
This sounds like a lot of fun, actually.
Punchy:
The sex change issue was brought up the last time around, and it so thoroughly vexed the homophobes that they never addressed it. Short summary: some states decide sex on genetic sex and some on post-operative appearance. Conclusion: Texas is whack.
neil
Wow, just wow. I checked out the Polling Report page for Civil Rights polls, which is mostly gay marriage these days, to see if they had any questions about whether people thought the gay marriage amendment was politically movitated. Nope, but they do have another amazing eye-opener of a poll that I haven’t seen elsewhere.
Here it is: “Do you support or oppose allowing gays and lesbians to adopt children?” 46% support; 48% oppose
“Do you support or oppose allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally?” 39% support; 51% oppose
Do you see what’s going on here? More people support gay adoption now than support gay marriage! I can only see one likely reason for this: the two-year GOP propaganda battle to define gay marriage as unacceptable has succeeded, but its effects are hollow. The result is not any sort of coherent philosophical objection to gay marriage (as is also shown by the high level of support for civil unions) but simply a knee-jerk ‘no’ reaction when ‘gay’ and ‘marriage’ are in the same sentence.
This is a very self-defeating tactic for the Religious Right and GOP to have used. For it proves that their campaign against ‘gay marriage’ has, ultimately, been a campaign against marriage as much as a campaign against gay; and that the counteraction of the gay rights movement has essentially negated the latter point, leaving the net effect of the campaign to be a negative for marriage. More people are in favor of adoption outside of wedlock. More people are in favor of alternate bonds than marriage. And as the gay rights bandwagon rolls on, the lasting impression will be that the Republicans were on the wrong side of history, again.
Have any conservative commentators noticed and expressed concern about the strongly anti-marriage nature of the gay marriage propaganda?
Punchy
If you actually believe gay marriage HURTS Alabama values, then I feel very sorry for you. Marriage, gay or otherwise, strengthens a society b/c it forces one to have roots; to buy a house, pay property tax, participate in events and raise a family, schools, social fabric, etc.
There is absolutely NO WAY that gay marriage affects anyone else’s marriage. Leave it to religion to fuck up so many people’s minds…
DougJ
Orogeny — Alabama is on one of the most right-wing states in the country, so I’ll bet that maybe 25 or 30 percent of the population there really cares about this issue. That makes is a pretty big issue, obviously, but I’ll bet that if you asked Alabamans to rank issue in order of importance, it wouldn’t come in that high.
DougJ
Rush was just talking about Mexicans sneaking over the border so they can get gay married in California. So you can see the two issues are closely linked.
EL
I think we need DougJ to start a movement among the righties to protect the institution of marriage by outlawing divorce. After all, what do the statistics show? Which directly ends more marriages?
Should be fun to watch.
Ancient Purple
Of course it is pure political pandering. Unfortunately, the “base” that Bush is appealing to can’t seem to come clean about how gay marriage harms straight marriage.
I ask this question all the time: how specifically does two men being married affect your marriage?
There is never a specific answer. There is abstract and lofty prattle about destroying the cornerstone of society and then the Bible is thrown in for good measure. But, there is never actually any evidence (even anecdotal) about how a wedding between Mark and Greg destroyed a straight marriage.
Of course, it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t mention the fact that Massachusetts – which has gay marriage – has the lowest straight divorce rate in the nation. Oddly, Arizona – which outlawed gay marriage some time ago – has the second highest divorce rate in the nation.
Al Maviva
Let’s see. He can’t be bothered to secure the borders, to successfully prosecute the GWOT & Iraq to a worthwhile conclusion (of the first part, in a multi-generation struggle), and his first attempt at a Supreme Court Justice was a results-oriented, second rate hack attorney who, even if she was conservative, would likely do great unintended damage to the law with her second rate skillz. Now this Amendment is supposed to get conservatives excited and elect Republicans in the Fall? Please. That shit may work when you need Jethro Q. Irredent to crawl out of the ‘holler to go vote, and it may give you the .5% extra you need in a tight race, but the revolt against the Republican Party isn’t occurring among those idiots, it’s the center mass of the party, including the mainstream right and libertarian flanks. They’re the ones that are grabbing the pitchforks. The paleos, of course, have been in revolt for some time… Yeah, I’m concerned about what judicial impositions of gay marriage will do to the social institution of marriage, but color me as somebody who makes the issue a pretty low priority, and resents the attempts to use a tough policy question with a lot of social externalities (no matter how it gets answered) as a wedge issue. This is an issue for the voters of the respective states to decide. Never mind the fact that this moronic amendment will be stillborn and be another stupid, divisive misspending of what little political capital the man has available for governing.
Rhymes with trucking banker.
Pb
neil,
What I take from that is that 35-45% of the US population is composed of homophobes, overly zealous fundamentalists, and/or bigots. These are the people who are against both gay marriage and civil unions, and for the Constitutional Amendment to legislate morality and scapegoat gays. Most of them are conservatives, and about half of them are Republicans. It’s a straight-up fear-mongering wedge issue, is all it is.
Andrew
I would actually like to further the War on Christmas with a round of government mandated gay marrying. Maybe a draft of some sort — every 5th Christian is automatically married to his same-sex neighbor or dog. If there aren’t enough single Christians here already, we can use illegals.
Jcricket
I think the problem is that DougJ’s right – this will mobilize all those “ultra conservatives” who we’ve recently read had been disenchanted with Bush. They’ll say, “Yeah, I know he has increased the size of government, has lied to us about a bunch of stuff, is pro-amnesty on illegal immigration, but at least he’s stopping the gays. Better vote for him or we’ll get a lesbian president and have Mrs. President and her First Lady“. But there will be no change the voting patterns or turnout of any liberals or moderates.
That’s a “Rovian” tactic if I’ve ever heard of one. Remember, the Willie Horton ad “worked”. There’s no chance of this passing, but it doesn’t matter. The net effect for Republicans is positive. It may be offset by other negative effects (screwing up the immigration debate, Iran negotiations, bad news in Iraq, economic meltdown, whatever), but at least tactically, this is a short term win for them.
But Republicans are clearly on the wrong side of history on this issue, just like all the racist, segregationist Democrats who switched parties to form the “Southern Strategy” for mid-centry Republicans. I’ll be glad when my kids are grown and I can talk about how homophobia, while still present, is no longer enshrined in law.
DougJ
What about the people who are mad Bush won’t put landmines on the border with Mexico? This might work with them.
Punchy
What I have yet to see (I’m sure it exists, but I’m too damn busy…anyone?) is these polls broken down into age catagories. I can tell you that very, very few educated Americans that I know under the age of 30 object to gay marriage. The young and educated KNOW the facts. That explains Alabama, Mississippi…
Mr. Cole–you’re a teacher. What do most of your students think?
The Other Steve
I don’t think you all are being fair to President Bush.
He’s got a hard job, it’s hard, and it’s a lot of work. Obviously the problem with immigration is that the Democrats are stalling any efforts for real reform.
So he has been forced to resort to this tactic to get the Democrats to move from their bunkered positions.
Paul L.
Since you guy are talking about racism and gay marriage.
Care to comment on the following links.
Andrew Sullivan’s quote
“Momogamy [sic] is very hard for men, straight or gay”
Gen-Xers for hypocrisy.
“The [Duke] lacrosse boys brought it on themselves, though — even if the accuser’s lying.”
Yes, Seattle, Racism Can Cut Both Ways
chopper
where’s bin laden?
sorry, what’s that? fags, you say?
never mind.
Andrew
If we can’t catch Osama, the least we can do is prevent him from getting married in Massachusetts, Hawaii, or Vermont.
Even the small victories in the Global War on Terror are important.
John Cole
My position about the mouthbreathers who have this as an important issue is “WHO CARES WHAT THEY THINK?” I bet in Alabama, we could find population areas where 25-30% of the population want to take away the right to vote from black people. We certainly are not letting them dictate policy on that matter, why would we cater to them on the issue of marriage? Oh, yeah- it is an election year.
The larger part of this is that the role of political leaders should not be to just to represent the views of those who elected them, but to also help to educate and inform the public. The word leader used to mean something. In this regard, Bush has had numerous opportunities to rebuff the knuckledragger crowd, and stand up for what is right, yet every time he has chosen to acquiesce to the loudmouths and the bigots. Instead of working to end homophobia, Bush, by signalling his support for this amendment, is sending a message to people that it is ok to hate ‘teh gay.’
It is sick, really, and I am embarassed.
Keith
This will dig Bush further in his private little hole. He’s just going to pay lip service to this issue like he does for other base issues, and when it fails, he will drop it. Those against the amendment will villify him further because he’s pandering in desperation, and those for the amendment will villify him further because they are finally seeing that all he is doing is pandering without the rabid follow-through that they demand.
canuckistani
I can never get over wondering, if God hates gay marriage so much, why He couldn’t have managed an 11th commandment. He must have known what would happen in America in the 21st century without it.
The Easter Bunny
Killing Santa wasn’t enough for you, you bastards? Now you’re going to push your twisted gay bestiality agenda on us too? Keep talking, kooks, so normal Americans can see just how out of touch you are with their values.
Look, Mrs. Claus and I have a . . . ‘special’ relationship since Santa’s death. But we keep it in the privacy of my warren. And I sure as shit don’t think we should be allowed to get married. That’s just sick.
This whole issue illustrates why you lefty punks can’t be trusted with the security of this country. You’re too worried about legitimizing your hedonistic fantasies to see the real threat facing this country: the Canuckofascist menace that wants to destroy all Christian holidays.
Remember 5/29, bitches.
Paul Wartenberg
And you know, that ad is offensive to all us natural born heterosexuals who were hoping for a big fiesta some day. Sigh… the GOP is opposed to fiestas, remember that come election day…
Pb
Punchy,
I think you’re quite right, and there’s a trend towards more acceptance over time, as the polls also reflect.
SeesThroughIt
Check out blogsforbush sometime–a whole mess of them believe this is not political stunt, but Bush having the courage to confront the most important problem facing our nation. Mark Noonan claims gay marriage would lead to the downfall of Western society so in trying ban it, Bush is saving Western society as a whole. How courageous!
As predicted by Ancient Purple, when you press Noonan on why gay marriage is such a threat, he starts spinning these ridiculous tales about “eroding the cornerstone of civilization” and whatnot–plenty of Bible thrown in, too, of course–but never actually makes a point. It is kind of funny, though, because he sounds an awful lot like General Ripper voicing his paranoia about our precious bodily fluids.
Paddy O'Shea
Rep. Charles Rangel, (D-NY) was asked what he thought about the President.
“Well,” he said, “I really think he shatters the myth of white supremacy once and for all.”
The Easter Bunny
Back off, punk. We don’t tell you how to worship your Moose God, so quit attacking our religion.
Paul Wartenberg
BTW, Reuters Health is reporting that the teens who pledge virginity/abstinence are more likely to either deny having made such a pledge once they become sexually active, or else had lied about previous sexual activity before taking the abstinence pledge. Still think the Republicans know what they’re doing when they push a religiously biased sex-control agenda?
orogeny
The last polling data I saw showed that 54% of Alabamians STRONGLY supported a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and 74% consider such an amendment to be an important issue.
Not sure where you live, DougJ, but I’ll bet is somewhere where a majority of the population is relatively sane. In states like Alabama, the hard-core right-wing whackos are in the majority. Heck, several of the major Republican candidates for offices like governor, lt. governor, supreme court justice, have been keynote speakers or honored guests at the Council of Conservative Citizens national conventions and no one even raises the issue. Racism, homophobia, etc are the rule, not the exception here.
Jack Roy
Yeah, I’m with those above who say there’s not just one, there’s a majority of the primary-voting Republican party who fails so to recognize.
And hell, I’m not entirely sure it can’t pass.
Caleb
Mexican’s are the new Muslims.
Scott H
The ‘gay card’ may play one more election cycle – it may not. Opposition to gay marriage is dropping off at a rapid clip – from the mid-60% to the low 50% in a couple of years. I may be glossing a variety of polls wrongly, but that seems the gist.
Anyway, I don’t see how pushing the FMA can be a win for the Republicans. The only group that is going to loathe them any more is their religious base when it doesn’t pass the Senate. Will any voters award them points for trying?
Pb
Re: Alabama–from the most recent Survey USA poll, Alabama is President Bush’s 8th most favorable state (he was at 44% there, compared to an average of 33% across the nation). From that poll, 41% of Alabamians self-identify as Conservatives, and 38% as moderates. Only 11% self-identify as liberals; 16% never attend church; 18% have been through grad school; 37% are Democrats; and 39% are pro-choice. As gay marriage is predominately supported by liberals, and Alabama is pretty conservative, I don’t find orogeny’s assertions–wrong or right–to be that shocking.
Vladi G
I’ll tell ya what. Gays and Mexicans know how to party. That would be one fine fiesta.
Perry Como
Cinco de Fabulous!
orogeny
The polling data I cited is from Auburn University. It’s available at http://tinyurl.com/s8rye
Krista
Where can we buy tickets to this thing? :)
rachel
I used to get mad at Bush, but then I realized he is a puppet; a helpless, hapless tool, and when his masters are done with him, they will discard him as you would a soiled piece of Kleenex.
jcricket
Post of the Day!
Darrell
I think Al Maviva’s post nailed it well. But John Cole takes it too far with this:
Get a grip. 60% of Californians voted against the legalization of gay marriage, CA being arguably one of the most liberal states in the country..I agree this is a political stunt, but c’mon, you want to tell us that California’s opposition and all other opposition is solely rooted in hatred of gays?
Punchy
Here’s what else I think 25-30% of Alabamians are for:
1) Oral hygiene–their stick-and-dirt routine doesn’t quite clean their gum nubs quite like those newfangled teethbrushes
2) Oral sex–they’d like to be able to talk about sex with their cousin before they actually play “Find The Hole”
3) Health care coverage for all their 14-year old mothers–no child/mother/redneck left behind!
4) Them silly Negros back on the farm–not as farmers, of course…but planting crops nonetheless
God I hate the South.
Ancient Purple
Perhaps Pajama Media will have a web ad soon. :)
Punchy
By the way, what do the Log Cabin Republicans think of this? Better question: how does one remain a gay Republican?? How many attempts at ruining their lives does one party have to persue before a gay individual says, “Damn, they HATE people like me”??
Mary Cheney, hope you’re happy.
Darrell
I don’t know about that.. I was at a trade show in NYC a few years back where the booth next to ours was a Mississipi state business development group affiliated with their Chamber of Commerce. One of the guys from that MS group told me that when he checked into his hotel, the desk clerk joked that he must have left his KKK hood back at home. Maybe that quip was really meant as a joke, but it does seem that for many, it’s fair game to make bigoted generalizations about southerners.
orogeny
Punchy,
You’re pretty close…in 2001, 41% of Alabama voters voted against repealing a ban on interracial marriage.
DougJ
Take a biologist’s approach to this. How does one legally define a man? Genotypically? “One X, one Y”? What about XXY individuals (Klinefelter’s)? Would they say “Two X’s make a woman”; but XXY is a man, and women can be XO (Turner’s).
Is there any sound science to support the theory of chromosomes? Cause it sure as shit ain’t in the Bible.
Darrell
If that’s true, wow. I wonder what percentage of black voters voted in favor of it.
John Cole
You have been pissing me off lately, but after that, all is forgiven.
SeesThroughIt
That really is a good question. I mean, I can see that perhaps they like the Republican stance regarding the economy or foreign policy or what have you, but surely they must realize that these same Republicans catapult themselves to power by demonizing gays–not just Democratic gays, but gays in general. I would think that Log Cabin Republicans would finally say, “You know what? Fuck you people. We want to go pursue Republican principles without all the wacko gay-bashing bullshit.”
Coincidentally, one of The Simpsons episodes shown last night was the one where Bart and Lisa chase a floating-away pink elephant balloon into a building. The balloon floats into a meeting room where the leader says, “We need a symbol that says, ‘We’re gay, but we’re also Republican.'” Enter pink elephant balloon. The man also offers Lisa a bumper sticker that says, “A gay president in 2084!” When questioned about the year, he shrugs and says, “We’re realistic.”
orogeny
Darrell,
One mistake…it was 2000, not 2001.
http://tinyurl.com/d6dmw
Davebo
I loved this line from a story about gays in the catholic church.
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=3950
The Other Steve
I think you’re being way too hard on the President.
His poll ratings are down, and that’s because he’s not shown real clarity on worrying about the issues most important to the public. Gay Marriage is one of those issues, so I’m glad to see he’s finally having the courage to take it on.
Ancient Purple
Of course not. There are a variety of reasons, one of which is that people get caught up in the hysteria of “my marriage is in jeopardy if we let THEM get married.”
If you settle them down and ask them specifically what would happen if “them” got married, they can’t really point to anything.
If there was anything, I think it would be easy to point out by simply going to Massachusetts for some research.
Punchy
This has got to be the funniest thing ever posted on this blog. I smell a bumper sticker.
ppGaz
Well, it’s fair game for you to make bigoted remarks about gay people. So what?
ppGaz
What else would it be rooted in, Darrell? Do you have a rational argument for government control of who marries whom? Constitutional basis for it?
Richard Bottoms
You should be, since you voted for him.
And you stiull don’t get that a very large portion of the party you recently abandoned bites on this stuff hook, line & sinker every election.
Republicans have used a variation on this tactic for years and it’s only willful blindness to just now recognize the Republican party is what it is.
My only hope is you will collect the same group of idiots who voted for Bush last time on this or similar issues while finally pissing independents & Democrats off enough to to GW to go fuck himself.
I only hope this group isn’t stupid enough to fall for another “uniter” named McCain.
Richard Bottoms
Fuck the South.
In general.
Darrell
So then ppg, did you vote for ‘bigot’ John Kerry who publicly opposed legalization of gay marriage?
ppGaz
Answer the question, Darrell. Don’t try to change the subject.
What is the “rational” argument in favor of Defense of Marriage?
Or stated another way, if it isn’t based on hatred of gays, what is it based on?
orogeny
As someone who has lived in the south all my life and in Alabama for 32 years, my opinion is that the bigoted generalizations are right.
Darrell
If that’s really how you feel ppg, then tell us why you voted for ‘bigot homophobe’ John Kerry who publicly opposed legalization of gay marriage as part of his campaign?
Faux News
Ok that is twice in one thread I spit up my iced tea on the keyboard. Definately a record.
TWO posts of the day!
Pooh
Objection, non-responsive. The witness is instructed to answer the question and stop bringing his pet jackalope into the courtroom.
Kimmitt
Man, and they say Democrats are dismissive toward the Republican base.
IOKIYAR, I guess.
Richard Bottoms
It does work.
“And you fall for it every time”
— Angel, Becoming Pt. 1
McNulty
Why is it that nobody ever spits on their monitor, it’s always just the keyboard?
Not that i’ve gotten that all-important question out of the way, i think this whole “oh, the south is so bigoted” thing kind of misses the bigger point.
I’ve never lived in the South, nor do i have any desire to, but speaking as someone that has –except for four years at Penn State–lived in Philly for all of my 33 years, the South hardly has the market cornered on racism or bigotry. This city is as racially divided as it’s ever been.
And like i said, i haven’t spent much time in the South, so i can’t compare NE cities to down there, but two years ago i was in Boston and i went to a bar downtown that was a mix of young, dressed up professionals, as well as construction workers who were working on the Big Dig, and i couldn’t believe how freely people threw around the “N” word. Even coming from a place like Philly, it stunned me. They just said it and didn’t even care who heard them.
nyrev
You don’t have to go that far south. Gay marriage was, overwhelmingly, the issue for Ohio Republicans in ’04 and by gum, they’re agin it. (What, you think the Repubs were playing up Ohio’s higher than average unemployment rates and similarly higher than average Iraq casualty rate?)
The Other Steve
Well obviously. Opposition to forced Gay Marriage is something that resonates with the public. We’ve done polling on this, and over 90% of the people of Ohio are opposed to people being placed in state arranged gay marriages.
People don’t want to hear about unemployment rates or casualty rates. Those things are fucking depressing.
ppGaz
Uh, you see Darrell, you are responding to a simple straightforward question, to wit: “What is the rational argument in favor of Defense of Marriage?”
Not an assertion of my “feelings” which are not at issue here.
CAN YOU ANSWER A FUCKING QUESTION you stupid worthless piece of shit?
Never mind, we know the answer to that one.
nyrev
Well, you know. They say they just want to marry each other, but next thing you know, we’ll all be forced to buy them kitschy wedding gifts. And then they’ll adopt all our children, and probably marry them too. And only Bob Taft and his coin-collecting cronies can save us!
The Other Steve
Can you imagine it?
I mean, what color duvet do you buy for a gay couple anyhow? Are you allowed to buy them a grill? Are they going to be more interested in power tools or kitchen tools?
And what will be the customs for china patterns!?
Dear God, think of the consequences!
Clearly, this must be stopped!
DougJ
If someone here were from Georgia or the Carolinas they’d be swearing up and down that Alabama is not representative of the south. (They may be right.)
Okay, so I was totally wrong about how much Alabamans care about gay marriage.
And Darrell’s point is stupid — the fact that Californians voted against gay marriage (if that’s true) does not mean they considered it an important issue. When I lived in California, I voted to ban the sale of horse meat (or maybe I voted against the ban, I can’t remember anymore), but I didn’t consider it an important issue. At the time, anyway — now I’ve seen the light and realize that banning the sale of horsemeat should be our nation’s highest priority.
snorkel
Well according to RFK Jr, there is another explanation for Ohio 2004:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen
orogeny
I think you’re right, Georgia and the Carolinas, in my experience (I’ve got relatives in NC and have spent a fair amount of time in GA) seem far less backward than Alabama. Alabama groups better with Mississippi, Texas and North Florida.
RSA
I live in NC (for going on ten years now. God, it seems like only, oh, seven or eight years since I was living in western Massachusetts). I don’t know if it’s only the transplants who say this, but the impression I get from a lot of people is, “But it’s not the Deep South.”
DougJ
Orogeny — that’s exactly what my friends in Georgia say. They believe in an overall hierarchy with Virginia at the top, followed by North Carolina, then Georgia, then South Carolina, the Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and north Florida. They seem to have spent a lot of time thinking about this.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t share this clip with all of you.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/06/02.html#a8543
RSA
I have a quick-and-dirty heuristic for judging the backwardness of a state: How many reputable universities does it contain, and where? It gives reasonable results for DougJ’s hierarchy, even if it’s just a stand-in for many factors.
DougJ
Universities play a big role in the whole thing: Virginia wins because of UVa, NC second because of UNC and Duke. I’m not sure why UVa beats UNC and Duke, but it does for some reason in this ranking.
RSA
I think it’s general hatred of the Blue Devils.
Punchy
You’d better put Mississippi at the bottom. I have relatives here, and crossing over into MS is like driving into a 3rd world country. I’m fully expecting to see chickens and cows running through the Jackson Airport. It appears antithetical to even sport healthy teeth. Wife beaters are acceptable work wear. They sell pillow cases with the eye holes already pre-cut and the crosses already pre-soaked.
Richard Bottoms
North Carolina, 1984.
Fayetteville, home of Fort Bragg.
In my uniform.
“We don’t serve niggers in here.”
Fuck the South.
Perry Como
DougJ, are you sure Richard Cohen isn’t a spoof?
Perry Como
What else would you wear when your job is actually beating your wife?
snorkel
Not to pile it on on Mississippi, but once while on a business trip, the white cab driver taking me from Jackson Airport to the city began relieving his racist anger within two minutes. Later, the hosts for the meeting took us out to a business dinner and made us say grace. Basically, the prayer leader asked the Lord to make it a profitable year for his company. I’ve felt more comfortable at business meetings in Tokyo, and I have no knowledge of Japanese whatsoever.
Punchy
Matsui can ball, Sony makes shitty-ass portable stereos, it’s easier to lay Angelina Jolie than get into their universities, a round of 18 on a Friday can cost thousands, and their writing resembles “doghouse…pinetree…chickenbone with a slash…another house…parallelogram with an x…period”.
If any of you are Japanese and are offended…well…go “banana seat with 3 lines diagonal” yourself.
RSA
When I read somewhere that the Japanese sometimes play not doubles tennis but quadruples tennis, I had to laugh. That’s space at a premium.
DougJ
Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and north Florida are all lumped together. There’s no real ranking among them.
snorkel
Where does Louisiana fit into all of this?
Perry Como
It’s busy mugging the other states.
The Other Steve
I don’t think it’s fair for all y’all to be picking on the South.
Just cause a man has sex with a mule, doesn’t mean his family is degenerate.
Punchy
Growing up in north-central Louisiana, my dad’s house didn’t have electricity until he was in high school. We’re talking the fifties (sixties?). THAT’s Louisiana (the rural parts). His backyard was the Fallujah of Poisonous SnakeWorld. More red ants in LA than in China.
The Other Steve
Umm, my grandparents in Iowa didn’t have running water until they moved into town from the farm in 1980.
No poisonous snakes that I’m aware of though.
Kimmitt
If you look at the per-capita income stats, they confirm Mississippi’s status as a high-level Third World area. It’s amazing that any polician out of the current power structure is listened to under any circumstances.
SeesThroughIt
That’s incredibly harsh, wrong, and hilarious!
I remember the Southern Ranking Scale from my time in NC. It was generally thought that NC was the South, but not the Deep South. I didn’t appreciate the difference until I went with my friend to visit his sister in South Carolina. Holy crap, is that state weird.
Andrew
What happens if Mississippi gay marries South Carolina? I assume it would be gay, because they’re both red states.
DougJ
South Carolina. Holy crap, is that state weird.
Good food, though — pulled pork with mustard plus great shellfish.
demimondian
In one dish? Yeuch.
Andrew
Hmmm, stop pork spoofing, DougJ.
Every knows that barbeque is central Carolina-style vinegar-based pulled pork.
Not mustard. Not ribs. Not mesquite. Kansas and Memphis can suck it. Suck it Memphis, suck it.
DougJ
South Carolina bbq often has a mustard sauce. I lived in north Georgia for four years.
Andrew
Well, what I trying to say before I flew into a lack-of-barbeque induced rage was that the only decent and proper barbeque is the central North Carolina style.
We are aware of the mustard sauce, and that’s why there are two different Carolinas.
gary
I am for the marriage ammendment. I do realize that the Republicans are using this as an election year issue but I really do not care. It is really important that this ammendment passes. Thankfully the discussion has led a large number of states to pass ammendments to their constitutions by the will of the people. It is time to go back to the morality of our founding father’s and families and not the morality of some judges and the cultural snobs living on each coast. The country is made of middle America that still beleives in God, country and family. Will this ammendment pass this year – no. The fact that it is being brought up in the election year will remind the majority of Americans, who supports American value and the morals we beleive in. Marriage ammedment talk will convince more to go to the polls and vote for people who uphold their values. This talk will convince more states to push forward on marriage ammendments and tougher laws against gays and other immoral activities. In the long run, the marriage ammendment discussion is best thing for the country, our judiciary and especially for the country that we leave for our children and grandchildren
Pb
DougJ,
I’m in NC (and right by all those Universities, in fact), and I concur.
Richard Bottoms,
Given the choice, avoid Fayettenam, and stick to RDU instead.
DougJ
Andrew — the mustard sauce and the vinegar sauces are both excellent, and both similar in that they are not sweet and have high acidity. It’s the tomato-based sauces that bother me.
DougJ
In the long run, the marriage ammendment discussion is best thing for the country, our judiciary and especially for the country that we leave for our children and grandchildren
That’s a pretty good spoof. I wonder who is doing it.
Andrew
As a former VA native and current NC resident, I would take issue with the ranking of Southern states.
Most folks I know feel that North Carolina is actually a bit more progressive, overall, than Virginia. Northern VA is an extremely liberal, Democratic bastion, more similar to Maryland and New Jersey than the rest of the state. There are regular discussions of NoVA’s secession from VA, though this is entirely concerned with tax revenue and disbursement, not cultural values. Besides Charlottesville and African-Americans, the rest of the state is extremely conservative.
NC has more African-Americans (with a strong cultural base in Durham), two more truly liberal towns (Chapel Hill and Asheville), and the large cities are somewhat more liberal than the rural areas.
Norfolk and Fayettnam are a wash.
The Other Steve
gary – I’m a more moral person than every Republican talking head pundit on television.
So I’ve got a real hard time with Bill “Gambling Addiction” Bennett or Newt “Leave ’em in the Hospital” Gingrich, or George “Drink&Snort til your passed out” Bush going around telling the country what morality is all about, since they don’t even know. All they care about condeming are the sins that they don’t personally enjoy.
They are Pharisees. Hypocrites. And this crap about morality serves no purpose other than to divide the nation and give them power. How is it that a man who would divide the nation for the want of power can call himself Moral?
GOP4Me
I completely agree, gary. Homosexual marriage is one of the most important issues facing America today. Will we abandon our culture, our heritage, our religious values and our basic social structures to appease the whims of a tiny minority of sexual deviants? Will we open the doors of libertinism to polygamy and dog weddings? Or will we stand up for America, stand up for God and country against the hedonists menacing our freedoms and our faith?
I’m not troubled by the timing of this, either. I think an election year is the best time to remind Americans of what is really important. If we leave it up to Democrats, all they’ll want to talk about is a few Republicans who were corrupted by excessive exposure to Democratic pork-barrel politics. I think that’s an unacceptable topic of conversation when Americans’ belief in God is under attack. And if I’m in the minority, all I can say is that this minority will not stop until it reclaims the majority.
SeesThroughIt
Oh boy…during my collegiate stint in North Carolina I quickly learned that as a Northerner, my best position in these arguments is to keep quiet and enjoy the food. Fistfights erupt over it. Hell, even the schism between coastal Carolina vs. Piedmont Triad (and points west) is pretty rough.
John S.
Bwahahaha. Retarded POTD.
So it’s the Democrats fault for corrupting Republicans? Precious.