Showing posts with label Same Sex Marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Same Sex Marriage. Show all posts

Saturday, January 14, 2012

The Santorum Plan is God's Plan

Taylor Jones - Politicalcartoons.com - Campaign sketchbook - Rick Santorum - English -   santorum,rick santorum,iowa,iowa caucuses,mitt romney,family values,cultural conservative,religious right,republicans,pennsylvania

A group of evangelical and social conservative leaders recently voted to back the candidacy of Rick Santorum in the race for the GOP Presidential nomination. Is this support just a last attempt to stop front-runner Mitt Romney? Or is it an acknowledgment that Santorum's positions fit the beliefs of the more conservative element of the GOP? Santorum has unwaveringly opposed same-sex marriage, adoption by same-sex couples, abortion, partial-birth abortion, contraception, global warming and evolution. Here are Santorum's positions on these issues:

Same-Sex Marriage

"And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing."
Adoption by same-sex couples
"The state is not doing a service to the child and to society by not putting that child in a home where there is a mother and a father. This is common sense. This is nature. Even fathers in jail who had abandoned their kids were still better than no father at all to have in their children's lives."
Abortion

"I believe that any doctor that performs an abortion, I would advocate that any doctor that performs an abortion, should be criminally charged for doing so."

And on debating the partial-birth abortion ban in 1996, Santorum said: “Mr. President, I just need to restate, we have quoted physician after physician, obstetrician after obstetrician, pro-life, pro-choice, people who have performed abortions—this is not Rick Santorum or James Inhofe or Mike DeWine or Bob Smith—these are physicians, obstetricians, who are saying that this procedure is never, never, never medically necessary to save the health or life of the mother. Never. Never.”


Even though Santorum has previously testified that there are no circumstances where abortion is necessary to protect the life of the mother, his wife Karen had a second trimester abortion in October 1996. The Santorums were told that if she did not induce her labor, she and the baby would more than likely die. The decision was made to induce labor, and abort the fetus.
However, the Rick and Karen don't call it an abortion. Rather, they refer to it as a "medically induced miscarriage."
Partial-birth abortion
"This isn’t taught in any medical school. It isn’t done in any hospital. It isn’t done by any obstetrician. This is a rogue procedure for the convenience and economic benefit of abortionists and abortion clinics. Of course, it is not medically necessary. It is not even medically recognized."
Contraception
Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s okay, contraception is okay. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.
Global Warming
"I believe the earth gets warmer, and I also believe the earth gets cooler, and I think history points out that it does that and that the idea that man through the production of CO2, which is a trace gas in the atmosphere and the man-made part of that trace gas is itself a trace gas, is somehow responsible for climate change is, I think, just patently absurd when you consider all of the other factors, El Niño, La Niña, sunspots, you know, moisture in the air."
Evolution

"What we should be teaching are the problems and holes and I think there are legitimate problems and holes in the theory of evolution. And what we need to do is to present those fairly from a scientific point of view. And we should lay out areas in which the evidence supports evolution and the areas in the evidence that does not."
Santorum's position against evolution has made him the 'King of creationism.' Santorum believes that what he believes, should be taught to all those who do believe or don't believe, what he believes. That is because Santorum believes that this is God's plan. Rick Santorum wants to replace the teaching of real science with creationism.
Since January 1st, three state legislatures in Missouri, Indiana, and New Hampshire have all introduced bills that would force schools to teach creationism as an accepted science even if students, parents, and teachers are not Christians. Such bills infringe upon religious freedom as protected by the United States Constitution. Since 2004, 12 states have tried to pass creationism bills. Only one, in Louisiana, has become law. You may be wondering, where did all of these bills come from?
It turns out, all creationism bills introduced since 2004 are inspired by an amendment drafted and proposed by then Senator and current Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum in 2001. Santorum offered the amendment to be included in the No Child Left Behind Act. The amendment, which failed, promoted the teaching of intelligent design and questioned the academic standing of evolution in US public schools. Santorum didn’t craft the language of the bill by himself, however. He had help from Phillip E. Johnson of the Center for Science and Culture which is run by a conservative think tank known as Discovery Institute. Johnson is the founding adviser of the Center and is considered the founder of the intelligent design movement. He is also known as a member of the group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis, a prominent AIDS denialist group and has written that HIV does not cause AIDS, which explains why many religious extremists make such claims.
The amendment would have allowed schools and teachers to dispute evolution which the scientific community regards as the only credible, and thoroughly tested, scientific explanation for the development and diversification of all life on Earth. But people like Santorum, Johnson and other religious extremists want to replace the teaching of real science with creationism, a Biblical theory that is classified as pseudo-science by an overwhelming majority of scientists. There is no evidence supporting creationism, whereas plenty of evidence exists to support evolution.
So the next time you read a headline about a new creationism bill being introduced in a state, you’ll know exactly where the bill came from and who is responsible for trying to force religion upon our children.
Given his positions on social issues, Bruce Epperly ponders whether Santorum is the "Jesus candidate."
At least his wife, Karen, thinks so.

For me it’s not just another political race. It’s about going on to the battlefield and defending God’s truth in the World.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

"Traditional Marriage" GOP Style



Glenn Greenwald has an interesting article about "traditional marriage" and Republican hypocrisy. Apparently, Karl Rove was recently granted a divorce in Texas.

Karl Rove is an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage, citing "5,000 years of understanding the institution of marriage" as his justification. He also famously engineered multiple referenda to incorporate a ban on same-sex marriage into various states' constitutions in 2004 in order to ensure that so-called ""Christian conservatives" and value voters" who believe in "traditional marriage laws" would turn out and help re-elect George W. Bush. Yet, like so many of his like-minded pious comrades, Rove seems far better at preaching the virtues of "traditional marriage" to others and exploiting them for political gain than he does adhering to those principles in his own life:

Karl Rove granted divorce in Texas

Karl Rove, former senior adviser to President George W. Bush, has been granted a divorce in Texas after 24 years of marriage, a family spokesperson said. Dana Perino, the spokesperson, said: “Karl Rove and his wife, Darby, were granted a divorce last week. The couple came to the decision mutually and amicably, and they maintain a close relationship and a strong friendship. . . . A family friend told POLITICO: “After 24 years of marriage, many of which were spent under incredible stress and strain during the White House years, the Roves came to a mutual decision that they would end the marriage.

Rove obtained his divorce under Texas' "no-fault" divorce law, one of the most permissive in the nation. That law basically allows any married couple to simply end their marriage because they feel like it. Texas, needless to say, is one of the states which has constitutionally barred same-sex marriages, and has a Governor who cites Christian principles as the reason to support such that provision, yet the overwhelming majority of Texan citizens make sure that there's nothing binding or permanent -- i.e., nothing traditional -- about their own marriages. They're willing to limit other people's marriage choices on the moral grounds, but not their own, and thus have a law that lets them divorce whenever they feel like it. That's the very permissive, untraditional and un-Christian law that Rove exploited in order to obtain his divorce. [...]

I've long thought that the solution to the cheap, cost-free moralizing that leads very upstanding people like Karl Rove to want to ban same-sex marriages (which they don't want to enter into themselves, and thus cost them nothing) is to have those same "principles" apply consistently to all marriage laws. If Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and their friends and followers actually were required by law to stay married to their wives -- the way that "traditional marriage" was generally supposed to work -- the movement to have our secular laws conform to "traditional marriage" principles would almost certainly die a quick, quiet and well-deserved death.

Greenwald has a point. Let's not allow those who are opposed to same-sex marriage the ability to espouse rules that they don't follow. They should live by the rules they force unto others.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

The Joke on NOM

The National Organization of Marriage, NOM, has released a new ad against same sex marriage.
Stephen Colbert: I love that ad. It is like watching the 700 Club and the weather channel at the same time.
The Colbert Coalition's Anti-Gay Marriage Ad
In homage to the NOM ad, Stephen Colbert has created his own ad warning about the dangers of gay marriage. WATCH:

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Colbert Coalition's Anti-Gay Marriage Ad
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical HumorNASA Name Contest

But the joke really seems to be on NOM:
In an unintentional but hilarious nod to gay sex chatters everywhere, the National Organization for Marriage has dubbed their campaign "2 Million for Marriage". Or 2M4M. Whoops!
They should have checked out Urban Dictionary's definitions of M4M: an abbreviation for "men seeking men in an online chat room".