« Go back a post || Return to G-A-Y homepage || Haul tail to next post »

12/14/2009

Breathing too easily? Well here, swallow DeMint...

by Jeremy Hooper

This from Bloomberg News:

[Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)] takes a hard line on social issues, passionately anti- abortion and pro-guns. He has been most outspoken as an opponent of any form of gay marriage.



“Marriage is a religious institution. The federal government has no business redefining what it is,” DeMint says. This is one issue where he doesn’t support states’ rights; state government shouldn’t have the right to permit gay marriage: “Governments should not be in the business of promoting a behavior that’s proven to be destructive to our society.”



He cringes at the notion of a gay or lesbian president: “It would be bothersome to me just personally because I consider it immoral.”

DeMint's Back-to-Basics Plan for Republicans: Albert R. Hunt [Bloomberg]

(H/t: Towle)

Okay, so let's process this:

He says that marriage is a religious institution, even though religion is not at all a requirement for a civil marriage.

He doesn't think the federal government has the right to weigh in, unless, apparently, it's for an FMA (which he supported).

He also doesn't think states have a right to allow marriage equality, which apparently makes gays and lesbians the one group of citizens who are barred from following through the proper channels of state government to secure their rights.

He outright says that we are destructive to society, a toxic idea that is almost too unfathomable and DeMinted demented to even believe is coming from a sitting U.S. Senator in the 21st century.

He has no qualms telling his many thousands of LGBT constituents that they're immoral and unpresidential, simply because they were born to love in a different way than he was.

And the only criteria that he, someone who's sworn to act in accordance with the constitution, feels that he needs in order to make such harsh pronouncements is the personal personal belief that stems from his own interpretation of certain biblical passages.

Happy holidays, South Carolina gays! Your senatorial Santa apparently mistook his naughty/nice list for an unprincipled homo-hostile hit list. So sleep well while these visions of forced "ex-gay" therapy dance in your heads.

Or better yet: Find out the best way to exchange his harmful rhetoric for a one way bus pass from D.C. to SC! Just because we're told that the senator's 2010 reelection is all but assured, it doesn't make it so. With the way he shoots these bullets at us, a self-inflicted foot-shot in not at all an impossibility!

Your thoughts

If he really believed his own rhetoric, he would have to oppose the government standing in the way of the various religious institutions that wish to conduct same-sex marriages.

Posted by: Dan T. | Dec 14, 2009 5:08:31 PM

IF marriage is a religious institution, and the Federal govt. has no business "redefining" [sic] it, then it also has no business defining it, nor even promoting or sanctioning it. In other words, according to Demint's logic, no govt, state or federal should have anything to do with marriage at all! But then again, we're talking about civil marriage, aren't we?

Posted by: keltic | Dec 14, 2009 5:16:29 PM

Is he also stating that heterosexuals who don't subscribe to any particular religion should also be barred from civil marriage? Fail.

Posted by: SammySeattle | Dec 14, 2009 5:34:51 PM

In this case, if your breath already stinks, a DeMint will make it even worse.

Posted by: Mike Tidmus | Dec 14, 2009 5:54:22 PM

“Marriage is a religious institution." Which religion - oh wait, it must be Biblical (christianity). In that case there are over one dozen different "definitions" of marriage. •He doesn't think the federal government has the right to weigh in, unless, apparently, it's for an FMA (which he supported). Why would the blatant hypocrisy surprise you?

Posted by: Dale | Dec 14, 2009 6:30:09 PM

Ha! I love that he asserts that marriage is a religious instuition and that the federal government has no business redefining what it is. Then why Mr. Pepper-de-mint has the government defined marriage as the union between one man and one woman? I guess ya' like that the federal government has overstepped their bounds there huh? I wish that people would stop making same-sex marriage some moral holier than thou issue. It's a civil rights isssue. I don't want to get married in a Baptist Church or have the Pope bless my marriage, I just want the same rights all those hetero's get. Oh, and Mr. Pepper-de-mint, the thought of a homosexual as president makes you sick, that's about how I feel knowing someone like you is sitting in the senate making important decisions about my life.

Posted by: Chandler Crook | Dec 14, 2009 7:58:43 PM

I seriously know how pathetic the lives of these christian freaks are. As I make the most of my life skydiving, learning even more theoretical mathematics, enjoying my racing stable and my one and only sister (the other is a southern baptist - no need to explain that we haven't communicated in two decades) it almost makes me sad that these people have wasted their lives. Did I say "almost?" I take that back. These pathetic excuses for human beings deserve to live lives of hatred. It must be worse than hell.

Posted by: Dale | Dec 14, 2009 8:20:27 PM

I am giving my vote to any candidate Senator DeMint did not endorse. I think the Republicans have potential if they focus away from the social issues, young people aren't buying much of it these days. I hope the Republicans get under 35 US Senate seats and keep on losing until they realize what is wrong with them. I do refuse to vote Democratic, but I will vote Libertarian if there is ever any more DeMint acolytes running in my area. In California Chuck DeVore (DeMint endorsed) is going to be eaten alive by Boxer if he wins the nomination. But Carly is going to be eaten alive by Boxer for her lackluster skills at HP. Boxer is one lucky dog.

Posted by: Matt from California | Dec 14, 2009 8:58:45 PM

Senator DeMint: “Governments should not be in the business of promoting a behavior that’s proven to be destructive to our society.” He's right. Government should not be promoting bigotry. While there is no evidence that homosexuality is destructive to our society, there is plenty of evidence that bigotry is destructive. The only "evidence" the DeMinted crowd can cite is really along the lines of: The presence of homosexuality in society bothers me and my friends, therefore homosexuality is destructive.

Posted by: Richard Rush | Dec 15, 2009 2:06:40 PM

Richard, he *is* right that homosexuality is destructive to civilization. It shatters every illusion of cultural power he has. Derrick Jensen put it best: "The realization [of why many people hate homosexuals] came, oddly enough, when I was listening to a military spokesperson outlining reasons gays should not be allowed into the military [...] His main reason was that it would destroy the chain of command. 'Can you imagine what would happen,' he asked, obviously rhetorically, 'if a private had sex with a captain? The captain would no longer have any authority.' "It was clear from the context his point was not intimacy, but rather penetration. If the inferior penetrated the superior, the superior would no longer be such. I suddenly understood what a lot of feminists have been saying for many years, that within our system, sexuality is an act of power, with a fucker, and a fucked. "And in a culture where men consider themselves superior to women, men fucking women is a sign that all is well with the world. Feminist author Catharine MacKinnon put this as succinctly as possible: 'Man fucks woman, subject verb object.' Any deviation from that behavior - And homosexuality is certainly not the only way to deviate - chips away at the illusions that it's natural for men to rule women and that it's natural to manifest this rule through sex (as opposed to 'using' sex for pleasure and communication, is I may venture a wild and crazy idea). "Recognizing that our most intimate relationships need not be based on power points toward an even more dangerous possibility, that all of our relationships can have as their basis pleasure and communication: that they can consist of communion."

Posted by: PINGAS | Dec 15, 2009 7:26:44 PM

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

Disqus

G-A-Y Comments Policy