“Blank check” to do… what? Practice politics? You might not have noticed, but that’s a check they don’t need to receive from me, they get it from their respective electorate each and every term of office.
This tantrum gets more and more foolish. Go find “someone” who’s up to the task of actually moving legislatures solely on the strength of his or her own convictions, much less legislatures his/her highly moral public stance has helped push into the control of an intractable opposition party.
That may be a gambit he takes today in his interview with ABC. I hope so, as it means he sees a way to get legislative support through that tactic. But until and unless the “youth vote” can directly pass laws through Congress, it’s just juvenile to whine about a leader’s use of politics to translate an ideal -whether popularly supported or not- into legislative action. That’s what politics is for, dammit.
Baloney. Accepting political realities and applauding my President’s ability to work within those realities to affect incremental positive change doesn’t translate into approval of Romneyesque political malleability.
You wrote, on the subject of a single issue which, depending on how the POTUS handles his public stances can be used by extremists as an effective wedge: “If he’s not up to the task, we should find someone who is.” That’s classic poutrage, and just dumb.
One thing that often gets overlooked in this debate: We often talk about what government should and should not do, and that’s proper. It’s reasonable to say that the government should not prohibit gay marriage. But there’s an even more fundamental question, what the government can and can not do. Not only should the government not ban SSM, but it can’t. If two people decide to get married, and go through with something they consider to be a marriage, then there’s no mortal agency that can stop them. Now, the government can (but should not) decide not to recognize certain marriages, but that’s a different thing than actually stopping them.
Rights don’t exist except by what societies grant, so ultimately a society decides what rights there are. But deciding that members of that society don’t get a right isn’t something that should be put up to a vote.
This is exactly the same thing as saying that the right to bear arms (which I’m not a fan of, personally, but our society grants it anyway) doesn’t apply to people of Dutch descent.
No amount of voting should allow that, unless you can demonstrate some compelling reason.
And there has never been a reason to disallow SSM that was based on a rational argument. Magellan, for instance, has argued to disallow same sex couples from marrying in perhaps twenty or more threads and thousands of posts, and he has never once given a reason for it that is in the least rational.
If it were my choice, SSM would be the law in every state. At least some people suggesting that civil unions would be easier to pass aren’t opposed to SSM they just realize that if you ask an all-or-nothing question, you might get nothing.
Regarding the 14th amendment hypothetical, it would definitely depend on the context. If there was no way to get the 14th passed in a given political climate, the text suggested would be an acceptable middle ground to hold until the political climate changes.
You have a much greater ability to rationalize this than I do. As I said, this might have been true 10 years ago, but I think we’re well past that. At some point you have to abandon such a fearful position.
It’s “only” the single most important civil rights issue of our age. If can’t lead on that, he’s no leader. And it was a rhetorical remark, since it’s not going to happen. He’s already secured the Democratic nomination. What’s “dumb” is dismissing an argument as a tantrum.
The progress that’s been made on gay rights issues over the last 10 years or so indicates that this is no longer true (if it ever was). SSM opponents realize the same thing, which is why they’ve been working on these pre-emptive state constitutional amendments that are just going to get shamefacedly overturned a couple of decades from now.
You can’t do anything in a democracy without winning elections. That’s not a “fearful position” of yesteryear.
What’s dishonest is mischaracterizing my disagreement with your argument as a dismissal of it. I’ve addressed your points as I understand them. You, on the other hand, continue to handwave the despised politics of the issue away as if they’re minor obstacles to the resolution of institutionalized discrimination, when in the fact they’re the very heart of the problem.
I like Obama generally, but I have no doubt that his decision to support SSM wasn’t completely the result of political reasoning, and any resemblance to his actual feelings on the matter are coincidental.
Yes, the government arrested them, but that didn’t change the fact that they were still married. Arresting people for getting married is something the government can do. Stopping people from getting married is not.
