I dunno that I’d go that far. I can easily recognize that someone from the West who talks about Wise Use in an environmental discussion is probably woefully anti-environmental – but I wouldn’t expect somebody not familiar with that debate to recognize the code words. There are probably people int he country who don’t realize that “inner-city” children are black and Latino. (I know a local teacher who bemoaned the problems she was having with kids in her “inner-city” school, despite the fact that Asheville HAS no “inner-city” and if it did, it would be nowhere near the rural-suburban area she taught in)
Dewey may simply not have recognized code words from the argument, since he’s more familiar with how language is used in legal circles. He was wrong to chastise other folks for calling Santorum a homophobe, but he wasn’t wrong not to see that himself.
Thanks for the link, mojave. My favorite part is where Santorum says:
And the interviewer replies:
On the whole, it’s pretty difficult to shock a reporter.
Have we by now dispensed with the question of Santorum’s anti-gay prejudice? I mean, there’s only one reason to lump homosexual acts together with pedophilia and bestiality, and that’s to slam gays as extraordinary sickos by association.
You’re more willing to cut Dewey slack than I am, Daniel, I’m willing to grant that for the first half of page 1 of this thread, but midway down that page, zut quotes the following excerpt from the AP piece:
“antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family” isn’t exactly code. Unless Dewey has some explanation of how this failed to remedy whatever lack of clarity he found in the OP, I’ve got to find his “well, the OP didn’t say that” bit rather disingenious, three pages later.
The White House’s stance on this, from the AP article:
“Compassionate” in the sense of their sincerely wanting to help gays turn away from the path of wickedness and conduct themselves as the Lord wishes, that is?
Guin, the ‘gay’ wasn’t added, just moved for clarity. (Normally square brackets are used for that purpose; for some reason they used regular parentheses here.) Here’s the larger section:
I’m seriously starting to doubt your reading comprehension skills. Did you not bother to read the very next paragraph of my post when I proffered that point? Here it is again:
Pay attention, frcryinoutloud. I was saying the argument wasn’t necessarily homophobic in and of itself – it only becomes homophobic with the addition of contextual information about the speaker. Sheesh.
I’m still curious as to how you think I’m being “deaf dumb and blind.” Read my response to Esprix above. Why you want to twist a point about the inadequacy of the evidence provided by the OP into a defense of Santorum is quite puzzling, particularly when I’ve specifically noted that additional evidence could show Santorum as a homophobe from my very first posts in this thread.
I expect better of you, RT. Here’s the way the thread has gone:
OP: Look at this homophobic thing Santorum said!
Me: Ah, that’s not necessarily homophobic.
Others: Santorum’s an ass! Of course it was homophobic!
Me: You’ll forgive me if I need a little more than “he’s an ass” as proof of his homophobia.
Others: Here’s other quotations! He is a homophobe! You’re stupid for having asked!
Me: Well, it appears Santorum may well be a homophobe. But I was not foolish for asking for additional evidence. The OP was insufficient. Calling him a homophobe based solely on the content of the OP would have been premature.
Others: You’re deaf, dumb and blind! Why do you continue defending Santorum?!?
Again, you are mischaracterizing my posts–knock it off! I did NOT say you were defending Santorum. I said that you are being naive in seeing no bias in a statement that clearly is meant to lump homosexuality with a host of “antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family.” Santorum’s comments cannot be interepreted as a harmless gloss of the law by any rational adult.
gobear, my understanding of your posts is that Santorum’s comments as quoted in the OP cannot be anything but homophobic. That is, as I understand it, you would feel the quotation in the OP to be homophobic even if you were unaware of Santorum’s other comments in this interview and elsewhere, including his comments about homosexuality being antithetical to the family.
And that’s plainly ridiculous. The portion quoted in the OP, standing alone, is benign. Absent contextual data (such as the other portions of the interview dealing with homosexuality and other statements made by Santorum), the portion quoted in the OP is, on its face, a fairly straightforward legal argument. It would be absurd to hang the homophobic label on someone based on that evidence alone.
Now, if you want to say that the OP taken together with other statements made by Santorum indicates homophobia, well, I’ve got no beef with that. Hell, I’ve basically been saying that’s perfectly acceptable for four pages now, not that anyone’s bothered to pay attention.
gobear, otto, and other gentle beings who do not live beneath bridges:
I’d say that DCH is a losing proposition.
Whether he comes from beneath his bridge just to be contrary, or if he is actually deluded enough to believe the babble he is spouting, to continue debating with it only seems to reinforce its’ position of inherent stupidity.
While much has been said to try and illuminate DCH on this issue, it is like trying to put a 10 watt bulb into a 100 watt socket. You get glass shards, burning, and then a serious moment where you contemplate why you bothered.
Dear heart, your comprehension is the one seriously in question here, because apparently you can’t even comprehend your own posts. You seriously suggested not only that it was reasonable to interpret Santorum’s remarks as indicating that he was not morally opposed to homosexuality but that he is in fact pro-gay. Whether or not you personally believe this to be so or interpreted it in this fashion is not at issue. What is at issue is the reasonableness of the interpretation itself and the interpretation itself is nonsensical on its face. People who support the equality of gay people do not compare gay sex to adultery. They do not compare it to incest. Reading Santorum’s OP quote and declaring that it is possible and reasonable to interpret it as anything other than condemnation of gay people is foolish.
My feeling is that you have very little experience with the struggle of gay people in this country for acceptance and equality. If you had any extensive experience, you would have understood immediately from the OP quote all by itself that these were not the words of a friend to the gay community. I don’t know why you’re unwilling or unable to back down from your rather bizarre stance here.
Let me try a slightly different tack. If this wasn’t Santorum – if it was some anonymous Pennsylvania Republican who had only made the comments quoted in the OP, and had not made any other comment regarding homosexuality in the interview or elsewhere, would you, on that basis alone, describe the speaker as a “homophobe”?
Yes. When one is lumping homosexuality with incest, bigamy, and adultery and characterize being gay as antithetical to a healthy and stable family, one is being homophobic. Now you might want to pay attention to my previous post about agreeing to disagree. . .