# Republicans: torture good, marriage bad **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 17, 2004, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584 "2004-05-17T12:49:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584/21 "2004-05-17T17:34:46Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > > [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > > > He also thinks God wants him to kill brown people. > > So gross an exageration that it borders on outright lying. Borders on? It’s smack-dab in the middle of downtown, like practically every other word **Diogenes** or **Evil Captor** posts about Bush or Republicans. Perhaps a moderator could move this piece of shit to the Pit, where it can receive the responses it deserves. > [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Americans are just backwards morons for the most part. Not all of us, **Diogenes**. Maybe it’s just you. Thank God this is the quality of people who hate Bush. At least he is pissing off the right people. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584/22 "2004-05-17T17:35:38Z")
> [@](#): > > Nevertheless, it was not discriminatory in its application. It did not say that alcohol was only forbidden for the Irish. It forbid it for everyone. > > Bush wants an amendment which will forbid a civil right only to a specific group of people. Not true. Bush’s amendment doesn’t just forbid gay marriage to gay people; it forbids gay marriage to everyone. Similarly, gay people have the same rights to marry someone of the opposite sex as anyone else. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584/23 "2004-05-17T17:35:50Z")
Well, I had a nice long post in reply to DtC…that has just been eaten by the hamsters on the board. Not sure if I have the energy to re-do it all, but looks like John Mace hit the high points anyway. > [@DtC](#): > > xtisme, I said DOMA was stupid and wrong and that Clinton was wrong to sign it. I didn’t say it was “brilliant” for him to do so, only that it was calculating See, and I’m NOT saying it was either stupid or wrong (in the political sense) for Clinton to do what he did. In fact, it WAS realitively ‘brilliant’ in that it achieved his political goals without much substance. > [@DtC](#): > > Even Clinton’s worst enemies acknowledge that he has a brilliant intellect. I think BC was too smart to think that gay marriage was really a threat to anyone (and I reiterate, BC didn’t try to ban it). Well, I don’t think he has a brilliant intellect, but he was certainly no dummy, and I’d say he was a pretty brilliant POLITICIAN and political manipulator. BC did what he felt was political expediant to his carreer. You realize this, while being totally blind to the fact that GW is cut from similar clothe. Bush might be proposing something that COULD ban gay marriage…but thats only if you actually think the ammendment has any hope in hell of getting passed, which it doesn’t. So, in effect he is getting a free ride on this one. He gets to rally the troops behind him (from the paleo crowd), without it actually meaning anything. And then you go off the deepend of the bias pool… > [@DtC](#): > > By contrast, GWB really believes that homos are going to hurt him. Horseshit. You are ASSUMING this is the case, you don’t know it. Unless you’d like to provide a cite? > [@DtC](#): > > He is not an intelligent man. You knows what you knows, and thats what you knows. :rolleyes: Don’t you even see how far your bias has taken you with the man? Its taken you to the point where you totally underestimate him. And on this one he’s totally pulling the wool over your eyes…again. Keep it up and you and the other Bush howling crowd will get to complain about him for 4 MORE years on this board. > [@DtC](#): > > Don’t forget, this is the same guy who thinks Jews can’t go to Heaven :rolleyes: Again, this is your ASSUMPTION of his beliefs, unless you want to back some of this bullshit up. > [@DtC](#): > > and that the “jury is still out” on evolution. Well, in fact he DID appearently say this stupid thing. Then again, he IS a politician, so it doesn’t necessarily follow that he really believes this (either way). In the thread they discussed this it was pretty appearent that no one had anything more substantive to say on his beliefs because he hasn’t made them general public knowledge. So, who gives a fuck what he believes as long as he doesn’t act on it. And as far as I know, he’s been in office 4 years without doing anything about this at all. As to his quote about letting the local school boards decide, it also came out that Gore AND Clinton had made similar statements. > [@DtC](#): > > He also thinks God wants him to kill brown people. You forgot the fact he enjoys boiling puppy’s alive, pushing baby chicks into ponds full of croc’s, and sodomizing sheep. :rolleyes: > [@DtC](#): > > I see no evidence of self-reflection hidden intellectual acumen. Well there is a shocker from so obviously an unbiased judge of the man as you are. :rolleyes: You better hope and pray that you PARTY isn’t being as blindly stupid as you are, or Kerry is going down due to underestimating Bush. > [@DtC](#): > > Moreover, a proposal to actively ban same-sex marriage on a Constitutional level is fundamentally different than a federal law which only says that states may choose to honor them or not at their own discretion. Sure it is, not saying otherwise. It was political pandering on an astonishing level IMO. However, as it has nearly zero chance of getting through, who cares? It WAS political pandering to more securely bring the far right into the fold for the election, and motivate the troops to get out and vote for Bush. Brilliant though slimy, as I said. Hell, I’m betting Clinton is green with envy on this to be honest…I bet HE see’s whats going on. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584/24 "2004-05-17T18:22:34Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Prohibition was not discriminatory, it applied to everyone equally. Saying that prohibition “applied to everyone equally” because habitual drunks and righeous teatotalers were equally forbidden to purchase alcohol is like saying that a same-sex marriage ban “applied to everyone equally” because gays and straights are equally forbidden to marry someone of the same sex. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584/25 "2004-05-17T18:24:01Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Bush has many flaws. It really isn’t necessary to invent non-existent ones: > > Huh? Got any evidence to back that claim up? My evidence is that he wants an amendement to the Constution to “protect” traditional marriage. Protect it from what? If he really believes he needs “protection,” he’s a moron. If he doesn’t believe it, he’s a liar. Pick your poison. > [@](#): > > Your opinion-- and not suported by the facts. We’ve been over this at least half a dozen times, and it just doesn’t stand up to even casual scrutiny. I already cited some characteristics that indicate a gross lack of intellect. Anyone who ever in his life thinks that Jews can’t go to Heaven is a moron. It’s just as stupid as thinking the earth is flat. It’s impossible to be intelligent and believe something like this. > [@](#): > > I’m not sure if he actually believes this, but if I were a Christian, I would believe it, too. It’s a logical extension of Christian doctrine. Otherwise, why get Baptized? He’s on record at least three times as stating that he does believe it, once to a paper in Austin, once before his first visit to Isreal when he told reporters that he was going to tell the Isrealis “they’re all going to hell” (he later explained that he was joking) and once in a discussion with his mother in which she says he was arguing with her about whether Jews go to hell (she said they didn’t). They called Billy Graham to settle it and he sided with Shrub that Jews DO go to Hell but that Georgie shouldn’t worry about it. It’s not a universal Christian belief and even if it were that would just make Christianity a universally stupid religion. Just because a belief is religious doesn’t mean it’s not stupid. > [@](#): > > So gross an exageration that it borders on outright lying. I disagree. He has literally said that he was “chosen by God” to fight his dumbass wars against people who just happen to be a different religion than he is. He has even used the word “crusade” to describe his grandiose delusions. His victims are mostly brown. Their skin color may be incidental rather than causal but the fact renains; Bush looks across the ocean at Muslim countries and believes that God wants him to kill them. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584/26 "2004-05-17T18:39:03Z")
xtisme: > [@](#): > > Its not representative of our military, no more than a guy robbing a corner 7-11 or a sicko serial killer wacking nuns is representative of our citizens. Both are simply criminal activity. The analogy I use is it’s like holding an airline responsible when one of its planes crashes because it’s maintenance personnel were a bunch of goof-offs. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584/27 "2004-05-17T18:47:51Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > So remember: torture good, marriage bad. Bush never said “marriage bad”, he said it was “sacred”. Bush never said “torture good”, he denounced it as “un-American” and so on. When you propose a debate, try to make it real. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584/28 "2004-05-17T18:48:30Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Anyone who ever in his life thinks that Jews can’t go to Heaven is a moron. Ah, yes, this is the kind of shoot-from-the-hip wild generalization that **DtC** is famous for. The Eternal Sophomore. The idea that Christ is the exclusive route to salvation has been standard doctrine for most of the last 2000 years. Do you want a list of all of the great minds you’re calling idiots? ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584/29 "2004-05-17T18:51:22Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > I disagree. He has literally said that he was “chosen by God” to fight his dumbass wars against people who just happen to be a different religion than he is. Don’t suppose you’d want to hear what people like Lincoln and Washington had to say about “Providence” and their presidencies, would you? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584/30 "2004-05-17T18:52:02Z")
Leaving aside the other stuff for a moment: > [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > I disagree. He has literally said that he was “chosen by God” to fight his dumbass wars against people who just happen to be a different religion than he is. He has even used the word “crusade” to describe his grandiose delusions. His victims are mostly brown. Their skin color may be incidental rather than causal but the fact renains; Bush looks across the ocean at Muslim countries and believes that God wants him to kill them. This is simply false. Bush has \*\*NEVER \*\* even hinted that he was fighting a war against Muslims. And if that’s what he’s doing, he’s failing miserably. He could easily have caused 100x the death toll if that was his actual goal in either Afghanistan or Iraq. Honestly, you argument is about as serious as a Beavis and Butthead act: “heh-heh… heh-heh-heh. He said “crusade”, heh-heh-heh.” BFD, he slipped up and used the word “crusade”. It’s common in everyday usage to describe actions as a “crusade against such-and-such”. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584/31 "2004-05-17T19:14:55Z")
> [@furt](#): > > Don’t suppose you’d want to hear what people like Lincoln and Washington had to say about “Providence” and their presidencies, would you? Washington and Lincoln were both atheists. Any allusions to “providence” were completely non-religious. They used it in the sense of “luck” or “fate,” not God. They didn’t believe in God. > [@](#): > > The idea that Christ is the exclusive route to salvation has been standard doctrine for most of the last 2000 years. I disagree that it’s standard. There have usually always been loopholes. And any belief that Jesus is the only way to Heaven is stupid. It’s intellectually indefensible. > [@](#): > > Do you want a list of all of the great minds you’re calling idiots? Most of the smart ones were able to work their way past the “exclusivist” stuff. They had to because it’s a stupid thing to believe. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584/32 "2004-05-17T19:21:25Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > The analogy I use is it’s like holding an airline responsible when one of its planes crashes because it’s maintenance personnel were a bunch of goof-offs. Right, but we are talking about two different things here, sqweels. I said that it wasn’t REPRESENTITIVE of the military that they have a few people who committed crimina acts, the same way it doesn’t REPRESENT our citizenry because we have a people who commit criminal acts. You are talking about responsibility, and I certainly agree that not only is the military responsible, so is the government…and ultimately, so are you and I as citizens of this country (I assume you are a US citizen). -XT ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584/33 "2004-05-17T19:23:28Z")
Washington was an Episcopalian, **Diogenes**. His pew at Christ Church in Alexandria is clearly marked. [http://www.historicchristchurch.org/history.htm](http://www.historicchristchurch.org/history.htm) Also, the use of the word “crusade” to denote a nonreligious struggle is a longstanding one in standard English. As an example, note Dwight D. Eisenhower’s memoir, [Crusade in Europe.](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/080185668X/qid=1084821303/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-4401126-1411830?v=glance&s=books) ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584/34 "2004-05-17T19:31:06Z")
> [@](#): > > With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations. _Abraham Lincoln - Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865._ > [@](#): > > Having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear and with manly hearts. \*Abraham Lincoln - Message to Congress, July 4, 1861. Now what’s this hubbub about Lincoln’s _atheism_? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584/35 "2004-05-17T19:42:04Z")
[Religious beliefs of Lincoln and Washington](http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/steiner0.htm) Washington attended church infrequently and never prayed. His closest friends and associates said that he had “no religious feelings” and they never saw him pray even in private. Lincoln might have been more accurately called an agnostic and his use of the word “God” was more symbolic than religious. From a private letter quoted in my linked page: > [@](#): > > If he had been asked the plain question, “Do you know that a God exists?” he would have said: “I do not know that a God exists.” > > At one moment of his life I know that he was an Atheist. I was preparing a speech on Kansas, and in it, like nearly all reformers, I invoked God. He made me wipe out that word and substitute the word Maker, affirming that said Maker was a principle of the universe. When he went to Washington he did the same to a friend there. Lincoln was a rationalist. He did not beleive in miracles or the divinity of Christ and he once called Jesus an “illegitimate child.” Read the link. If either of these guys was religious it wasn’t so’s you could notice it. And more to my original point, neither of them was delusional or stupid enough to think that they had been “chosen by God.” ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584/36 "2004-05-17T19:48:05Z")
> [@Airman Doors](#): > > [As if he’s the only one…](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Marriage_Act)But, of course, it’s all Bush’s fault that the majority of the country is against gay marriage, because somehow he had the clout, even as Governor of Texas, to have a law passed in an attempt to restrict gay marriage. Oh, wait a second, that law was signed by a Democrat you say? Never mind, then… :rolleyes: Is this the same “majority” that elected Bush president? In any event your point is moot. The fact that some Dems pander to bigots doesn’t nullify the fact that Bushco panders to bigots BIG TIME. And as you can’t say the Dems are responsible for the torture at Abu Ghraib (and wherever we’ll find it next) so it remains a strictly Republican phenom. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584/37 "2004-05-17T19:50:33Z")
See, what we are supposed to do is not go by their words but by what the MEANT. So, Clinton didn’t REALLY mean it with his Defense of Marriage Act, he was just being a canny politician. Lincoln and Washington didn’t REALLY believe in god, they were just mouthing platitudes for political reasons. But GW, who also happens to be a politician, means every word of it of course. Not only that, be he means it SO much we can make basic assumptions about hit too because of this real belief. (he only ‘lies’ when we WANT him to have lied of course…but this is a different subject I’m sure). For instance, we can know he’s stupid and a moron. We can know he hates jews and ‘brown people’. We can know without a shadow of a doubt he believes in creationism of the YEC variety. We can know that he hates gays. Hell, we can probably divine what he ate this morning and what time he took a crap based on this too! We don’t need the benifit of his actual positions, of statements he might have made, because we KNOW he really believes this stuff, as opposed to just mouthing it for the benifit of the unwashed masses. :rolleyes: Maybe this thread SHOULD be in the pit. The one thing about this board that never ceases to amaze me is how I get dragged into defending a man I can’t stand because others feel the need to fly off the handle about him. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584/38 "2004-05-17T19:53:01Z")
> [@Brutus](#): > > Bullshit. You haven’t posted one of your thinly-veiled rants in some time, and were feeling a need to do so. Remember your stupid ‘If you are a Republican, you are racist’ thread? Yes, very well. I thought I made some good points, but I can see why you had bad memories of it. In any event, posting what should be self-evident hardly constitutes a rant. The raw juxtaposition of these two elements is what really makes them work, don’t you agree? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584/39 "2004-05-17T20:02:58Z")
Frankly, this tangent about Washington and Lincoln is beside the point. I’d like to see **DtC** offer his evidence that Bush thinks he is chose by God to kill Muslims (as Muslims). He certainly is in a war against Terror (with a capital “T”), but he’ll need to show that Bush equates Islam with Terror. ---
**Author:** ![cheddarsnax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cheddarsnax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cheddarsnax)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584/40 "2004-05-17T20:10:36Z")
> [@Airman Doors](#): > > But, of course, it’s all Bush’s fault that the majority of the country is against gay marriage… [Newsweek Poll](http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/05-15-2004/0002174969&EDATE=): Majority (51%) Now Supports Gay Marriage (28%) Or Civil Unions (23%); 43 Percent Oppose All Legal Recognition Yes, you did use “marriage” in your post, but I think this deserves some clarification. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-torture-good-marriage-bad/245584.md?page=3)