Scooter, I appreciate your position on the mixing and matching of condiments (as well as equal opportunity and affirmative action), but here's what the 2006 State Texas Republican Platform has to say on the subject of gay marriage and civil unions:
We further call on Congress to pass and the state legislatures to ratify a marriage amendment declaring that marriage in the United States shall consist of and be recognized only as the union of a natural man and a natural woman. Neither the United States nor any state shall recognize or grant to any unmarried person the legal rights or status of a spouse. We oppose the recognition of and granting of benefits to people who represent themselves as domestic partners without being legally married.
Not only do Texas Republicans want to prevent gay people in Texas from getting married or even unioned, they demand that other states refuse to recognize civil unions. With this, they've ceded the right to claim to be the party defending states' rights.
The 2004 National Republican Party Platform puts it this way:
We further believe that legal recognition and the accompanying benefits afforded couples should be preserved for that unique and special union of one man and one woman which has historically been called marriage. [skip] Attempts to redefine marriage in a single state or city could have serious consequences throughout the country, and anything less than a Constitutional amendment, passed by the Congress and ratified by the states, is vulnerable to being overturned by activist judges. On a matter of such importance, the voice of the people must be heard. The Constitutional amendment process guarantees that the final decision will rest with the American people and their elected representatives.
So at the national level too, Republicans have ceded the right to claim to be the party defending states' rights.
It's probably the case that no one agrees with everything in the party platform of the party they favor, so I don't expect Scooter or Michael to defend the nonsense in these planks, either on the merits of gay marriage or on the states' rights hypocrisy. But maybe you could drop a line to your party leaders and let them know that's not where you're at, so that eventually your party finds its way to the righteous side of this issue and we can let the gay people get married in all of the states.
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Suppose Alabama had not ratified the 13th Amendment and had passed a state law to the opposite effect. Would opposing Alabama on this issue make us bad Rebublicans?
Good question. I don't know how you all go about deciding when you're for states' rights and when you're not. Our side, on the other hand, is pretty consistent that we don't want to leave to the states issues re discriminatory treatment of classes of people.
And we don't believe in "classes" of people. They're all the same to us.
Then let everyone marry whomever they want.
Then you're in favor of polyamory marriages. Hmmm.
no -- each person marries one person. No slippery slope.
Lots of action today when I’m buried. I’ll try to chime in soon.
You're discriminating against a class and you can't distinguish your position from mine. QED.
sigh. We've been through this before, and I think we concluded you made no sense -- something about horses and barn doors. How am I discriminating against a class? And how is my position the same as yours?
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