I don’t think the issue’s about being against gay marriage. It’s about being for traditional marriage and articulating the reason that’s important. You have to have a basic family structure. There’s never been a civilization that has rewritten what marriage and family means and survived. So there is a sense in which, you know, it’s one thing to say if people want to live a different way, that’s their business. But when you want to redefine what family means or what marriage means, then that’s an issue that should require some serious and significant debate in the public square.
Thankfully, the pillars of civilization seem to be holding in Massachusetts, despite all those new sets of two moms and two dads raising perfectly happy and healthy children of their own. Somehow, thankfully, I don't think anything would be different in Kansas.
Yet, Huckabee couldn't stop himself. He went on.
Did anyone ever bother to tell him how much that costs? After thousands of dollars, gay couples can have a tiny few of the same benefits of married couples, all the while "traditional" families merely need to pay for a marriage certificate. Furthermore, many states like Virginia have very onerous laws that prevent gay couples from creating legal agreements which could be construed, in any minute way, as being a couple. And let's not even get started on health care benefits!GQ: I just wonder what you’d say to the gay couple who says, “Well, we want to live this way, and my partner can’t come visit me in a nursing home.”
HUCKABEE: He can with a power of attorney. That’s the fallacy, that this requires some new definition of marriage. It’s simply not the case.
So, in some states, for the wealthiest and most privileged of gay couples, they can maybe, sort of have the privilege of visiting their partner in the hospital, but not actually be the provider of insurance that could cover the surgery their partner needs. And that's supposed to be a good thing? Oh, that Mike Huckabee... what a swell guy!
Orignal Source: GQ.
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11 comments:
You're 100% right. By bringing up this one issue, you have indisputably proven he brings nothing different to the table as far as Republican candidates.
Joe, it's kind of a big issue - and I appreciate his populism, but his rhetoric doesn't match his actions. There are already gay people with over a million children that deserve the same, equal treatments from the government that straight parents are afforded. Until then, he really isn't for the American family, family values or any sort of economic populism.
Furthermore, I'm sick of Republicans sticking to the meme of guns, God and gay people. Huckabee claims to be something more than that, different than his competitors, but he just went on and linked the downfall of civilization to allowing gay people to marry. It's absurd, grotesque and represents more of the horrible, horrible same from the Republican party.
At some point, the Republicans have to become something more than harping on buzz issues. Not only are they losing ground on those issues every day, but in government we need real leaders for *all* Americans and I can't remember the day when the GOP was about that.
Harping on buzz issues? I've seen Mike Huckabee speak, I've watched his stumps, I've seen him in debates...although a conservative and at his core against gay marriage,
1. he barely ever brings it up, it gets brought up and he responds
2. who cares?
I know, (2.) seems callous, but there is never going to be a constitutional ban on same sex marriage. It just won't ever happen. Also, what does it matter that he is personally against it? As the head of the executive branch of the federal government, he has little to do with the concept of marriage, which is a state's rights issue. So no, Huckabee and gay marriage is not kind of a big issue. What did George Bush do about gay marriage? Nothing. Clinton? Oh yeah, presided over DADT and DOMA.
Attacking Huckabee over gay marriage is pointless. This is a fight that should be brought to state legislators so that something will actually get done.
Let's hear Huck defend releasing serial rapists so they can go on to rape and murder some more. Becuase that's what he did, happily. The guy is not pro-life or family, he's pro-Huckster
It's not a states rights issue, Joe, just as no other civil rights battle has been one. States rights is just the excuse used to legalize inequality.
I just find Huck disengenius, as most other Republicans. He can preach populism all he wants, but his policies just won't ever match it... a federal sales tax, for example, is anethama to the common people. I'm glad he's not ignoring serious issues facing almost all of America, but what good is that if his policies would only exacerbate the problem? And what exactly does that make Huckabee?
Have all the Democrat candidates come out and explicitly supported gay marriage? You've got your pet
interests, but to me gun ownership is more important than gay marriage. That's just my pet peeve.
I think a federal sales tax is a good idea.
Laurel I'm all for castrating rapists, or life in prison; but then you liberals cry about inmates rights. You can't have it both ways.
Actually it is a states rights issue, Ryan. Marriage isn't like the right to vote. Tough cookies. Why? Because marriage is essentially a binding legal contract between two individuals. Dress it up however you like with love and kittens but that's what it is now. Law regarding that would be determined at the state level with federal law coming into play when GM is in a state without something 1913-like. States rights isn't an excuse for anything, it's just the way the law works. Come on, Ryan, you have a poly sci degree, I shouldn't have to explain this to you!
Also, I wonder what serious problems he's ignoring...I mean, you're right, poverty, tax code, healthcare and national security aren't big problems.
Joe, when you talk of marriage being a states rights issue only, you have conveniently forgotten the 1138 federal rights, responsibilities and benefits dependent on civil marriage. additionally, "full faith in credit", or one state recognizing marriages conducted in other states, is also a federal issue. wise up to the actual law!
Joe,
What laurel said =p
Anon,
I've given the Democratic candidates a lot of flack for the same thing. That said, marriage equality speaks to a civil rights issue. That goes far beyond "pet issues." Guns, indeed, is a pet issue: contrary to popular myth, the (very conservative) supreme court recognizes no right for the people to won guns. It recognizes a right to state militias. I don't have to bother giving a grammar lesson, just look at US Supreme Court precedent.
So Ryan, the supreme court is always correct?
No. But the NRA and many others like to proclaim how there's an inherent right to own firearms. According to our constitution, whether we like it or not, that right does not exist. Thus, the Federal Government has, in the past, regulated the firearms industry.
I will say, in this case, I not only agree with the Supreme Court - but I also agree with their interpretation. Gramatically, the Constitution reads as how the Supreme Court has for a long time interpreted it: that it protects the rights for states to have militias, not for people to own firearms.
But, in the end, that is neither here nor there.
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