Tee-hee
Bullshit. Those who run America aren’t ready to set down their bigotry and be inclusive any more than they were to blacks in the 1950s and before.
America has a poor history of dealing with minorities and this is just another example.
It seems to take forever for any approach to parity, and even when there is legal parity, social takes even longer.
HOMEBREW –
Them’s fightin’ words! 
First, I don’t know what “Bush was hand-waving” means. Second, I am only taking issue with DIOGENES saying that Bush said or implied that gays are sinners. What Bush said was he would not judge them, because we are all sinners. That’s all he said that had anything to do with “sin” or “sinners,” and that was in direct response to a question about the morality of homosexuality – an issue he was smart enough not to bring up himself, and was adroit enough to evade when a reporter brought it up. How do you go from “I won’t judge gays, becasue we are all sinners” to “Bush says/implies gays are sinners!”? C’mon. He said/implied that only to the extent that “all people” obviously includes “gay people.”
The “codified bigotry” is another can of worms, of course.
BEAGLEDAVE, you can call me Betty, and I’ll call you Et Al. 
Let’s not forget the obvious one from Leviticus, or as I like to call it, The Big Book of Sins:
(Leviticus 18:22)
It’s hand-waving because, even though he wasn’t asked about gay marriage, he went straight (pun intended) into saying that he was looking into ways to make sure it never happens. He professed one thing (being non-judgemental) while doing another (enforcing bigotry). He’s waving his hands to distract you from what he’s actually doing. His hand-waving denial of judging is the rhetorical equivalent of “I’m not a bigot, but …”
He denies judging but then immediately judges.
Okay, first, by anyone’s reading of the Bible, gay people are sinners. As are heterosexuals, bisexuals, the celibate, Pope John Paul II, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, George W. Bush, John Ashcroft, Sts. Peter, Paul, Francis of Assisi, Francis Xavier, John Calvin, Martin Luther, and every other human being you can name.
And as such, under any version of Christianity worthy of the name (and I’m not playing “no true Scotsman” but merely sticking the Westboro Baptist Church where it deserves to be stuck), they’re saved by the grace of God through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and entitled to mercy and compassion from other Christians, not judgment and condemnation.
As for GWB accommodating his views to take into account his supporters, bleeah! He might consider following the example of President and General Dwight David Eisenhower and doing what is right, regardless of what it might cost him.
Every week the Raleigh News and Observer devotes its Sunday Opinion section to a controversial issue that seems to have strong support on both sides. This past Sunday’s was gay marriage. I trust their instinct not to go far out on a limb far more than I trust polls – they read their public pretty darn well.
GWB is in the pocket of the Unholy Alliance of the biggest of multinational corporations with the Religious Right. Actions like this may play well in Dallas and San Antone, but they’re not popular in California or New York – and they’re beginning not to be popular in Des Moines and Lincoln. Bush (or Karl Rove) has badly misjudged America.
I cannot believe how moronic this is. Can’t you read?
Basic Christian doctrine is that we are all sinners. Gay, straight, bisexual, asexual - it doesn’t matter, all of us are sinners.
How you get from that to thinking Bush made any special accusation against gays is beyond me.
Regards,
Shodan
Why should he pass moral judgement on homosexuality when he can pass legal judgement against it?
Insert favored profanity here.
“Well, I don’t.” - Maggie Cassella
So, can some of you folks that are nitpicking here in support of the president cough** beagledave **cough clear something up for me? Leaving aside the hairsplitting of Bush in this specific speech singling out homosexuals as sinners, you do agree that he at least implied that he had lawyers looking in to how to exclude gay folks from the institution of marriage.
I want a simple answer to the following question: Do you think that this is ok?
Also, on another front, as a non-Christian (who never the less has made a point to read the Bible), it is my understanding that Christ was supposed to be the fulfillment of the old covenants from the Old Testament. Isn’t that why Christians no longer keep kosher and burn oxen in offering? If that is the case, does it not follow that all of the anti-homosexual religious arguments must come from the New Testament? In other words, can we not kick Leviticus to the curb at this point?
Perhaps he meant ‘cynics’? Yes, that’s probably what he meant.
GWB made the same point in the news conference.
GWB made the same pont in the news conference
Doing what is right and being effective in doing what is right is two different things. Politics is like that. Democracy requires it’s leaders to take into account all the different factions of opinions, and quite often subjugate personal opinion about what is right for the greater good. In this particular case, all the fundamentalists in America have to give pause to the idea that the “sin” of homosexuality is no more deserving of special attention than any other sin found in each and every one of us. GWB’s sensitivity towards tolerance and understanding for gays and muslims shows him to be a truly great leader.
I would like to add that GWB does have deep views regarding the “sanctity of marriage”. After all, it is quite clear that he comes from a fundamentalist background. Just like myself. But I see a journey of reaching out for understanding of others, just like myself, and that no-one can be as effective as him to affect change in attitude within the fundamentalist community towards homosexuals. It’s actually amusing for me to read the chastisement towards homophobic fundamentalists, assuming Pat Robertson et al wringing their hands, but afraid to criticise “their boy” too loudly.
If that was the case, then I would agree with you.
Call me a cynic, but I don’t think Bush is any more of a true Christian than, say, Clinton was. Fact of the matter is that a large part of the US population is conservative-Christian, and they tend to be loyal voters to boot. So, if you want to win the presidency, there’s no way around it: you HAVE to appeal to conservative Christians, or you’re not going to make it.
I don’t think Bush is aiming for a true theocracy any more than his predecessors, be they Democrats or Republicans.
And I fully agree with Jodi here: in context, Bush’s remarks here weren’t all that outrageous. I sincerely disagree with his stance that straight marriages ought to be somehow the only legal ones if at all possible (while the rest of the civilized world is simultaneously legalizing gay marriages, even), but the remarks about the morality of homosexuality were not offensive at all. Unless you’re looking for offense, of course, in which case, you’ll always find it.
What if thou art a womankind?
anewthought clearly doesn’t have any.
Matt,
I’m not sure you realize how extrodinarily difficult it is to pass an ammendment to the Constituion. If this was the only tactic the Religious Wrong was using, I’d be ecstatic, because it’ll never get passed.
Absolutely not. And please don’t attempt to misrepresent what I say.
Actually, it’s quite accurate. The word “arsenokaoitai” translates directly to English as “male sodomite.”
Source: Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible
No, I don’t.
I understand, though, that the number of states that need to ratify such a thing is very close to the number of states that already have a state DOMA.