Posted on 08/07/2004 12:42:43 PM PDT by wagglebee
Last February, during the New Hampshire Primary, during a news conference at St. Paul's School, Concord, I was able to ask Democratic presidential candidate and Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich:
"Do you support giving legal marriage to all sexual orientations?
"Yes," he replied – to five of us who were reporters. But none of the other four reported this undeniable news.
Now that the U.S. Senate has just voted down the marriage amendment – with both of Maryland's senators, Barbara Mikulski (who is currently running for re-election) and Paul Sarbanes voting against this protection of traditional marriage of one man and one woman – there is further news of the bizarre world these two have helped to open. I was first alerted to this on July 21, the same day that the Democratic National Convention announced that Vermont's former Gov. Howard Dean would be a principal speaker in Boston. National Review on-line headlined its report: HOWARD DEAN'S INCEST VOTE.
"Howard Dean – for all intents and purposes — excited the Democratic primaries with his famous scream. But it would have been the voters who'd screamed had they known about a vote buried in Dean's lefty Vermont past — in favor of incest. Yes, in favor of incest.
"The Kerry campaign is even now considering what prominence to give Dean at next week's convention. Dean, of course, has an intense following among the Democratic base, but he runs counter to the careful image of political and social moderation Kerry is attempting to project with all his might. How counter? Consider his incest vote.
"In 1983, a Vermont legislator named Elizabeth Edwards introduced a bill to allow a 65-year-old woman to marry her 86-year-old maternal uncle, despite incest laws banning the match. Edwards, a Republican (only in Vermont, kids!), figured that incest laws were primarily about preventing defective offspring, and her neighbors Ramona Crane and Harold Forbes were too old to bear children. 'They're a super-neat couple who don't have any money, and they just have each other, and I think they should be able to get married if they want to,' Edwards told United Press International for a Feb. 23, 1983, story.
"The bill passed the state House 73-67 with Howard Dean, who was elected to the legislature in 1982, voting for the exemption from the incest laws. The bill went on to the Senate, where it met a firm rebuke. A Senate committee voted 5-0 not to take up the measure. The committee's chairman, Republican Allen Avery, explained, 'It's setting a bad precedent. Once you do it for the Forbeses, you have to do it for others. There certainly is not any support among members of the Senate to deal with it.'
"In short, Dean was on the left-most fringe of this question even in liberal Vermont.
"The couple in question went to Canada to get married by a Universalist minister, but Canadian officials – even they were more conservative than Dean – quickly explained that their laws also prevented the union. 'If it isn't legal anywhere, what good is it?' Ramona complained.
"Well, it would have been legal in Vermont had Howard Dean gotten his way. That's just one data point the Kerry campaign will doubtless want to consider in its calculations about what role to give the controversial former Democratic governor next week."
In Montpelier, Vermont's capital city, I was able to reach former legislator Elizabeth Edwards, who is now Elizabeth McLain, secretary of the state Department of Natural Resources under Republican Gov. James Douglas.
Secretary McLain verified the UPI report, and she commented: "In Vermont we tend to know our neighbors. They've both died. But she had produced an obstetrician's certificate that she was not able conceive or bear children. And they were my neighbors and wanted so much to get married."
Secretary McLain was so thoroughly courteous and affable – and mentioned that both she and her secretary were listeners to my daily commentaries on WVMT in Burlington – that I failed to ask what if her now-deceased neighbors had been sisters who wanted to get married. Or what if they had been polygamists?
At the Howard Dean headquarters, now entitled "Democracy for America," Dean press secretary Laura Gross said she was not aware of the reported Dean incest vote, but would inquire and get back to me – which she did not do.
In Fairlee, Vt., former Sen. Avery was not available for comment.
Now Kerry, that's something else. I suspect he doesn't really like marriage at all except for the money.
Dean says: Vermont's winter's are cold and incest is a fun game the whole family can enjoy!
Maybe Howard's got a hot cousin?
You mean an aging hippy with hairy armpits and a tie-dye t-shirt.
Which one?
Ben or Jerry?
Dean Motto: "A family that sleeps together keeps together".
If the first Presidential Primary was in West Virginia instead of Iowa Howard Dean would be the Democratic Nominee!
Extreme accusations & rhetoric like this diminish real political debate over real political issues.
Dean is a non-issue at this point... he's not going to be on the ballot.
Incest?
(Raises eyebrow. Gets up from desk. Rolls up shirt-sleeves. Pumps fist into air. Gets "crazy eyes.")
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't have to go check with Dean to know he doesn't favor incest."
He doesn't? When is he going to sue National Review and WND for libel?
July 21, 2004, 8:28 a.m.
Howard Dean’s Incest Vote
A blast from the probable Democratic convention speaker’s past.
By NRO Staff
http://www.nationalreview.com/nr_comment/staff200407210828.asp
Howard Dean — for all intents and purposes — exited the Democratic primaries with his famous scream. But it would have been the voters who'd screamed had they known about a vote buried in Dean's lefty Vermont past — in favor of incest. Yes, in favor of incest.
The Kerry campaign is even now considering what prominence to give Dean at next week's convention. Dean, of course, has an intense following among the Democratic base, but he runs counter to the careful image of political and social moderation Kerry is attempting to project with all his might. How counter? Consider his incest vote.
In 1983, a Vermont legislator named Elizabeth Edwards introduced a bill to allow a 65-year-old woman to marry her 86-year-old maternal uncle, despite incest laws banning the match. Edwards, a Republican (only in Vermont, kids!), figured that incest laws were primarily about preventing defective offspring, and her neighbors Ramona Crane and Harold Forbes were too old to bear children. "They're a super-neat couple who don't have any money, and they just have each other, and I think they should be able to get married if they want to," Edwards told United Press International for a February 23, 1983, story.
The bill passed the state House 73-67 with Howard Dean, who was elected to the legislature in 1982, voting for the exemption from the incest laws.
I've finally found a way to weave together one of the Twentieth-century's greatest novelists and my patented mockery of Howard "I Have A Scream" Dean.
Post #11.
Check it!
No ellipses this time...I swear.
Okay, maybe a couple.
Half-hearted chortle :-).
I'll take what I can get.
By the way, what's with that tag-line of yours?
Do I even want to know what it means, or is it best left unsaid?
I heard someone say that in the produce department at the grocery store last week, and decided it was a really deep thought. It made me wonder, "Are other ordinary-looking people all around me also really weird?" But maybe people are thinking the same way about me, "Could this frumpy fundamentalist female have a secret identity as a right-wing internet wacko?"
If my Internet identity is ever revealed...why...I'LL BE RUINED!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!
Perish the thought.
Dude. Don't be so paranoid.
Get up.
Walk around.
Go to the front window.
See me? Hi! I'll not tell a SOUL where you live, OK?
Alright, I guess I can trust you. Hey! What's that wire sticking out of the window over there? I don't trust it.
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