They do it to themselves much better than I ever could. Case in point: Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave of Colorado on what is the most important issue we face today:
Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO), the lead sponsor of the constitutional ban on gay marriage in the House, spoke this weekend at the Family Research Council’s “Values Voter Summit.” (Other virulently anti-gay speakers were featured at the event.)
Musgrave declared that gay marriage “is the most important issue that we face today.” She told the audience that “when you’re in a cultural war like this, you have to respond with equal and hopefully greater force if you want to win,” and warned that the “future is grim” if gay marriage is not banned.
Go view the video of her speech at Think Progress.
By the way, gay marriage now tops abortion as the greatest threat to America according to these nutjobs. I guess the holocaust (their word) of little embryos each year is no longer as sexy as imagining two people of the same gender who love each other wanting their relationship recognized under law.
Go figure. The greatest moral crisis our republic faces is gay people in love. Thanks for the laughs Ms. Musgrave. I sure need them after yesterday. Oh, and I agree with you on one point. The future sure will be grim. Grim, that is, if the American electorate keeps Radical Republican extremists like you in power.
Good diary Steven. I so agree with everything you said. Seems like we are really having a great big grim outlook on things here in America with all that is going on. When ppl stop getting into our personal lives, then is when I might honor them with listening to them. hugs
Fear. Fear of terrah, fear of gays/lesbians, fear of not getting reelected. It must be a terrible thing to be a neocon and live one’s life in constant fear.
Do you think that is why they are so insistent about passing that fear onto others? It would make them feel superior, as they feel that they are the ones in power…Kind of like a control game, and divide and conquer…
See what I mean?
We just lost our rights once one’s arrested! We are now all enemy combatants, and have no rights! Fuck gay marriage. Take this off the front page and put up a diary about our loss of habeus corpus instead.
You think because you’re white it won’t happen to you? Think again!
I don’t think I’ve ever given out a 2 before, and in the spirit of the BooTrib community, I won’t do it without explaining why.
I think your comment lacks any substance, that it is not only dismissive regarding equality but also nasty about it. It is not as though as it’s impossible to front-page multiple issues — in fact, it is typical that multiple issues are front-paged. Further, the issue you want to see front-paged already has been front-paged so there is no way in which this piece by Steven D exists to the exclusion of coverage of other issues, therefore your comment is not only nasty and homophobic, it is without any basis for such vituperation.
As a very OUT very gay man (with years of gay activism) I feel perfectly justified to be pissed off about the triviality of gay marriage. Not an issue compared to the loss of our constitutional rights.
CheneyCo and their government won’t be waiting for the Supreme Court to deliberate the constitutionality of today’s disgraceful bill-signing; they’ll be throwing people in jail and throwing away the id within days if not weeks of today.
FUCK GAY MARRIAGE.
I’ve read the posts here on the thread. Thanks, but I stand committed to the threat to more basic rights. Someday gays will have equal rights, but not until we dispose of CheneyCo and the present congressmembers!
Well, we disagree completely about the substance of the issue — I think it’s obvious that equality is (or at least ought be) a fundamental constitutional right, and marriage is a basic civil right even according to 1960s SCOTUS — but that’s neither here nor there, since I didn’t downrate you for your opinions or your anger. Had you presented anything resembling an actual substantive argument in your original post, then I wouldn’t have downrated you for the homophobic vitriol (sadly, being gay isn’t mutually exclusive with homophobia), I’d have merely found it as distasteful and wrong-headed as I find this more recent post, and probably just ignored it.
First and last time that I do a rating explanation–I gave you a four on both of your comments and will be explain why.
IMO, other domestic issues, specifically Medicare D and the lack of a single payer health care system in this country take priority over gay marriage. However, the need for a verifiable and reliable elections takes prioriry over that, because w/o the latter, the former is impossible.
However, I am not questioning the placement of this story, as I do recognize the importance of the issue. Again, one outweighs the other, IMO.
Additionally, I would like to add that I admire the assertive manner in which you delivered your origninal comment.
I put up a story about the loss of our rights last night. I may post another one later today, but I’m pretty sure most people here already understand what happened yesterday in the Senate. We are all one step away from being named enemy combatant, and that one step is at george bush’s whim.
to have their same narrow focus — while we’re looking at one of their nefarious schemes, they can slip through all the other crap while we’re not looking. What about the fact that reports are out that things in Iraq are even worse than have been reported — attacks on US troops by “insurgents” (one man’s “insurgent” is another’s “freedom fighter”) are up to 100 per day? (I heard it mentioned on “Countdown” but didn’t get the details.) That seems to have been buried on Page A23 along with everything else.
And regardless of what happened yesterday, for which I and all true Americans mourn, we’ve still got an election to fight for in November, to hopefully return some sanity to the halls of Congress and eventually to the White House. Musgrave has an excellent opponent, Angie Paccione, who could use some backing. She had an excellent response to Ms. Musgrave’s lack of priorities:
To Marilyn, I say this:
How can you say that!? We’re at war. American troops are dying.
The threats to our country are increasing. And you think gay marriage is our biggest concern!?
Shame On You!
Here are five issues I will address in Congress that I feel are more important:
1. The War on Terrorism: We still haven’t found Osama bin Laden and brought him to justice, and the National Intelligence Council concludes that Al Qaeda’s terrorist networks in Iraq and around the world are growing. America has lost 2,707 soldiers in Iraq and at almost 20,000 have been wounded, and the U.S. has no exit strategy.
2. Homeland Security: The 9/11 Commission recently graded Bush and Congress’ efforts and gave them “5 F’s, 12 D’s and 2 incompletes.” They said, “We believe that the terrorists will strike again.”
3. A Secure Energy Policy: We still have not addressed the national security problem of our addiction to foreign oil, and we still don’t have a national strategy to promote renewable energy.
4. Affordable and Accessible Healthcare: The big drug companies and insurance companies are making record profits as millions of seniors are trapped in the Medicare “doughnut hole,” while the costs of health insurance, hospital visits, and drug prices soar.
5. Affordable College Opportunities: Tuition is rising, and federal loan programs have raised rates and cut award amounts, making it harder for Colorado families to send their kids to college.
This is what I mean about returning sanity to the halls of Congress…
Yea, they’ve made me angry these last few months. Why? They want me to die. Yes, really.
Just 6 months ago, we faced the dire threat of me not contracting oral cancer from a HPV infection. Yes, oral cancer, read my diary. They are the same asshats that said if we had access to a HPV vaccine, there’d be more of that SEX going around.
Guess what? It doesn’t just cause cervical cancer. Looks like it causes 30% of oral cancer too. Looks like that’s the case for me, and now I have oral cancer.
Wanna talk about terror threats? The fact that they are not only peddling misinformation designed to terrorize young women, their STATED GOAL is to terrorize them with the possibility of cancer to stop them from having sex. Ever. Even with a married partner who may carry HPV. They WANT women to suffer, just so they can point and moralize at them.
They are building their message on the torment and terror of others. We need to make the rest of America understand this about them.
They are on an all-out war to dehumanize us. And they are fighting hard to make people like me a casualty in their “culture war.”
And it doesn’t stop there….Damn, I hate when the brain kicks into gear late at nite!
Steven, I think that you and most of us on the left blogosphere miss much of the point about people like Marilyn Musgrave. I was discussing this with my wife this morning.
Back in the 1970s there was a serious trend in Christian and conservative theological and philosophical circles, led by people like the French theologian Henri de Lubac, opposed to “secular humanism.” That’s where that expression comes from. Over the decades, as that idea has filtered down to the masses of knotheads through the fevered sermons of 10,000 mediocre evangelical pastors, the idea has reached a lowest denominator in this strange idea of the “culture war.”
The thing that I think you and most of us miss is that people like Marilyn Musgrave are thoroughly brainwashed, and they really, really sincerely believe what they say. Nothing is gained by us acting superior and mocking people like her. We have to try to find ways to reason with her in language she understands. (Ah, but what a horrible prospect.)
Jesus said something once about “straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.” That’s what people like Musgrave are doing all the time. Their whole world view is focused on about three “big issues,” to the point where it’s not that they ignore all the other issues, they don’t even perceive them.
I don’t think you can reason with her.
Thinking…..