Which is why Attorney General John Ashcroft has prosecuted federal hate crime cases where gays were the victims, and why President Bush has appointed openly gay people to his administration including an ambassador, and invited a meeting of gay conservatives to the White House, and signed domestic partnership legislation for the District of Columbia. Yep, sounds actively anti-gay to me.
Let’s see. . .
Clinton Administration
- Gays cannot serve openly in the military; a sharp increase in forced discharges
- Clinton Justice Dept. defends military policy to the teeth against gay service members who challenge it
- Signs Defense of Marriage Act
- Meets with gay groups who share his political beliefs
- Appoints openly gay people to his administration
- Signs executive order prohibiting discrimination by sexual orientation in the Executive Branch
- Justice Dept. prosecutes hate crimes against gays
Bush Administration
- Gays cannot serve openly in the military; “stop-loss” excludes gays
- Supports the Defense of Marriage Act
- Meets with gay groups who share his political beliefs
- Appoints openly gay people to his administration
- Retains executive order prohibiting discrimination by sexual orientation in the Executive Branch
- Justice Dept. prosecutes hate crimes against gays
I consider this one unfair. I’m confident that there were both Democrats and Republicans who supported the bill out of a sense of expediency and log-rolling, and that there were both Democrats and Republicans who supported it out of principle.
To be sure, the vast majority of the out-of-principle people were likely Republicans. But your reaction, Minty, is tarring with a broad brush.
Otherwise good people can take a wide variety of stances on hot-button issues such as this, according as what they consider most important in the relevant contributing factors seem to indicate.
I note that further discussion of the effects of DOMA occurred on page 3. However, it does not address one of the most serious defects of that bill:
IMHO it vitiates the Article IV requirement of each state to give “full faith and credit” to the magisterial acts of every other state. Congress has no right to decide whether or not a state may give that full faith and credit; it is an affirmative responsibility mandated by the Constitution. Congress’s sole right is to produce a consistent rule by which to define the means by which such acts in one state may be proven in another state’s legal forums (implying both courts and administrative offices, in my mind).
The Congress has no right to decide that there is no way in which the intra vires powers of one state can be totally ignored as regards its bona fide residents by another state if they should choose to remove their residence there. If I were to adopt a child in North Carolina, then move to Nebraska, the courts there cannot remove that child from my custody solely because I did not formally comply with Nebraska’s adoption laws (having no interest in doing so since at the time of the adoption I was not intending to leave NC). When my wife and I moved here from New York, our bare word that we were duly married under the provisions of New York law back in 1975 was sufficient for the Old North State to treat us as a married couple – and require me to have my wife’s signature on documents relating to my potential benefits at my job as her spousal rights under NC law required.
If two of our gay members established a civil union “with all the rights and privileges extended to marriages” under Vermont law, they have completed the formalities required to create a relationship equivalent to marriage insofar as that state goes – and the United States Constitution requires that that relationship be recognized by the Federal government and the other 49 states, regardless of what their residents’ and officials’ own moral views on such a union might be.
Even if I were to oppose gay marriage (which I do support), I would be offended at that egregious violation of the principle of comity mandated by Article IV.
If that law is valid, it establishes a precedent that could in principle permit the state of Virginia to stop every person crossing its borders in a motor vehicle and arresting them for failure to have a valid Virginia driver’s license and motor vehicle registration, no matter that they have been duly licensed and their vehicle registered in their home state.
Timeline of the Bush Administration on Gay Policies and Events.
P.S. I voted for Gore in 2000 (and Clinton in 1992 and 1996), so don’t write me off as a Republican apologist. I just believe that most Republicans are neither as anti-gay nor Democrats as pro-gay as their reputations warrant.
Walloon, a really nice job on providing a balanced view.
Just one comment, with parties suppressed:
In the State House of Representatives race in the district in which I belong, there were two candidates, both women. One is a retired schoolteacher, the other a married woman of about 30 with small children. The first based most of her candidacy on her experience as mayor of the county seat and time on the school board; the latter did not show any evidence of experience.
As mayor and school board member, the older woman had a passable but not impressive record, with successes and failures. Key issues across the state were provision for education and increased economic development – these were particularly strong here in Franklin County, which has an at-best-mediocre school system and a declining economy.
The older woman’s state party organization sent out a wide assortment of flyers stating the party’s and her stance on these issues. While there was some substansive material, the flyers were mostly fluff, the sort of in-favor-of-motherhood-and-apple-pie stuff that candidates often use. The younger woman sent out two flyers during the campaign, the first showing her (she is very attractive), her handsome husband, and her three charming children, and stating her commitment to “quality education.” After that one flyer we saw nothing further from her until the Saturday before Election Day, when a flyer showed up condemning the older woman’s record and stances.
My wife and I decided to vote for the older woman, on the basis that she had indeed tried to engage the issues, had a record of sorts to stand on, and (a major factor to us) as a protest against the dirty politics implicit in the younger woman’s failure to address issues and simply attack her opponent.
Do you agree with our vote and the reasons behind it? Can you guess which candidate was from which party? Did that fact make any difference?
Polycarp:
I’ll agree with your decision, with the assumption that you found the older women’s stance on the issues to be agreeable to you.
And, I have no idea what party the attacker was from.
Yes, yes, Scylla. DOMA sucks. Now stop beating the dead horse and tell me what gay-positive (to borrow Homeborew’s phrase) legislation the Republican Party and its leadership have promoted. Anything will do. Really, knock me out with how welcome and valued the LCR is in the Republican Party.
BTW, Alimony: ENTIRELY A MATTER OF STATE LAW.
Poly, I was intentionally staying away from the constitutional issue. It’s actually (and unfortunately) less than clear that a full faith & credit challenge would get anywhere under existing FF&C doctrine. Better to talk about (in the case of Scylla, to the exlusion of all other issues) the merits of the legislation than depend on the courts to strike it down. And when I said those Democrats who supported it did so out of cowardice and expediency, I meant it. Remember that Democratic platform position that calls for an “equitable alignment” of benefits? That is what my party wants to do. Scylla’s party wants to deny all benefits entirely, to judge by their legislative record.
Walloon: Remember, don’t ask don’t tell was a marked improvement over the military’s previous policy. It ended the gay witch hunts, over the strident opposition of the Republicans in Congress and the military itself. Would you prefer to go back to the days of the witch hunts?
Minty:
Why don’t you explain to me how squids are really aardvarks.
I have no idea what you are getting at. Why would I explain to you about gay positive legislation led by the Republican party?
What claim of mine would that support?
Precisely. Your party has no gay-positive agenda at all.
Whatever helps you sleep at night.
But the witch hunts have gone on, and more sevice members have been discharged every year since Don’t Ask Don’t Tell went into effect!
Source: Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness), Review of the Effectiveness of the Application and Enforcement of the Department’s Policy on Homosexual Conduct in the Military (1998).
And before Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the military branches’ policies on gay service members were internal Department of Defense regulations, not U.S. Code. As the Commander in Chief, the president had the power to nullify the regulations, which was what Candidate Clinton promised to do. Now the president does not have that power.
These are advances?
Well, your party has no straight-positive agenda at all.
On the contrary, many Democrats actively oppose straight rights by[ul][]Favoring employment laws that discriminate against straights.[]Favoring higher income tax for married people than unmarried people (the “marriage penalty”)Undermining the institution of marriage by favoring the use of the term “marriage” for gay unions[/ul]I will agree that all gay people should be Democrats if you’ll agree that all straight people should be Republicans.
Matty:
[quote]
but i don’t buy your argument that there is NO rational basis for family values or socially conservative legislation.
[quote]
Social conservatives #1 issue is abortion, which prevents single-parent families. #2 is gay issues, yet gay marriage and gay adoption are pro-family, and other gay issues are irrelevant.
RexDart:
And how do these “attacks” by Democrats on tobacco compare to Republican attacks on family planning, abortion, medical marijuana, assisted suicide, stem-cell research, gay marriage, gay adoption, etc., etc,
December insofar as I can do so, I wish to protect you from anger by other posters and implore them not to flame you for your answer – if you will only answer me this question, which I have asked before of people who have said this and never gotten an answer: How does the legal recognition of a commitment between two gay people to live together in a quasi-matrimonial state “undermine the institution of marriage”? And what difference does calling it “marriage” instead of “civil union” make?
I pride myself on my ability to see the other guy’s point of view, but I have never been able to wrap my understanding around what exactly is being said by this sort of statement. Your help will be appreciated.
Not on your life. A few of us confess to attraction to the opposite sex and still think there is some reason to advocate for social justice. And whether or not there are a few Republicans who do speak out for it, the overwhelming majority of Republican legislators seem to believe that they were voted into office to mandate a system of values that every American is obliged to accept, on penalty of jail time. (This is IMHO, but having read a fair amount of Republican campaign literature in several states, it’s not simply blather. I will note that most New York Republicans do not take this stance – part of the reason I spent 20 years in the GOP in upstate New York before changing my views.)
Actually, Walloon, I did not realize that DADT had been codfied. That does rather change the equation, since it will now take an act of Congress to achieve full inclusion in the military. IN terms of policy, however, it was a marked improvement from the previous Do Ask, Do Tell, Do Pursue, and Do Harass policy. As the Stanford Law School’s DADT project annual report for this year puts it:
Enforcement sucks, but whaddaya expect from the military? The policy itself, however, is an improvement from the old one.
december:
[quote]
On the contrary, many Democrats actively oppose straight rights by
Favoring employment laws that discriminate against straights.
I’d like to see a cite for that.
The purpose of the “marriage penalty” was to give a break to people paying for housing on a single income. It was not an attack on straights or marriage. We now have a “single/childless” penalty.
That’s an absurd non-sequiter.
Conservatives have frequently denounced gays with the most vile language imaginable, scapegoated them for utterly unrelated events, pursued blatantly discriminatory policies, etc. Nothing on the liberal side against straights comes anywhere close.
Do Not Feed December.
Polycarp:
It really doesn’t. It just seems like it might.
There are basically three issues against gay marriage.
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Moral relativism. The simple fact that one would accord the same status to gay couples living in sin as you would to Godly and moral couples is demeaning to the latter, undermining the sacred nature of marriage itself. Such moral relativism is incorrect. Marriage is between a man and a woman by definition. Two people of the same sex, acting like they are married is by definition something else. No amount of moral relativism changes this.
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Marriage is about procreating and raising children. Gays can’t procreate therefore they don’t deserve the status of marriage which is society’s way of encouraging procreation. According them the status gives them an advantage they don’t deserve. Further, since everybody knows that gay marriages won’t last because gays are promiscuous, it will lead to higher divorce rates and more single parents as that trend translates to traditional marriages. The tradittional family will fall by the wayside.
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According legal status to same sex marriages lends itself to abuse by people seeking to gain the advantages of marriage without the commitment. Once these abuse become common, Congress will be forced to reevaluate marriage and remove the advantages for all concerned, thus penalizing tradittional married couples.
Not my viewpoints, mind you.
I think the legal recognition of a commitment between two gay people to live together in a quasi-matrimonial state DOES NOT undermine the institution of marriage. I strongly favor laws permitting such an arrangement.
IMHO the institution of marriage has already been considerably undermined. I confess to being old-fashioned on this score, nearing my 38[sup]th[/sup] anniversary. I think marriage has been undermined somewhat by the sexual revolution, the acceptance of having children out of wedlock, widespread divorce and widespread adultery. Many people now consider marriage to be just one more alternative arrangement for a family.
Re-defining “marriage” to include gay unions moves the process one step farther away from the traditional definition. It makes “marriage” seem more a contrivance and less the natural order of things. The traditional arrangement has its advantages for society. My marriage has had its rocky spots, like most. By staying together, I believe my wife and I have created a more secure arrangement, not just for ourselves, but for all our friends and relatives.
BTW I’m not necessarily opposed to the recognition of gay marriage. It may be so important to gays to have that institution available that it’s worth some degree of undermining the traditional concept. My point is not that gay marriage is wrong, but that it has a cost.
As you noticed, the main point of my post was to tease minty green. Getting back to the OP, there’s a serious point I was groping for: How important are gay issues to gay voters? Do they override party issues? This is one of those half-full glass arguments.
Gays weren’t as discriminated against as blacks were. There weren’t restrictions on voting or owning property. There weren’t separate housing, schooling, water fountains, sitting on the back of the bus, etc.
Gays have made a lot of progress in recent decades. A gay person can come out of the closet today and be elected to high government office or hold a high corporate position. Many organizations recognize gay unions in their fringe benefits. Attacks against gays are unacceptible everywhere. Even verbal attacks are prohibited. Although some employers discriminate against gays, many others in the same field do not. As a result, fields are not closed to gays. I have read that on averge gays have a higher income than straights.
OTOH there are two specific areas that I see as serious discrimination.[ul][]Military service[]Marriage or other formal union.[/ul]My opinion has been given with no disrepect intended. YMMV.
new article on this in national review today.