President Bill Clinton — whose cowardice led to his signing the Defense of Marriage Act — has flip-flopped on his position on gay marriage. Eight years too late for it to mean anything. Allow Anderson Cooper to let the man lead his apology tour.
“That our society has an interest in coherence and strength and commitment and mutually reinforcing loyalties,” says Clinton, “then if gay couples want to call their union marriage, and a state agrees, and several have now, and a religious body will sanction it, and I don’t think a state should be able to stop a religious body from saying it, I don’t think the rest of us should get in the way of it. I think it’s a good thing, not a bad thing.”
Ugh. Okay, so it’s great that Bill Clinton has finally seen the light. But it’s much easier to do so when you’re no longer in office, when you’re new job is “humanitarian,” when public opinion has changed. Yes, it’s hard to criticize someone who now supports your cause. But Bill? You didn’t support us when you had the chance. In fact, you ruined the lives of gay Americans. With DOMA. And with Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which, while you’re also now sorry about that, the apology comes with an asterisk.
So here’s what we propose, Mr. Clinton, if you really want to stand beside us: Help make things better. Actively lobby your friends in Congress to drum up support for the Respect for Marriage Act. Go on the rampage against DADT, even if it means admitting your wrongs. Demand the Employment Non-Discrimination Act become a top priority for lawmakers. And when you’re done with all that, start dedicating some of the ridiculous resources of the William J. Clinton Foundation to helping gays. Yup, you’re already doing great work with your HIV/AIDS project, but you can do more. Gay youth need a hand. Gay seniors, too. Use whatever influence you have on Hillary to ensure she is making LGBT rights worldwide a priority.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Bill, you single-handedly — literally, while holding a pen between your fingers — helped destroy our lives out of ego, or faith, or peer pressure.
It’s time you make a serious commitment to making them better.
Duncan Behines
It’s too late Bill. You’ll need to take some serious action other than interviews to redeem yourself.
Bill
Too little, too late, Bill.
You will be remembered for your signature on a document called DOMA, not for your eventual realization that it is wrong to treat a human being as something less than a human being.
James
It’s as if you want Clinton to go back to not being in favor of marriage at all. We rail against politicians for not admitting they were wrong (like Hillary’s vote for the Iraq war) and beg and plead for them to correct their mistakes, yet whine about stuff like this. If he could go back in time, I’m sure he’d do a lot of things differently. We need to focus on pushing our current Congress to get rid of DOMA instead of this nonsense.
Andrew
Who really cares what Bill thinks? He used us. We are probably being used again by Obama. There is no “political” solution for our equality – it will continue until a majority of our fellow citizens no longer believe we are “morally wrong.” Politicians, or groups like HRC that lobby politicians, are doing NOTHING about that reality.
It’s just a big game of fund-raising and promising, but no action.
Chitown Kev
And what’s the difference between Slick Willie’s ne position on marriage equality and Trick Dick Cheney’s? Or the current President’s, for that matter?
J. Clarence
It’s not eight years too late. The fact that he has changed his position is what matters, regardless of how long it takes because many people have not; and yes its a lot easier now that he no longer sits in the White House but he is still a very influential person, and I think he can serve as a good icon to gay people as somebody who has changed his position. You don’t get to pick your allies, but you should support them were visible.
Also, it wasn’t as if he wasn’t the most pro-gay president when he was in office. We have to remember DADT was billed as a step forward initially. It has been social conservatives who have used the law as a guise to launch a gay witch-hunt within the army. And as for DOMA, there is no doubt was it anti-gay legislation on face value; however, if there is some silver lining it did prevent a FMA like amendment from passing in the 90s and ultimately laid the ground work for states like Massachusetts to make marriage-equality a possibility, because it left the issue ultimately in the hands of the states.
As for what the President can do now, I think the ball now is in our court. We now have a influential Democrat who has changed his ways and who’s popularity has been largely rectified in the mainstream.
Schteve
@Chitown Kev: Easy: Obama doesn’t believe it should be legal personally (well, he does, but he just doesn’t say so publicly).
Peter
J Clarence –Right On. Writing nasty words about Clinton is not the answer; matter of fact, it is negative to our cause. We should accept his statement and applaud it. Criticism of anyone who projects positive words for us are useful, in the effect they have on the fence sitters and even those opposed. What happened in the past; is past. Only the words and discussion taking place now are what matter. How effective will they be towards affecting the results desired???
InExile
@J. Clarence: Agreed! The question is: What will it take to get the current President to keep his promises? Thus far, he seems uninterested in his promises.
alinosof
The title of your article lost me (shaking my head). Last time I checked, Mr. Obama is the president of the United States and Mr. Bill Clinton is a private citizen. Instead of holding the current president accountable for his policies or lack thereof, you’re going after the guy who left office 9 years ago? And you believe this is a smart strategy? I guess, it’s more hope n’ change.
Daniel
I think democrats are simply trying to soften the blow with strange gestures such as this in hopes that people will be more forgiving when they don’t actually accomplish anything meaningful in Congress such as repealing DOMA, repealing DADT, or even more importantly protecting people from discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations.
Andrew
@J. Clarence: “As for what the President can do now, I think the ball now is in our court. We now have a influential Democrat [Bill Clinton] who has changed his ways and who’s popularity has been largely rectified in the mainstream.”
So what. How will this change anyones mind about us? People, including politicians, vote their beliefs. 70% of Americans believe we are “morally wrong.” That’s what they were taught and the consequences are an eternity in Hell. Pretty strong stuff.
And, you’re actually suggesting that Bill (I did not have sexual relations with that Woman) Clinton is going to change some hearts and minds? Really? Maybe be some kind of moral authority? That’s just priceless. Thank-you.
Hillary
@Andrew: “And, you’re actually suggesting that Bill (I did not have sexual relations with that Woman) Clinton is going to change some hearts and minds?”
I think it depends on what you believe the definition of “is” is.
The Gay Numbers
He needs to go to each state in which the issue is now on the ballot, and campaign for marriage equality. He needs to convince President Obama to be for it while Pres Obama has power. As the husband of the Secretary of state, he needs to push for the Sec of State to include a defense of gays abroad on the same level she includes women’s rights. These are three things he can do. He can record ads as well supporting equality.
Jason
@Duncan Behines:
YOU LIE!
jason
Bill Clinton is a liar who sucked up to the gay community to win their votes. Typical Democrat if you ask me. Now that he’s nowhere near the reins of power, he’s suddenly for gay marriage. Buzz off, Bill – you failed when we needed you.
J. Clarence
@Andrew: Again with this “70% of Americans…” The last time I saw that mentioned here it was supposedly quoted from Gallop. However, when I looked it up the most recent Gallop study, 2008, says it is evenly split 48%-48%. If you could actually cite your source it would be appreciated.
That being said, how will Bill change anything. Simple, because people listen to him, more so than they do any other national gay figure. If someone was just going to immediately shut us off they might be willing to listen to him.
Also, yeah, he got a blow job in the White House and lied about it. However, the population has largely forgiven him about that, especially after the circle of Republican sex scandals, and the fact that Americans are overall nostalgic about the Clinton years. So yeah, I think they would be willing to listen to him.
Hillary
@J. Clarence: The even split is only when asked about “allowing same sex marriage.” Thank the ‘progressive’ Christians for that.
70% of Americans believing we are “morally wrong” is from Gallup, Pew and ARIS.
“Accepting” us, while still believing we are “morally wrong,” isn’t much to shout about. If we erased the “morally wrong” belief, we’d be equal. That’s a fight we need to have with it’s source: religion.
NOTE: The following is an “instant poll” taken in the last hour.
Amazing. 70% of Americans believe Bill Clinton is “morally wrong.” Go figure.
J. Clarence
@Hillary: Gallup 2008: http://www.gallup.com/poll/108115/Americans-Evenly-Divided-Morality-Homosexuality.aspx. Gallup says 48%-48%.
PEW Research 2003: http://people-press.org/report/197/religious-beliefs-underpin-opposition-to-homosexuality.
PEW Research points that the high level of people that oppose homosexuality and think it is morally wrong are those who are deeply religious, which (thankfully) is not the majority of the American population. So it is incorrect to make the assertion that 70% of the American population thinks homosexuality is morally wrong.
And I can’t find the ARIS poll. If you can pull it up it would be helpful.
Robert, NYC
The thing that galls me with Clinton and others who’ve come around is when they start the bullshit about the federal government not getting involved with marriage, but leaving it to the states to decide. That said, if the federal government doesn’t get involved with marriage as he and others claim, Obama included, then why the fuck does the federal government confer more than 1,000 rights and privileges only to straight married couples? If that’s not direct federal involvement in marriage, I don’t know what is. How about having the feds remove those rights and see the reaction? If he’s not in favor of federal involvement in marriage, he should be the first to lead the charge to remove those rights from marriage and get out of the marriage business altogether. They can’t have it both ways. It really pisses me off at the double standard and the bare-faced lies they push on us to justify not having same sex marriage at the federal level. Why is it nobody is going after them on this issue?
Chitown Kev
@alinosof:
Uh, the guy who left office 9 years ago also signed and campaigned on anti-gay legislation and, as recently as this year, has blamed our community for his signing of that legislation. Granted he had to deal with a Republican Congress (though not with DADT, that was Sam Nunn’s shit), that anti-gay legislation serves as legal obstacles in the current President’s path.
I am not saying let Obama off of the hook, very far from. But we should consider where the deck of cards that Obama has to play with came from. And it starts with “Double Down” Bill Clinton.
Chitown Kev
@The Gay Numbers:
Yep.
Naghanenu
Hi everyone.. new girl here.
I kinda agree with everyone here.. Bill Clinton is doing too little too late…
Tres political…dont you think??? I mean Americans are known to latch themselves to things they dont believe in if it will earn them free press and votes. Dont be fooled by this.
You will be surprised how many people do not support gays deep down in their hearts…i mean hello Prop 8 in California.
Im not buying this Bill
BradK
I call Billshit.
This douchebag is the poster boy for pathological liars. Anything he does or says is for his own benefit one way or another — and often at someone else’s expense.
Just one more pathetic attempt to salvage his “legacy”.
taco
You all sound so bitter and hateful. He’s offering support and friendship, and is the most powerful democrat to come out in support of gay marriage. When somebody does or says something nice, the proper response should be something constructive, not snippy and bitchy.
Peter
Taco ;;;; I agree with you 100%..
tinkerbell
The difference between Democrats and Christiano-Republicanists is that one hates us to our face and the other hates us to our backs. I shake my head at those of us who think a political party in this country will do anything but shit on us. Come on now, the Republican/Christianists and the Democrats have had the mantle of power since 1791 and are we gays any more equal now than we have ever been (at least legally, ergo. politically?)?
In this country, religion=politics. Might=right.
fuzzypony
Equivocate much, Bill? I still don’t know what the hell he’s really for or against. “I’m for gay marriage, at the federal level, except not, but at the state level, but only if the state agrees, which it should, except when it won’t, but I can’t just come out and say what the hell I mean directly.” Way to hedge your Democratic bets, man.
I guess the reason people become politicians is because they can talk for hours and still say absolutely nothing of value while making us think they’re on our side.
jason
Tinkerbell,
What you say is so true. At least conservatives have the courage to state their true opinion to our faces. Liberals, on the other hand, lie to us.
jwalker666
@J. Clarence: I agree with you 100%. Back when that was signed, it was the best option of only bad options he had. Congress was mostly republicans and if he had not signed that, they would have tried to pass a constitutional amendment banning it outright. Also, Clinton was in office in the 90’s, when not alot of politicians would support gays…I think he did what he could given the situation. And I believe that in time, Obama will do the same, hopefully before the 2010 elections. Everyone whines and cries that he is not doing anything for gay rights, but I’m sorry, the economy, healthcare and getting us out of the war should be his top priority. I was at first pissed that he wasnt doing anything about DOMA but I at least understand it. Same with Clinton, when I found out he signed that into law, my opionion of him changed, but then when I found out the reasons for him signing it I understood why he did it.
xinunus
HILLARY CLINTON QUOTE (4/29/2003 Connecticut Fundraiser):
“I’m sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you’re NOT PATRIOTIC. We need to STAND UP and say we’re Americans, and we have the RIGHT TO DEBATE and DISAGREE with ANY administration.”
Bill Perdue
To actually have the gall to defend Bill Clinton and treat him as anything but a hardened enemy of the GLBT communities is not just historically ignorant, it’s disloyalty to our communities.
Clinton didn’t have to cave in to military and civilian bigots like Nunn and Powell but he did and there are no excuses for it. DADT was passed by the overwhelmingly Democrat 103rd Congress 77-12 in the Senate and 268-162 in the house and, at the time, arguably the most bigoted law passed by Congress. Yet many of the Democrats who voted for it claimed that it was pro-GLBT and some Republicans voted against it saying it wasn’t bigoted enough!?
DADT held the “most bigoted” title until 1996, when Bill Clinton was up for reelection and in trouble with working people because of his total support for NAFTA, the union busting environmental disaster bill. To compensate he championed DOMA to appeal to the bigot vote. Later he and his shills lied and said it was to head off the FMA – the Federal Marriage Amendment, but that’s pure bullshit. The FMA amendment was not on the table when Clinton signed DOMA in 1996. What was on the table was Clintons fear that he’d lose the election with out bigot votes. (The Federal Marriage Amendment was not introduced in the House of Representatives until 2002, six years later, by another Democrat, Ronnie Shows of Mississippi.)
After championing DOMA he signed it into law within 24 hours and soon this ad began airing on cracker religious radio stations:
By now you may be thinking that Clinton was through screwing us and working people but Nooo! He got worse. A lot worse.
He championed and signed the Republican written bill to deregulate banks and financial institutions which created the Great Recession which may become the Great Depression2. He and the huge, bipartisan majority of Democrats and Republicans who voted for deregulation in 1999 are solely are responsible for 15 million working people losing their jobs and for loosing the looter rich and predatory lenders on us. Then Clinton declared an embargo on the sale of medical and sanitary supplies and food that resulted in the deaths of about half a million Iraqi children and babies.
Clinton and Bush are without question two of the worst presidents in US history. And our problem is that Obama’s a Clinton Clone.
InExile
@Bill Perdue: Say what you want about Bill at least he tried to do right by the gays, unlike the one we have now who doesn’t bother trying.
edgyguy1426
@taco: What support and friendship? He just stating his own personal opinion which has now ‘evolved.’ Support and Friendship would mean he would actively appear and campaign on our behalf.
and@InExile: I know you’re the resident Clinton apologist (again,so sorry about Hillary) but saying at least (Bill) tried to do right by the gays, is like saying at least Bush tried to do right by this country.
WillBFair
I like the way the victim complex crowd trash our freinds using the crudest rhetorical tricks.
Adoring the Clintons doesn’t make me disloyal to my community. If your going to do name calling, expect us to do the same.
Blaming the Clintons for everything without refering to what polls where saying at the time is a little something we call misplaced emphasis.
DADT was the best compromise that could be made. Calling it bigotted ten times, or even three hundred times, doesn’t make it so. Repetition is probably the crudest tactic in the demagogue’s play book.
The Clintons backed off gay rights in order to push for healthcare. It was a political calculation that I agreed with. I know it’s hard for the selfish to understand, but in my world, healthcare for all Amercians is a tad more important than giving a five star general the right to do the triple snap.
hephaestion
He needs to drop the legalese crappola and talk from the heart to his fellow heteros, asking them “How has Ellen DeGeneres marrying Portia de Rossi hurt your fucking marriage, dumbfuck?” He needs to tell them they are either FOR justice or against it. And quit yapping about whether things need to be decided by states or churches.
Bill Perdue
@WillBFair: Anyone demented enough to adore the Clintons and defend them from charges of bigotry without offering a tiny bit of proof is going on faith. Adoring is not political, it’s religious. Religion is ignorance and backwardness.
Give us some facts, not your opinion of how many bigots can dance on the head of a pen. Defend his ads on DOMA. Defend his championing of anti-union, auto-worker, disasters like NAFTA and deregulation. I don’t care what the polls showed, principle is principle. Clinton became a bigot when he caved on DADT. The only poll that counts is the one that asks LGBT service members if they like DADT or not. Clinton confirmed his bigotry beyond the shred of a doubt when he went all out to get DOMA passed.
Where is the evidence that the Clintons put healthcare before the fight agianst bigotry. Hillary’s health care plan was written by insurance companies and a total sellout, just like Obama’s. They screwed working people with a fake healthcare package, NAFTA and deregulation and they screwed GLBT folks with DADT and DOMA. And the truth is that’s why you adore them.
For someone who glories in defending Papenfuehrer’s Ratzingers call for abstinence I’d think you’d be used to being described as being on the other side of the line. In the debate on Papal sponsored abstinence you said “… in ’81 when AIDS began and the community turned a blind ear when we begged them get responsible. Now 18 years later, We’re still waiting for peer group pressure to kick in.” Dobson, Ratzinger, Robertson all blame us for HIV/AIDS. So do you.
You blame us for HIV/AIDS and you adore Clinton and Papenfuehrer Ratzinger [img]http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:80sLaEeqfUPDyM:http://rookery2.viary.com/storagev12/719000/719016_ec1f_625x1000.jpg [/img]
and we’re for
[img]undefihttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4hfeiYr3Zq4/SZkWjOE2xkI/AAAAAAAAFDA/2ybUqmLYhTM/s400/1.jpgned[/img]
and that’s why I’d continue to describe you as some who’s on the other side.
Robert, NYC
@hephaestion:
Clinton, like Obama are in lockstep when it comes to the federal government not getting involved with marriage. The fact of the matter is, it most certainly gets involved every time a straight couple marries. If its not, why don’t Clinton and Obama explain why straight married couples receive more than one thousand federal benefits after they’ve married? How is that not involvement? It doesn’t get any clearer than that and we should be demanding why it is, while thousands of gay marriage couples are denied the same rights. I’d like to ask Obama why he’s for civil unions at the “federal” level but not for federally recognized same-sex marriage? That alone tells you there’s a bigoted double standard and proof positive that the feds get involved directly with marriage.
WillBFair
@Bill;
You’re arguments are tired.
First, it’s old hat to call people disloyal when they step outside the victim complex crowd. Twenty five years ago they called us anti gay. Please. They should be called Auntie Gay for trying to stop us from being honest with each other.
Second, I never supported the Rat or called for abstinence, and I don’t appreciate people lying about me. Once we knew the tranmission method, the available strategies were obvious: monogamy with condoms until trust is made, serial monogamy with condoms, free love with condoms, positive people being only with each other, negative people being only with each other, all relationships being guided by caring and honesty, and everyone throwing attitude at people who misbehave. But the victim crowd didn’t want to hear any of that and threw slime at anyone who spoke out of turn.
Third, adoring someone has nothing to do with religion. I adore craftsman bungaloes and walking in the park with friends. I don’t want to worship them. Get a vocabulary please.
Fourth, you have some wild ideas about politicians. You think they follow principle. What a laugh. Here’s a dose of reality. Politicians have to follow public opinion and bend to various power blocks, a major one of which is corporate power. Those who don’t never make it into the news. The good ones are able to dodge and weave and move policy slowly in the liberal direction, although never fast enough for those living in a dream world.
Fifth, cherry picking the Clintons’ failures to make them look like trash is an old tactic of the far left and doesn’t merit much comment. The Clintons unequaled record and statistics speak loud and clear. But one point could be made. The push for military rights was the first attempt to help us there. And the Clintons made it. It was derailed because the times weren’t right, which is easy to see from the polls and the military’s vicious response. The firings that happened later were also push back by homophobes in the military. It’s an interesting talent you have of blaming our freinds for everything that goes wrong regardless of the facts.
Maturity means being practical and realistic, and looking even at the bad without being overwhelmed by emotion. If you want to live in a dream world where politicians are either saints or leather pigs following orders in full harness, go to it. And if can’t allow our freinds to have weaknesses without throwing a tantrum, fine. But educated adults are not going to stay quiet forever. The victim crowd yelled us down in the 80s. That was then. This is now.
Finally, I really am sorry for the combative tone of this. If I could offer a suggestion, it’s important to understand the difference between logic and rhetoric, and how each one works. There are books on these. My faves are by Plato and Aristotle.
WillBFair
Actually, I take it back. I did call for abstinence for a year or two before we knew the transmission method.
alicia banks
i am bored with frenemies like bubba and obama!
we need them wny?????…..
marriage is a civil right!
and civil rights are like pregnancies
no one can be a little pregnant/ONLY “federally” pregnant etc!
shame!!!!
alicia banks
OUTLOOK
Bill Perdue
@WillBFair: It seems by you own admission that GLBT activists and other leftists have been denouncing you for about 30 years. Can’t you take a hint?
Please don’t pretend to be upset by your combative tone. By your own admission you’ve been blaming gay victims of HIV/AIDS for spreading the plague since the 1980’s. You should have blamed the real villains not the victims. But you ignore the role of the bigotry of the cults, Reagan, the Bushes, Clinton and the greed of pharmaceutical industrial complex in allowing the plague to advance.
Your crackpot ‘practicalty’ defense of right wingers like Clinton is really just a reiteration of realpolitik. You support bigots in the cults and politics based on the truism that in a non-democracy like the US, bigotry and pandering to it pay off. But not for us. It puts us under the bus and you’re one of the few commenters’ here who likes that. It’s shameful.
You refused to even attempt to prove that Bill Clinton and the Democrats and Republicans as a whole are not bigots and panderers. Which is smart, you know you’d lose.
You refused to comment on Clintons deregulation and NAFTA that left 15 million (and counting) or his policy of mass murder of Iraqi children. Again that shows that you’re afraid of the consequences of defending Clinton.
You don’t deny that Bill Clintons embargo killed more Iraqi children than the combined causalities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima but how could you when his own Secretary of State admits it. Leslie Stahl, on CBS’s 60 Minutes telecast of May 12, 1996 asked Albright whether half a million Iraqi children’s’ deaths are worth it, to which Secretary of State Albright said “We think the price is worth it.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbIX1CP9qr4
Which brings us back to our starting point. People like you who blame gays for HIV/AIDS, who admire DOMA and DADT and who ‘adore’ politicians who order the genocidal murder of children and create economic chaos, exploding unemployment rates to Depression levels, are accessories to those policies. Bill Clinton will end up in the garbage can of history and so will everyone like you.
WillBFair
What hint would that be? To shut up and let the far left make bulls–t rationalizations for internalized homophobia?
Left activists viciously denounced not only me but anyone who raised a question in the eighties, including Larry Kramer and others. Like you, the far left blame the government and the church for aids. Right. The government made excuses while bare backers ran wild in our community. And like you, they didn’t seem to care that thousands of their own people were dying.
Of course we are victims, victims of the hatred thrown at us as children, and of the aids epidemic. We also make ourselves into victims with self destructive behaiviour. The community has never faced up to that. And people like you help them with diversions and distractions. It’s always about others, isn’t it? I must say, though, that after thirty years, you’ve got the rap down to a science.
I think you are horrible example for the community and possibly a paid troll sent here to keep them childishly blaming others. I stopped by to make a counter argument. I should have known, since no one else ever challenges you, that the community is still immature. It’s tired, and I’m out of here.
WillBFair
Also, the only way to deal with a bully is by everyone ganging up on him. Just a suggestion for the folks here. Ta.
Chitown Kev
“I call Billshit.”
Nice. I have to use this one.
BradK
@WillBFair: Couple ‘o things…
1.) What does the AIDS epidemic have to do with Slick Wille’s recent epiphany on Marriage Equality? Besides, I thought Reagan was single-handedly responsible for AIDS?
2.) So now Saint Bill is under attack from a “vast LEFT-wing conspiracy” as well as the on-going RIGHT-wing one? Jeebus, the poor thing just can’t catch a break.
I guess this is what happens when you play both ends against the middle for so long that you can’t figure out where you stand.
Bill Perdue
@WillBFair: Left activists viciously denounced not only me but anyone who raised a question in the eighties… And you haven’t figured it out to this day. Most in our communities, not just leftists, dislike lap dogs who eternally excuse bigots like the Clintons. People like you are hostile to the fight for GLBT equality. It’s a real fight and you’re not in the trenches with us. The simple minded and weak who run out to no man’s land to avoid the fight are likely to be victims of their own foolhardiness. You’re either for us or against us and whimpering about the unfairness of it all doesn’t cut it.
No sympathy.
I should have known, since no one else ever challenges you, that the community is still immature. Oh yeah, we’re all just a bunch of babies. We’re unfeeling louts eager to sacrifice the sacred reputations of bigoted hustlers and their lapdogs. How perfectly awful of us.
It’s tired, and I’m out of here. So don’t come back.
the only way to deal with a bully is by everyone ganging up on him. Oops, you came back. Bashing’s been tried – it doesn’t work. My politics are grounded in principles and ego bashing by right wing twits doesn’t really impress me much. I’ve seen it all with 45 years experience in the antiwar movement, building unions, fighting nukes and spending years helping people who were dying of the plague.
not as good as SOME people
I’m saddened that former President Bill Clinton sullied his ‘apology/change-of-heart by bringing faith into it.
“then if gay couples want to call their union marriage, and a state agrees, and several have now, and a religious body will sanction it, and I don’t think a state should be able to stop a religious body from saying it, I don’t think the rest of us should get in the way of it. I think it’s a good thing, not a bad thing.”
Why add the “and a religious body will sanction it”? It’s a gratuitous pander to the religionisti, and it’s quite irrelevant to civil marriages. You know, the kind people have in front of a Justice of the Peace (or a ship’s Captain, or a Judge, or a marriage commissioner, etc.). He, like many (too many) others conflates/confuses the religious rite of Holy Matrimony with the secular institution of civil marriage. No ‘god-talk’ is required in a civil marriage. If the ‘religious’ want to go have their union blessed, let them have at it. I did. So can they.
The ‘point’ made by, “and I don’t think a state should be able to stop a religious body from saying it” is moot. Religious bodies already ARE “saying it”, and HAVE been since Massachusetts legalized same-gender marriage in 2003. In fact, for a long time before that, though those weren’t legally recognized, sadly.
He should have said that the FEDERAL Government should be obligated to recognize perfectly legal same-gender marriages, not forbidden from doing so by the demonstrably UN-Constitutional DOMA. It is not the role of Congress to define marriage.