Goddamn conservative pundits.
Man do these people make me angry. Liberal ones do too, but not as often. Griping about politics is one of the main reasons I wanted to have this blog, in fact…I just need somewhere to vent. Unfortunately it’s ultimately pointless of me to do it here in a place read by about seven people, but screw it.
In this case I’m talking about a James Dobson article on cnn.com, Media provides cover for assault on traditional marriage. He’s bitching about the failed 49-48 vote to get a Constitutional amendment preserving marriage as guy + chick.
Rarely has there been a greater disconnect between members of the Senate and the American people who put them in power.
Too right, Dobson! Glad to see we agree on oh wait we don’t, do we. Of course he’s saying that the vast majority of Americans think there should be such an amendment, when a recent Gallup poll says that the number of people who think gay marriage is a top priority for lawmakers is statistically next door to zero.
He’s prepared for this, though. And by “prepared” I mean wave wave TACTICAL MISDIRECTION!
Let’s examine the claim that traditional marriage lacks support in the court of public opinion. As it always does when conservative issues are being debated, the liberal press produced a series of trumped-up polls indicating the issue was of no interest nationally. However, there was another “poll” that the media completely ignored. In fact, there were 19 of them. They represented the 19 states in which voters overwhelmingly defined marriage as being between a man and a woman.
Ahhh dig that. I’d sit back and appreciate the art there, if it didn’t fill me with anger. Dig how charged the second sentence is—you can almost hear the John Stossel giiiive-me-a-breaaaak inflections in it. But right there in the first sentence, right out the gate he diverges from the topic at hand. The poll doesn’t show that traditional marriage lacks support in public opinion, the poll shows that public opinion is that Congress has more important shit to be worrying about.
And yeah, Jim, the media completely ignored that. So ignored it that there weren’t ongoing vote counts, big headlines in the papers the day after, and I certainly have no idea what you’re talking about, because the media completely ignored it.
Indeed, on the day before 48 senators bailed on marriage, a 20th state voted on its own constitutional amendment. It was Alabama, which supported traditional marriage by 81 percent to 19 percent! …
CNN and the mainstream televised news networks uttered hardly a peep about the Alabama decision. Why was the issue buried? Because the “poll” in Alabama and 19 other states didn’t match the template put forward by those who wanted the amendment to be crushed. Their bias against the family is breathtaking.
How the fuck do you make the logic leap in that last sentence. Goddamn, whenever I hear people say “liberals want America to fall” or “the media hates the family” or “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” it makes me want to crush something.
And as for Congress being out of touch…a separate poll conducted over the weekend asked specifically whether there should be such an amendment. 45% were for, 54% were against. So on that point, Congress is hardly out of touch, the numbers came up pretty close. They part where they’re out of touch is why are they even wasting their time on this in the first place.
Incidentally, Dobson’s how-it-suits-him math here reminds me of this.
June 28th, 2006 14:28
Ahhh, yes. The logic here is unflappable. How many ways could we tear this idiot’s argument up? Let me count the ways…
Screw that, I’ll just say this one item here: I don’t know how much of a mandate you can take home from a state election in which a “gay marriage ban” is passed; back in November 2005 when we Texans proudly voted in our own state constitutional amendment, a whopping 17% of registered voters made it to the polls.
June 28th, 2006 17:46
Doesn’t the fact that only 17% of the Texan electorate cared enough to vote (a small margin even by American standards) indicate that most people don’t think this “issue” is important. And I don’t think the other 83% is composed mostly of stereotypical “secular humanist liberal progressive etc.” people.
But, even assuming that Dobson were right in his math, would that justify passing this amendment? The idea behind our complex government is that people can’t just make laws at will (or whim). The media aren’t exactly promoting an intelligent debate, but that plays into Dobson’s hands.
Evangelical Christian marriages aren’t perfect anyway, not even by Jesus’ standard. Assuming that institutionalized patriarchy (the “traditional Western” definition of marriage) is even correct in a Christian setting (not a given), it pretty clearly steps on the whole idea of “liberty and justice for all”. And on top of that, how much time does Dobson spend condemning adulterers, quite a few of whom are probably part of his flock? Jesus after all spends some time on adultery (though not in a Dobsonesque fashion), but the gospels are completely and utterly silent on anything like homosexuality.
Whew… incoherent rant. One a day keeps the doctor away…
June 28th, 2006 17:56
Yeah, there was a whole lot more I could say there, but I didn’t bother because it was long enough already. But yeah, one thing that really bugs me about this is that they shouldn’t be cluttering up the damn Constitution with this in the first place. I mean, make it a Federal law if you have to. I’d disagree with it, but at least you’re not messing with the Constitution.
My thing is more about the logic. I just so hate people using lousy logic like this, and then using it as proof that liberals hate America. (And I follow the bad logic on both sides, but it just seems to me that conservatives screw it up more often than liberals.)
June 28th, 2006 18:26
What I’d ask is “why is marriage something that sanctioned by the government in the first place?’ Seems to me it just a contractual arrangement between consenting adults, and you sholdn’t need a law one way or the other.
In regards to your “Federal law” point, Spinn, I have to strongly disagree. This is at least one point they got right for a change. There is nothing in the Constitution that grants the Federal Government dominion over marriage, so, by the 10th Amendment, it is left “to the states and the people respectively.” For the Feds to do anything, they HAVE to pass a constitutional amendment. Not that they pay that much attention to the 10th Amendment anymore, but it’s at least nice to see they got one thing about this right.
June 28th, 2006 19:55
ech, well. Yeah, oops, that’s showing my ignorance of the law structure, there.
I’ll have to consider this and come up with something snappier.
June 29th, 2006 08:19
Even assuming, arguendo, that the Feds have the power to pass a law like this (and I don’t doubt Congress could find a way to squeeze the justification in; they’ve done similar stuff before), the reality is that a statute defining marriage a particular way (thus denying some people the right) would immediately be challenged by one or more lawsuits on constitutionality, probably on 14th Amendment grounds (similar to what the MA Supreme Judicial Court did in their 2003 ruling on that commonwealth’s statute, though they obviously used the Massachusetts constitution, not the federal one).
That’s a lot of parentheticals for one lousy little comment.
June 29th, 2006 08:49
‘arguendo’
is this a hybrid of argument and innuendo? I like.
June 29th, 2006 09:07
On a guess, I’d say it’s Latin for something like “for the sake of argument”. (Craig’s a lawyer-type.)
June 29th, 2006 09:28
spinn’s got it right. Sorry, lapsed into geekery of the Latin/legal type.
Basically, it’s used to say “even if your contention of A is correct, you’re still a douchebag because of B. You douchebag.”
July 1st, 2006 06:50
Haha. Douchebag.
Yeah, anyway, I just thought I’d leave a comment to let you know that I’m reading this blog and waiting patiently for the site to come back up and running. Also, I’m probably just spouting useless garbage, but you’ve probably got more people reading this than you know.
And yeah, sorry for going off-topic.
September 15th, 2006 08:18
Array
November 1st, 2006 12:58
That is why polls are useless when discussing gay marriage. Poll responses do not necessarily translate into votes. The problem is that while most people generally do not have an unfavorable opinion of gay people, they also have no incentive to stand up for issues that primarily affect gay people.
It is imperative that activist and pro-gay proponents do not alienate the general public. Referring to straights as breeders and deriding their belief in God not only enrages the opponents of gay marriage but engenders lackluster support from possible allies.
When allies are belittled for supporting civil unions how much enthusiasm will they have to help defeat marriage amendments? They are put in a position of either supporting something they honestly don’t believe in, like gay marriage, or doing nothing.
In order to explain the wildly inaccurate exit polls during the last election, it has been argued that Republicans must have lied about who and what they voted for. Think about it for a minute. Why would Republicans need to lie? No, the harsh truth is that it was Democrats and progressives who lied because they were ashamed to admit they voted for Bush and for marriage amendments.
In short, it is less about convincing those who opoose gay marriage and more about convincing your friends.
November 2nd, 2006 09:47
Actually, I’d prefer to get rid of marriage altogether.
It would certain change the way people think about their partners.