“Healthy marriage” is, of course, code for heterosexual marriage. This is a way for Bush to set himself off against that “queer lover” Dean (who legalized same-sex civil unions in Vermont) by pretending to care about poor married straights.
This kind of politicking is hypocritical and meaningless when “healthy marriage” is defined as narrowly and irrationally as Bush wishes to do it. He has no wish to promote healthy gay marriages, in fact, this policy would define all same-sex unions as unhealthy by implication.
There is also a problem here in that the government has no business involving itself in the private relationships of its citizens in the first place but that’s secondary to the fact that the the Bushies are tacitly exploiting bigotry for political gain.
Just one more reason to fire this prick…not that we needed another one.
IMO, Bush will get nowhere in the centerpiece department with homophobia. Nor will he be able to get any of the redecorating shows to do a room in the White House.
I’d just note that Bush – so-called conservative – is pushing a big spending program with amorphous goals and questionable scientific, political, or financial soundness. What’s up with that? A bil here, a bil there…
Moreover, when did goverment get into the teaching marriage business? That’s just wrong on any level. They should exclude everyone from this program.
I didn’t vote for the fucker the first time around, I’m sure not voting for him this time. I do wish the Dems would find someone besides Dean though, he’s kinda sleazy.
The more I think about this the more I realize it’s just as insulting to heteros as it is to homosexuals. It amounts to an attempt to regulate sexual behavior by insisting that any (straight) couple involved in a sexual relationship should be married.
And who is GWB to decide what constitutes a “healthy” marriage? What would he consider an “unhealthy” marriage among heteros?
Federally funded marriage training? This is simply too much. I’m imagining Dr. Phil heading up a new Department of Domestic Harmony, with a Deputy Secretary for Marital Relations - maybe Laura Schlesinger? - who oversees the Center for Sexual Policy Research, a DDH think tank which advises the Administration on the marital health of Americans, and then of course you need John Grey to head the Federal Office of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus…
There is a difference between promoting and insisting. The government promotes all sorts of things, generally those that are considered helpful to society (or individuals). Other examples include reducing smoking, a legal activity that is not thought to be helpful.
The idea that society and individuals are well served by the institution of marriage is not a revolutionary one, and is backed by many studies. You may dispute this, of course. But you are misrepresenting the Bush plan by presenting it as anti-homosexual or as an intrusion into personal liberty.
Spending taxpayer money to promote one specific idea of sexual morality is still unacceptable. It is simply none of the government’s business whether people who have sex should have civil contracts or not.
While I think that the anti-smoking campaigns are largely ineffective, I would also argue that the government has some responsibility to inform the public about the dangers of tobacco or any other legal product which is potentially harmful to the health of those who use them.
The government has no compelling reason to preach a hypocritical sexual morality with public money.
The linked story clearly states that Bush is being pressured into this by conservative Christian groups specifically as an attempt to define marriage as being exclusively heterosexual.
BTW, wouldn’t society also be better served by recognizing the civil unnions of same-sex couples than by marginilizing them as “unhealthy” or “immoral?”
Arguments about the benefits to society are disingenuous as long as those benefits are capriciously denied to a segment of the populace.
I’m beginning to think that Bush’s $2.5 billion proposal, being as bloated and poorly considered as it is, was never intended to actually happen. It’s a grotesque increase of spending in an era where too much money is already being spent on too many ill-considered policies, resulting in an insanely rapid inflation of the deficit with terrible long term consequences on the national economy.
He’s just trying to score points with the “family values” crowd, painting himself as the “pro-marriage” candidate, and thereby by implication making his oppnent “a candidate who doesn’t support family values.”
Not to hijack the thread away from the Bush-bashing, but can you offer up some support for the notion that Dean is “sleazy”? Not saying he is, not saying he ain’t, just saying that I’ve never heard anyone identify him as such before and I’m curious as to what leads you to the conclusion.
I think I can see why sturmhauke thinks Dean is “sleazy”, although the term I think is a better fit is “skeevy”. To me, “sleazy” suggests doing or having done something shady. “Skeevy” means he looks like a used car salesman that just sold me a car w/ no brakes. That awkward smile seems like the look he would have on his face upon my driving away w/ my brakeless car.
I think this program is utter bunk, but I doubt it’s “code” for anti-gay sentiment. It’s pretty clearly targetted at reducing single parent households. Bush has clearly stated he’s against gay marriage. He doesn’t need code words for that.
You may be making a sort of logical error here, in your repeated characterization of the issue as one of morality. While marriage undoubtedly has moral aspects in the eyes of many people, it also has practical aspects, and the government can deal with these without having its actions declared to be a moral judgment.
I agree with you that campaigns of this sort are largely ineffective, and this one will likely be ineffective as well. If you limit your criticisms to such grounds, I’m with you.
The linked story clearly states nothing of the sort. What the linked story clearly states is that some conservative groups would like Bush to go further than this initiative and define marriage as being exclusively heterosexual - not that this initiative is itself an attempt to do this. It also says that some Bush officials hope this initiative will alleviate some of the conservative pressure.
This has nothing to do with the topic at hand. There’s nothing here to suggest that civil unions of same-sex couples are unhealthy or immoral.
>Spending taxpayer money to promote one specific idea of sexual morality is
>still unacceptable. It is simply none of the government’s business whether
>people who have sex should have civil contracts or not.
Is it the government’s business whether people smoke or not?
Yeah, some of us saw this one coming from miles away. elucidator has even speculated that perhaps some of the overflowing Republican war chest was quietly pumped into the Dean campaign early on so they could set this one up. Regrettably, the search engine is borked and I can’t call the GD thread up in which he first hatched the idea last summer.
John Mace, is right. There ain’t no “code” about it. I refer all of you to the President’s proclamation of Marriage Protection Week last October, and in particular this statement:
There is no getting around it. The statement is front-loaded with the very issue they’re planning on using. And gee, do you think there will be another Marriage Protection Week at the same time this year, three weeks before the election? Are you a betting man, John Mace?
There’s gotta be a snappy catch-phrase for this ploy. I don’t want to see this blatant appeal to ignorant homophobia masked in something mundane and undescriptive like the “Southern Strategy.”
Sofa:
I dunno. The first paragraph of the NYT article in the OP talks about the initiative being especially targetted at low income families. Unless the administration thinks homosexuality is more of a problem among the poor, it makes more sense that this is aimed at reducing single parent families-- one of the biggest causes of poverty in this country. Bush might be able to get some political mileage from this among the anti-gay electorate, but I’d say that is secondary, at best, to the main objective.
Who knows. You might be right. At least we can agree that this is a dumb idea.