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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
With same-sex marriage under fire again, Drudge and the Freepers declare Kerry-Edwards the homoerotic ticket. Plus: Will Michael "Muqtada al" Moore sink the Dems?
Jul 14, 2004 | This week's debate in the Senate whether to consider a Federal Marriage Amendment has thrust the same-sex marriage issue into the center of the presidential campaign once again. However, as Salon's War Room noted on Monday, for some on the political right it was John Edwards' hitting the campaign trail with John Kerry that thrust homosexuality back into the national discourse. Last week Internet gossipmonger Matt Drudge floated a "special report" apparently aimed at jump-starting the cultural-values debate.
"Hugs, kisses to the cheek, affectionate touching of the face, caressing of the back, grabbing of the arm, fingers to the neck, rubbing of the knees...
"John Kerry and John Edwards can't keep their hands off each other! In the past 48 hours, 'candidate handling' has become the top buzz on the trail. News photographers have been going wild with buddy photos of the two Johns.
"'I've been covering Washington and politics for 30 years. I can say I've never seen this much touching between two men, publicly,' e-mailed one wire photographer."
The denizens of the right-wing echo chamber Free Republic gleefully blogged up a storm, which included the posting of, well, several creatively enhanced images of the two Dems getting up close and personal. None of the Freepers, of course, posted comments using their real names, but they nonetheless had some incisive appraisals of Kerry-Edwards to share.
"Maybe its thier way to get the gay votes..."
"Obviously their courting a certain different rainbow coalition not a part of Jesse Jackson. Next thing you know they'll get married in MA then a honeymoon in Frisco."
"Gives a whole new meaning to 'being on the stump'!"
"Have you seen their wives? No wonder they're heavy petting each other."
"'Gays Gone Wild' for prez. Terraayzaa will get tired of watching the forplay and will take action."
"Aha! I suspected they were Russians. Is that a real picture or photoshopped?"
Commentary on the same-sex marriage issue over at right-wing flagship National Review hasn't done much to elevate the debate. Guest contributor Maggie Gallagher, the president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, contends that "when mothers and fathers don't get and stay married," America spirals into a frightening vortex of societal ills.
"Bad things happen to more kids more often: more poverty, welfare dependence, child abuse, sexual abuse, substance abuse, physical illness, infant mortality, accidental death, homicide, premature and promiscuous sexuality, early unwed pregnancy, suicide, juvenile delinquency, educational failure, conduct disorders and adult criminality. Children suffer and whole communities pay the cost in crime, social disorder and high taxes as government steps in to deal with the needs created when families fall apart."
Amid her "top five reasons to oppose same-sex marriage," Gallagher insists that same-sex marriage "sends a terrible message to the next generation" because it proves that "marriage is about adult desires for affirmation or benefits, not about the well-being of children." She also offers a helpful section, Frequently Asked Questions, which explains that homosexual couples could never be "ideal," are foremost interested in wanton behavior, and have been abetted by a misguided American judiciary:
"Are you saying gays can't be good parents?
Two men might each be a good father, but neither can be a mom. Children are hungry for the love and attention of both their parents -- their mom and their dad. Marriage is about giving children the ideal, and no same-sex couple can provide that.
"Why do you want to interfere with love?
Love is not an excuse for adults to do whatever they want and assume the kids will adjust...
"Why are you blaming gays and lesbians for the problems of heterosexuals?
Judges are the ones rewriting our marriage laws. People who really cared about marriage and the suffering of fatherless children would not rewrite our marriage law to say that kids don't need fathers, and that alternative family forms are just as good as a husband and wife raising children together. That's the message of same-sex marriage. It's not kind or compassionate to children at all."
Gallagher might be heartened by the efforts of the Presidential Prayer Team, a private organization devoted to "serving the prayer needs of all current and future leaders of our great nation." The group appealed to its constituents last week in hopes of alleviating a lack of qualified judges.
"Pray for godly judges to be appointed and confirmed across America. Many district appointees nominated by the President have had their appointments blocked. Pray that those whom God desires to serve in these vital judicial seats will be affirmed for service to our nation."
John Edwards on trial
While Drudge and his ilk may think that tagging Edwards as Kerry's new boy-toy is a sound political strategy, syndicated columnist Mark Steyn warns in the London Daily Telegraph that the GOP should reconsider the idea of ripping into Edwards for his legal background.
"If the Bush campaign is figuring on tarring Edwards as a fancypants trial lawyer, they should rethink. He spent much of his life defending kids against corporations, and, whatever the fine print, the basic outline of that terrain is not favourable to Republicans.
"For another, his own son died in a car accident at the age of 16 -- the one stark tragedy in Edwards's effortless career rise and happy home life with his college sweetheart. Today, John and Elizabeth Edwards have three children -- a daughter at college, and two youngsters born since the death of their first son. What the Republicans see as a shyster the media will paint as a champion of defenceless children driven by a heart-rending twist of fate."
Instead, Steyn goes after Edwards for his "Two Americas" stump speech, which he dubs "Dickensian gloom" that has nothing to do with today's fast-food nation.
"It is standard on the Left now to insist that Bush's 'war' is a fiction cooked up by Dick Cheney to enrich his pals. But Edwards's two Americas are the real fantasy. Take that 10-year old girl, hungry and coatless. In America, poverty doesn't mean hunger, it means fat -- it's harassed moms shovelling 99-cent cheeseburgers into their kids because it's cheap and quick. Nor does poverty mean coatlessness.
"Edwards's shivering 10-year-old can get a brand-new quilted winter coat for $9.99 at JC Penney, or secondhand for three bucks at my local thrift shop -- at least until Edwards and Kerry crack down on the cheap textile imports they've been attacking these past two years. There may be two Americas, but Edwards's America doesn't exist anywhere from Maine to Hawaii. Even as a lurid Victorian melodrama designed to frighten prosperous soccer moms into voting against hard-hearted Republicans, it sounds ridiculous."
