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02/20/2008

Yo McCain: Are we not humans? Do we not have lives?

by Jeremy Hooper

Want a very simple reason to not vote for John McCain? Well just consider this. On his website, he has the gall to put his ideas for "protecting marriage" (i.e. stemming the tide of gay nuptials) under the category of "Human Dignity & the Sanctity of Life." As if it is either dignified or life-enhancing to keep it so that some humans are less entitled to equality than others. The fact that he and his staffers would be so bold as to frame the matter in this speciously "humane" fashion should be a deal breaker for anyone seeking an inclusive world.

On the site, McCain's marriage stance reads:

Protecting Marriage



As president, John McCain would nominate judges who understand that the role of the Court is not to subvert the rights of the people by legislating from the bench. Critical to Constitutional balance is ensuring that, where state and local governments do act to preserve the traditional family, the Courts must not overstep their authority and thwart the Constitutional right of the people to decide this question.



The family represents the foundation of Western Civilization and civil society and John McCain believes the institution of marriage is a union between one man and one woman. It is only this definition that sufficiently recognizes the vital and unique role played by mothers and fathers in the raising of children, and the role of the family in shaping, stabilizing, and strengthening communities and our nation.



As with most issues vital to the preservation and health of civil society, the basic responsibility for preserving and strengthening the family should reside at the level of government closest to the people. In their wisdom, the Founding Fathers reserved for the States the authority and responsibility to protect and strengthen the vital institutions of our civil society. They did so to ensure that the voices of America's families could not be ignored by an indifferent national government or suffocated through filibusters and clever legislative maneuvering in Congress.



Every argument that's presented is based in the same sort of hyperbolic rhetoric that conservatives have been using for years to reframe this issue into one that puts their team on the right side of morality. The ideas all pander to those who think the term "family" can only be defined in one narrow way. And while he doesn't call for a federal ban, it's clear that he would absolutely get behind one if he saw such a need (just like he got behind the ban in his home state of Arizona).

If anything, McCain should position his marriage ideas under the category: " Promotion of One-sided Judeo-Christian Values & the Sanctity of Heterosexism. " While we'd clearly still disagree with him about whether gay couples are fit to enter into a legal bond, at least we could respect his honesty a little more. As it stands, however, he is positing the idea that to ban decent, tax-paying, queer citizens from marriage equality is not only preferred for the wellness of society, but also in order to encourage "Human Dignity & the Sanctity of Life." Perhaps I've once too many suffered the indignity of having to fight for rights and benefits that my married heterosexual friends take for granted, but this queer writer has a tough time viewing these attempts to discredit my live and love as anything less than shameful!

Human Dignity & the Sanctity of Life [JohnMcCain.com]

**Just to clarify -- this post never says that McCain does currently support a federal amendment, only that all clues say he would if he saw such a need. And this is not meant to make McCain seem like the king of all 'phobes -- only as yet another conservative who is, for political gain, disseminating fear about gays and their relationships and the threats such supposedly pose to society. We didn't think such required more explanation, but judging a comment left on this post, it apparently does.

Your thoughts

"And while he doesn't call for a federal ban, it's clear that he would absolutely get behind one if he saw such a need" Didn't McCain lead the Republican opposition to the FMA? I recall him arguing from the floor of the Senate that this amendment thwarted the ability of the states to determine their own laws. In fact he's said that the only time he'd support such an amendment would be if the federal courts overturned the decisions of the states and forced them to recognize gay marriage. He's not in favor of marriage equality. Shame on him. But he also is not in favor of force Massachusetts or California to follow his beliefs as you are falsely claiming. Shame on you.

Posted by: Timothy Kincaid | Feb 20, 2008 2:58:00 PM

OMG, Timothy. That is completely out of line! What the post says is that he would get behind one if he saw such a need (such as with a federal decision like you mention). No more no less. That is a fair and accurate statement. There is no implication that he is "in favor of force [sic] Massachusetts or California to follow his beliefs," only that his beliefs in general are contrary to marriage equality (which could result in an FMA push if he saw a "threat").



Posted by: G-A-Y | Feb 20, 2008 3:09:38 PM

Yep, the adulterer is solidly against the fags and dykes - how not surprising.

Posted by: CPT_Doom | Feb 20, 2008 3:41:44 PM

I'm not voting for him because his face is 4 different colors.

Posted by: Franc | Feb 20, 2008 3:54:47 PM

Jeremy, I think we'll have to disagree a little on this one. Even in your last sentence, the quotes around "threat" seem to suggest to me that you think his position is subject to change on some artificially contrived or easily imagined threat: "...only that his beliefs in general are contrary to marriage equality (which could result in an FMA push if he saw a "threat")" This seems to me to be contrary to his history. I'm not saying to vote for him (hey, how could you, his face is four colors), but I really don't think he's going to suddenly discover an afinity to an amendment that he so loudly opposed twice on the Senate floor. If you don't think I should "shame" you for that, well OK I won't. But I still think that you are not correctly assessing McCain's position on this specific issue.

Posted by: Timothy Kincaid | Feb 20, 2008 4:17:03 PM

Timothy: The word threat is in quotes because I find the idea that marriage equality could be threatening to anyone to be absurd. What McCain has stated (and what you even seem to agree with) is that if a federal court casts a certain ruling granting marriage equality, he would back an FMA. The federally-mandated equality is the "threat" to which I'm referring. While I understand your reasons for wanting to leave it to the states at this point in time in order to prevent backlash, it is unfair to say that I'm falsely representing his position. I said that "while he doesn't call for a federal ban, it's clear that he would absolutely get behind one if he saw such a need." In fact, he would if he saw a need (a federal ruling). Here, he'll tell you as much himself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqL2LcravOk

Posted by: G-A-Y | Feb 20, 2008 4:31:16 PM

WOW!! Let's just state his position and then we don't need to dispute over whether the above posting accurately presents it. Everyone can just know what he believes: John McCain believes that marriage should be restricted to a man and a woman. He has, in the past, indicated that he is favorable to recognition of rights of gay couples outside of the structure of marriage. However, he did endorse and campaign for an amendment in the state of Arizona which would ban both marriage and domestic partnerships. McCain was also one of the most vocal opponents to the Federal Marriage Amendment. It was not simply that he didn't favor the amendment, nor that he didn't vote for it. He argued passionately against the FMA. His argument was that states do and should define marriage. And that which is best for a state is best known by those who live there. In questioning, McCain has indicated that he would oppose every gay marriage amendement in all circumstances. However, he laid out what would be a circumstance that could result in such an effort: if the federal courts sought to impose gay marriage on states that had sought to ban it. Just as he does not favor the federal government telling states that they CANNOT allow gay marriage, he opposes the federal government telling states that they MUST allow gay marriage. This is the "need" that was referenced above. Further, if I understand what he was saying, McCain was not indicating that he would then favor a federal ban on gay marriage in all states, but rather that he would favor an amendment that returned to the states the right to define marriage within their state. That is the "ban" that he would "absolutely get behind" that was referenced above. Not a ban on gay marriage but a ban on federal interference.

Posted by: Timothy Kincaid | Feb 20, 2008 4:54:41 PM

His 2004 statement (made, it should be noted, while voicing opposition to the ban): ***

"If the Supreme Court of the United States rejects the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional; if state legislatures are frustrated by the decisions of jurists in more states than one, and if state remedies to such judicial activism fail; and finally, if a large majority of Americans come to perceive that their communities' values are being ignored and other standards concerning marriage are being imposed on them against their will, and that elections and state legislatures can provide no remedy then, and only then, should we consider, quite appropriately, amending the Constitution."

*** In the one comment that blew this all out of proportion, all I said was that he would support the FMA if he saw a need. While the likeliness of the above-described "need" might seem far-fetched, I am not comfortable with one who leaves this door even partially open (on either side of the aisle). To those of us who view equality as a right and these bans on all levels to be un-American and discriminatory, there is NEVER a justifiable "need"!

Posted by: G-A-Y | Feb 20, 2008 5:12:04 PM

He’s NOT virulently anti-gay, and that’s the problem -- he’s toying with the idea because he can smell the power of the presidency. One look at how awkward his displays of “conviction” are tells the story. Every time he slams his vertical fist on the podium and speaks with “force,” there is indecision in his voice, eyes, and body language. I take him as more ethical than GW, but he strikes me as someone who’s seriously wondering to themselves how much of their soul is "too much" to sell.

--

I watched him argue against the FMA on CSPAN at the time -- states rights, blah blah blah. But he said the words, or something to the effect of; “between a man and a woman,” in his speech like more than all the other senators’ speeches combined. Yes that’s hyperbole, but whatever it was, it was obsequiously noticeable.

--

I ran across this too:

CNN LARRY KING LIVE

An Interview With John McCain

Aired May 24, 2006

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0605/24/lkl.01.html KING: Do you support gay rights?

MCCAIN: Yes, sir. But I do not believe in -- I believe in the sanctity of heterosexual marriage.

KING: But didn't you support pro-union?

MCCAIN: I will vote against -- yes. I will vote against the constitutional amendment concerning gay marriage. Gay union...

KING: That would ban it. That would ban gay marriage.

MCCAIN: Because I believe that the people of Arizona should make the decision concerning the sanctity of heterosexual marriage and union between a man and woman. And I believe the people of Massachusetts should make their decision, and others. I think it's up to the states to make those decisions. And by the way, that's the federalist approach.

KING: I know. And if Massachusetts would say it's OK, then you?

MCCAIN: I will respect the opinion of the people in Massachusetts. But the people of Arizona, I hope, would decide that a union between man and woman has a unique status.

KING: Do you favor a civil union?

MCCAIN: I think that...

KING: Arizona proposed that.

MCCAIN: I think it depends on -- well, I would respect the majority opinion of the people in Arizona. But a lot of times it depends on what do you mean by gay union? Does it mean that they're able to enter into certain contracts, people have a partnership? I think so. But to give it the status of heterosexual marriage is not something that I would support.

--

The problem as I see it, especially since he’s been running, is that he’s not secure enough with his own position to RESIST being pushed in the wrong direction. Which is pretty much how I took the post.

Posted by: Emproph | Feb 20, 2008 7:27:11 PM

In 2004, when GWB used the FMA as a wedge issue to gain evangelical support, I basically did nothing to help him win. If I see this happening with McCain I will do nothing to further his victory also.

Posted by: Matt from California | Feb 21, 2008 2:37:43 PM

i am a strong christian but if someone wants to be happy they should be happy even if they like te same sex. i am a teenager and i have more class, strength, and structure then some of these canidates...obama and hillary if tey cant even be friends with each other then how can we have them dealing with people that are worse then the opponents...

anyway even though it is against go it is not there fault they are gay and anyway it is no ones buisnes accept their own and i disagree that the government just cant let people be gay and married... this is an oppion of the youth of today and frankly i am appauled on what our world is coming to... more lies, more terrorists, and ust lying to american citizans.... this is off topic but people are gettin mad at george busch for sendin or troops but is not even up to him completely hillary clinton voted while she was in congrass yes to send pur troops which pisses me off cause this war is pointless and i dont want my cousin sent back to iraq to be killed for nuttin and i am sure my friends at school dont want their brothers dead either

Posted by: telly | Apr 29, 2008 6:50:50 PM

A Warning for Barack Obama. Concerning your upcoming debates with McCain. Go as the Barack whose white mother comes from Bedford Stuyvesant and whose black father deserted him when he was less than two years old. This is not the debate club. This is not Confirmation class. This is the boxing ring. And best you be a Mohammed Ali. He should have been your first pick as wise advisor, not your dear, if wise, family oriented wife. You tell McCain: I don't believe your prisoner of war shit any more than I believe you didn't have the questions ahead of time. You tell them you don't believe it, Barack, because you have an email from a mathematician who says it was probabilistically and experientially too obvious, the ease with which McCain answered the important first set of questions so presciently perfect. Our mathematics can also prove that Iraq was an invasion of American Forces, not a coalition, other than in words. And our bio-mathematical analysis also suggests that the conservatives are all perverse homosexual rapists and liars, collectively a Mark Foley, Larry Craig flag-shipped ludicrous bunch of power mad faggots. Cindy McCain is a subordinate fem lesbian. She goes down for the strap-on. Up the ass. It all fits with Cindy's pill popping. Ask her drug rehab psychiatrist. Cindy was an upper class piece of cake for her rich parents who fucked her when she was a child as often happens to daughters in rich families in their having both the requisite perversity and the power to get away with it. Take a second look at this blank eyed plaything who was McCain's mistress while McCain trashed his first wife who waited faithfully for him the five years after McCain's plane was shot down while bombing the life out of a hundred thousand Vietcong women, children and primitive men living in thatched huts whose prime sin in their napalmed life was that they lived in a land that had oil off its shores when the North Vietnamese were kid brothers of our Orwellian foe, the Russians. Or, if your prefer the soapier explanation, McCain's first wife was fucking for other soldiers even before John was shot down. That's as typical for military wives as it is for the daughters of the rich. The military is too powerful in its officer rank to allow for anything vaguely resembling love except in a Ronald Reagan propaganda movie. Contrast to Dwight Eisenhower's love affair with his secretary that had no love in it because our General and President was admittedly impotent. Typical for a Republican. It's the orderliness of living at that level of military hierarchical control that ends freedom. If the soldier's superior officer owns your husband, you're not going to be nice to him? Rape and coercion is the reproductive strategy followed in the military, both heterosexual and homosexual. Yes sir! It's said perfectly in the movie, The Sergeant, starring Rod Steiger, who was never hired again, blacklisted, after he made that piece of truth. McCain ditched his unfaithful whore of a wife. Or alternatively, if she really was June Allison, McCain messed her up bad by sneaking off with another woman, the aforesaid, child molested, Cindy, I like to have my tits pinched by my mother, McCain. This is a slightly more realistic view than you may have, Barack. Open your eyes to it or otherwise you can kiss your family goodbye. Dukakis's faithful loving wife, Kitty, started taking cough medicine like it was Gator Aide after they lost the election with egg on their faces. It wasn't what the Dukakis's had succeeded at that mattered, Governor of Massachusetts and sparkly wife as presidential candidates. It was what they didn't succeed at that mattered. So Barack, put Michelle's advice aside. And listen to Mohammed Ali, I am the greatest, today. In the next round, kick McCain in the balls. We wrote a letter to your Denver Campaign Coordinator, Victoria Scott-Haynes, whose husband played football for the Denver Broncos, telling Victoria, way back in May, that your just taking the crap, as started in the ABC debate, is deadly. But Victoria and the rest of your campaign are as blind to the reality of the game up at the next level as you are. Your fate, Barack, is as in the movie, Field of Dreams, as the guy who gets one time at bat in the major leagues and strikes out. If you lose, and you are going to if you don't listen up, it will be, as we make clear on our website, your ass strewn across the backboard in a very public way with them waiting down below bucket of tar and basket of chicken feathers in hand. We say all this scientifically, mathematically. We agree with and actively defend Robert Scheer's insight in the San Francisco Chronicle that Saakashvili and the Georgia war were schemed up intentionally to make McCain look good and fire up his once sputtering campaign and beat you. It's in the SF Chronicle. Obampa Bumpa, you don't get to play it a second time around, dummy. So I suggest you pay attention to the insults hurled at you on www.matrix-evolutions.com for being such a chicken shit pretender, when what was expected and is still needed is that you be the fearless, out of the night, super hero leader you once promised to be with your tone and style. You have superior talent. You should be able to beat McCain, an ass fucking, military brat, liar. You think his mother was any less a whore than his wives? And mummy owns her Johnny sonny boy next president like Aunt Tillie owns her aging Labrador Retriever. Barak, baby, promise you will take risk quickly, throw Jesus and Pastor Warren and other rabbit foot superstition out of the car, and know, oh last hope of us all, that you have nothing to lose by completely putting your ass on the line. There is no tomorrow for you, or for the rest of us. Put some truth behind your saxophone. Or toss it into the ocean and step aside and make room for Hillary. While there's still time to repair the huge hole torpedoed into the Democratic Part ship of state, the only Ship of State we have left, because if it goes down, competitive government shifts to the totalitarian, no real opposition, kind, aka, THE END. Mrs. Ruth and Dr. Peter V. Calabria



Posted by: Ruth Calabria | Aug 19, 2008 5:50:16 PM

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