Gay Marriage

the conflation of murder and homosexual marriage.

That's YOUR problem with the so-called Christian Right, not THE problem.

Walter, for whatever it may be worth, i consider you to be just about the most courteous and civil individual i've met on-line.

Walter
You are, in my estimation, more courteous than the average attendee at a monster-truck rally.

Bush's strategy: Pander to prejudice

By Cynthia Tucker
Originally published February 2, 2004
ATLANTA - In Massachusetts, Karl Rove has unearthed a weapon of mass distraction-related program activity. You may recall that the state's Supreme Judicial Court issued a ruling in November legalizing gay marriage.
That ruling allowed Mr. Rove, President Bush's political handler, to change the subject. He didn't want to go into the presidential campaign talking about the issues that matter most in the life of the republic: the failure to find WMD in Iraq, the gargantuan (and growing) budget deficit, millions of lost jobs. Mr. Rove didn't want Mr. Bush to have to defend his decisions on the environment, his pandering to big business, his knee-jerk allegiance to the wealthy. On those issues, he is vulnerable.

So Mr. Rove badly needed a distraction - a surefire appeal to voters' baser instincts. And he found it with the Massachusetts ruling.

Now, Mr. Bush can run a campaign that whips up fear and hate, primal instincts that often overrun common sense. Gay marriage doesn't affect the household income of the average voter or his children's chances for getting into good colleges. It doesn't outsource jobs to India. And it doesn't contribute to the decline of heterosexual marriage. (We haven't needed any help with that.)

But it does stir the blood and cloud the judgment of many Americans, persuading them to vote for the candidate who pledges to protect them from it. At the very least, Mr. Bush believes his signal of support for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage will inspire conservative Christians, whose legendary organizational skills could give him the margin of victory in November.

(In case the president's gay bashing isn't enough, the word has gone out to state Republicans to foment homophobia in time for the presidential election. In Georgia, for example, Republican legislators are leading a push for a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, although there is already a state law enshrining that particular brand of intolerance.)

The White House's gay bashing strategy is a sign of its desperation. Mr. Bush had planned to campaign as the steadfast commander in chief, but he now finds that that approach invites suspicion - if not derision.

David Kay has not only confirmed that there were probably no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (only weapons of mass destruction-related program activities), but, adding insult to injury, he has also speculated that President Bill Clinton ended Saddam Hussein's weapons-building capacity with surgical strikes in 1998. Mr. Rove doesn't want to call attention to that.

Besides, Mr. Bush's emphasis on a continuing threat is counterintuitive. Although he peppered his State of the Union speech with references to "war" and "terror," the president and his advisers frequently tell us that the country is safer now that Mr. Hussein is in custody.

That leaves Mr. Rove with few tricks left. The mission to Mars hasn't been mentioned since Mr. Bush's early January announcement, perhaps because polls showed Americans had little enthusiasm for it.

While the president's immigration reform proposal did garner a brief mention in the State of the Union address, that plan is not polling well, either. Though the proposal - which calls for expanded guest worker visas - has real merit, Mr. Bush is unlikely to burn precious political capital getting it passed.

Steroids? Hardly a rallying cry.

The Massachusetts ruling came to Mr. Rove's rescue, allowing him to run a campaign that feeds on the nation's last broadly accepted prejudice. (And all the more so if Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry becomes the Democratic nominee.) It is a stunning second act for a president whose first campaign claimed he was a uniter, not a divider.

But the sad thing is, a vicious campaign that plays on prejudice and fear could boomerang Mr. Bush right back into the White House. That's why politicians take the low road; it often leads to high places.

I've rarely seen such forthright dishonesty as Scrat's remark. Unless i read that wrong, and it was a feeble attempt at ironic humor, Scart accuses Walter of being insulting. I've never seen, in this, or in any other thread, the least wiff of insult in anything Walter wrote.

May be, however, just one site on the internet has got it correctly. Then you are completely right.

What do you suggest: should I notify the publisher from the German Einstein Society to delete this from the publications?

And do you think, I should write to the publishers of Einstein's works to correct this?

So... are you honestly going to tell me that you don't think Walter's intention in writing the above was to make me look like a fool for a simple, honest mistake?

Kara

Sorry. By "things", I meant the sort of illogical consequences that stem from reliance on logical fallacies.

Scrat's fallacy here is 'appeal from authority', and so he ends up suggesting that we ought to accept, as a valid justification for denying rights and liberties, that some people are told, by their faith, that they ought to deny those rights and liberties. Because a faith notion exists that killing ought to be outlawed, therefore homosexuality can be too, simply because the faith says both things.

Let me know, here or by PM, if I've not explained this well enough...a common problem I have.

PD

Your link to the account of what happened in Texas contains an important point. There are people of faith who do NOT support such legislation outlawying gay marriage, nor other underlying notions of the biased sort.

So it isn't faith per se which ought to be pointed towards, but rather a species of it. That species which consciously or institutionally forwards this bigotry (six usages now, if you are counting, scrat).

Scrat wrote:

Quote:

That's YOUR problem with the so-called Christian Right, not THE problem.

What is your problem, Scrat, about this? What you say above is exactly what I said. Do you truly not understand what I said? I said that it's not that they are organized that is the problem. The problem from my point of view or my problem is that I don't want their agenda to be successful. I don't worry about organization for causes that I support. Silly boy! Of course I don't. And I don't deny that anyone has the right to organize. I try to expose the goals of this group because I consider their agenda to be destructive. If enough others agree with me, then it will be defeated, if not, it won't. It seems simple enough to me. Haven't we been over this before? I thought we understood each other.

Quote:

So... are you honestly going to tell me that you don't think Walter's intention in writing the above was to make me look like a fool for a simple, honest mistake?

I haven't seen any eveidence here that Walter, or anyone else for that matter, has to try. You tend to do quite well on your own.