Bad idea:
Posted on 06/02/2009 10:46:45 AM PDT by Mozilla
A day after former Vice President Dick Cheney repeated his support for the idea of same-sex marriage, Republican party chairman Michael Steele publicly disagreed with him, suggesting that Cheney's position was influenced by his lesbian daughter.
"My personal view is that marriage is between a man and a woman," Steele said Tuesday on CNN's American Morning, "very much in line with what the president [Barack Obama] has said."
"…The vice president brings a very personal perspective to this issue," he also said. "I think his comments are an appropriate reflection of his family and his situation with his daughter."
At an appearance at the National Press Club Monday, Cheney reiterated his long-standing position that individuals should be able to choose the type of relationship they wish to enter into. Citing his own family's experience with the issue, he said the question of same-sex marriage was best left to the states, not the federal government.
"I think freedom means freedom for everyone," Cheney said Monday, when asked whether some form of legalized same-sex marriage is inevitable in the United States. "As many of you know," told the audience, "one of my daughters is gay – something that we've lived for a long time in our family. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish, any kind of arrangement they wish."
(Excerpt) Read more at politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com ...
LOLOLOLOL!
I KNEW someone would eventually make that accusation.
It only goes to prove my point that "RINO" is meaningless. It's nothing more than a conservative's generic epithet.
You dare not
I think we need some sort of offical RINO scale. Face it, practically no politician is a perfect Conservative. Reagan signed amnesty for illegals, was he a RINO?
Maybe we should start assigning RINO points for various wrong positions. (e.g., 20 points for pro-abortion, 15 points for pro-same sex marriage, 10 points for civil unions, 15 points for voting for TARP, 20 points for Porkulus, etc.)
He actually just avoided the question, since same sex couples already can enter into whatever “arrangement” they wish. The government just doesn’t grant them a marriage license.
If the majority of people in a state do not want homosexuality promoted publically by the state (public schools and other public institutions) to children then should they not have the right to make law saying such through their representation? And in contrast if the majority of a people in a state want to promote traditional marriage through conferring benefits on those who become married then shouldn’t they also have the right to make such law?
If not then why?
Also I am not arguing for mob rules at the national level. If the reality is that our right to representation is going to be taken away at the National level by the Supreme Court then I say we should amend the Constitution to correct the injustice caused by the Court. I do not favor handling it at a national level but I am aware that very well may be necessary.
I understand that your position is more libertarian in saying that the state should get out of the marriage business but there is one very serious flaw with that position and that is that the libertarian platform position of the “right to association” has been completely destroyed in this country. In other words we no longer have the right to hire who we choose or associate with whom we choose anymore without fear of a lawsuit. The only way to get that right back is through a new Constitutional amendment at the national level and there is no real movement to do that so the fight has to be to preserve our right to representation on these issues in a more conservative fashion then a libertarian one.
So in reality it is you who will get exactly the opposite of what you want by ending government involvement in marriage. The left-wing will continue to use the Courts to force everyone to associate themselves with homosexuality with threats of lawsuits of discrimination if not treated the way they think it should be.
I saw this as Steele finally saying something with which I could agree and it’s about time. I am disappointed in Chaney but I am sure this is his “empathy” for his daughter. It’s a good thing when empathy is taken out of politics.
Why did Steele have to bring Obama into this at all? If he wants to win points with conservatives, he needs to remove his lips from Zero's rear end.
As far as Cheney's statement goes, I never walked in his shoes. I know people who have. One family spent two years with some members not talking to others and another family made peace the best way they could...not an easy situation.
The government is not “declaring relationships”, the married couples are declaring their relationship. The government is simply recognizing it and recording it.
If a man and woman want to live just like a married couple and even have a religious ceremony, but not register that relationship with the government, they are free to do so. They just won’t enjoy certain advantages (and perhaps suffer certain disadvantages) of a marriage registered with the state.
Huh? One of the problems with Cheney is that he is very socially liberal - pro abortion, pro-gay marriage, etc. This doesn’t cancel out the good things about him, but it would certainly not make him somebody you can automatically agree with on all things. I think Steele was within his rights to say this.
What Cheney did while he was in office was simply not talk about these things, which is an acceptable approach.
Agreed, but we should all recognize the real reasons why “Cheney is that he is very socially liberal - pro abortion, pro-gay marriage, etc.”: His gay daughter.
Steele’s opinion re Cheney’s view is irrelevant. He should be addressing more crucial topics.
You got it right. Whether one agrees or not, that is the view of both men.
I hear that Cheney invited Steele to discuss their differences at Cheney’s hunting lodge....
Bad idea:
It means that Dick Cheney's daughter, Mary, is a lesbian who has lived with her lesbian lover for many years.
“It means that Dick Cheney’s daughter, Mary, is a lesbian who has lived with her lesbian lover for many years.”
OK. So should Dick demand that Mary give up shag for hard wood? And if so, where will that get him?
Don’t ask me I was just answering someone’s question.
You got that right. It's the Supreme Court that forces issues like the right to life and recognition of natural marriage, to be Federalized instead of left to us to deal with via our institutions of self-government.
Libertarians ought not to oppose social conservatives on this.
Example: From 1791 (the adoption of the Constitution) to 1973, state legislators consistently favored laws curbing abortion as a corrupt practice throughout the 19th century.
Because of the ascendency of Christian social conservatives? No, because of the ascendancy of scientific progress and human rights: the recognition that the developing child is human pre-partum, and that every human needs protection from lethal abuse.
It was an anti-scientific and anti-human-rights Supreme Court which struck down ALL the laws in ALL 50 states in 1973 (even the unprincipled, permissive laws in California and NY) in order to MAKE it a Federal issue.
Thus Roe vs Wade was a victory of an imperial judiciary over an electorate which did not then, and does not now, want their society deformed by abortion on demand.
Notice the same tendency in the so-called Gay Marriage movement. Statewide electoral majorities always vote it down (30 - 0 so far, I believe) but the gay activists’ main strategy is to get courts to impose it against the popular will.
Thus both abortion and gay marriage violate the core interests of principled libertarians: the restraining of judicial despots, and the right of the American people to govern themselves.
You are so right. The courts have done the same with pornography and the biggest of all: God in the schools.
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