Connect with us

What The Right Wing Is Saying About Iowa’s Gay Marriage Decision

Published

on

Huckabee, Steele, Limbaugh, Romney, Others Share Their Thoughts

 

There was a mix of palpable joy and sorrow throughout the country Friday. The news came at 9:30 that morning, that the Iowa Supreme Court had determined that a ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional, then, sadly, one hour later, a gunman, had entered a public building in a small New York town and, we would ultimately learn, shot dead thirteen people.

About 4:00 PM, via Twitter, I saw a comment from  Mike Huckabee amidst CNN and MSNBC’s non-stop coverage of the massacre in Binghamton. Here it is:

huckabee

Yes, that’s right: “must fight to preserve family and amend the Constitution of the United States to define marriage as one man and one woman. #tcot, #iowa” At 4:00 PM, EDT, just as the nation was learning the full magnitude of the terrible shooting in that sleepy little town in upstate New York, (that I have visited many times,) Mike Huckabee, former Republican governor and presidential candidate and practicing minister, now a radio and TV personality, was more concerned about the Supreme Court of Iowa’s decision about gay marriage than about the families and neighbors of those poor thirteen people, some of whom were murdered while studying to take their citizenship test. Way to go, Mike! Glad you’re practicing your faith.

So, I thought I’d take a look around to see what other Conservatives were saying about the Iowa gay marriage decision. Ready or not, here we go:

Michael Steele, the “leader” of the Republican Party:

“The Iowa Supreme Court’s decision today to reverse an 11 year old state law outlawing same-sex marriage is sadly another example of judicial activism currently threatening family values in America.  While I respect an individual’s right to live his or her life as they see fit, decisions like this are better left in the hands of legislators and governors.

I firmly believe that marriage should be between one man and one woman.  A state’s autonomous nature allows it to change its laws as the citizenry sees fit, but it should be done by the people, not through judicial decree.”

Rush Limbaugh: the other “leader” of the Republican party.

“For how many years were they talking about gay marriage?  How many years were they talking about demonizing the SUV?  That started in 1995.  Here it is 14 years later, and they’re on the verge of doing it. Liberals don’t stop. It’s like the Soviets.  They didn’t have four-year plans based on the service of term of their leader.  They had forever plans, and if you had to take a year off, maybe a step back before you took two steps forward, then fine.  But they had the objective, it was there, and whenever it got done was fine, as long as you’re always working for it.  Same thing with Hugo Chavez.  Hugo Chavez is taking over the banks now.  Hugo Chavez is nationalizing the oil industry.  Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, we’re getting, you know, an early sign of what Chavez did by watching things happen here.  But they don’t stop.

This is why an electoral majority needs to happen in order to defeat these people, and even after they’re defeated, they try to go around it in other ways, getting judges, like unanimous decision in Iowa today, with the Supreme Court, unanimous, that a ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional.  Now, I guarantee you, if we could go dig up James Madison and say, “Mr. Madison, did you intend for the Constitution to say people of the same sex could get married?”  And I guarantee you he would have the reaction, “What are you talking about?  Are you sure you’re asking me about the Constitution?”  But then the four judges, whatever the number, they’re unanimous in the Iowa Supreme Court, have just said what they think the Constitution says.”

Mitt Romney, the man who wants to be the leader of the Republican party:

“The ruling in Iowa today is another example of an activist court and unelected judges trying to redefine marriage and disregard the will of the people as expressed through Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act. This once again highlights the need for a Federal Marriage Amendment to protect the traditional definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.” (Of course, Mitt’s a bit older now, so he hasn’t gotten around to prosteletyzing about this version of Iowa gay marriage. The quote is from 2007.)

Ed Whelan, National Review Online:

‘The lawless judicial attack on traditional marriage and on representative government continues…The judicial knaves who proudly regard themselves as trailblazers in carrying out this latest assault on the powers of citizens are Iowa chief justice…”

Western Iowa Representative Steve King, warned Iowa could turn into “the gay marriage Mecca”, stated:

“This is an unconstitutional ruling and another example of activist judges molding the Constitution to achieve their personal political ends. Iowa law says that marriage is between one man and one woman. If judges believe the Iowa legislature should grant same sex marriage, they should resign from their positions and run for office, not legislate from the bench.

Now it is the Iowa legislature’s responsibility to pass the Marriage Amendment to the Iowa Constitution, clarifying that marriage is between one man and one woman, to give the power that the Supreme Court has arrogated to itself back to the people of Iowa. Along with a constitutional amendment, the legislature must also enact marriage license residency requirements so that Iowa does not become the gay marriage Mecca due to the Supreme Court’s latest experiment in social engineering.”

Rod Dreher, BeliefNet:

“This morning, I had breakfast with some guys, including a lawyer. We weren’t aware of this decision, but we talked about this issue. The lawyer said that as soon as homosexuality receives constitutionally protected status equivalent to race, then “it will be very hard to be a public Christian.” By which he meant to voice support, no matter how muted, for traditional Christian teaching on homosexuality and marriage. To do so would be to set yourself up for hostile work environment challenges, including dismissal from your job, and generally all the legal sanctions that now apply to people who openly express racist views.”

But I saved the best for last. Andrew Sullivan, conservative author, editor, blogger…

“Once you have accepted sexual orientation as a fixed and profound part of someone’s identity, and once civil marriage is not restricted to those with children, it is simply very, very hard to find a secular argument for denying critical civil rights under constitutions that guarantee formal equality. You can reach for Biblical injunctions, or try the logic of unintended consequences, or in the end invoke pure prejudice in a Burkean fashion. But even Burke understood that societies change and grow, social beliefs shift, our understanding of humanity deepens, and an intelligent conservatism adjusts.

That’s why, I think, so many conservative jurists have been forced by logic to adopt this position – from the early decisions in Hawaii and Alaska, through the numerous Republican-appointed judges who find it hard to reflect pure prejudice in rational legal judgment. Yes, fear can overwhelm logic and justice. But remove fear – and the case is overwhelming.”

If it’s true, “As Iowa goes, so goes the nation”, let’s hope we can also say, “As Andrew Sullivan goes, so go conservatives.” We can always hope.

(photo: kyeung808)

Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

OPINION

President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

Published

1 hour ago

on

April 26, 2024

By

President Joe Biden gave an nearly-unannounced, last-minute, live exclusive interview Friday morning to Howard Stern, the SiriusXM radio host who for decades, from the mid-1990s to about 2015, was a top Trump friend, fan, and aficionado. But the impetus behind the President’s move appears to be a rare and unsigned statement from the The New York Times Company, defending the “paper of record” after months of anger from the public over what some say is its biased negative coverage of the Biden presidency and, especially, a Thursday report by Politico claiming Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger is furious the President has refused to give the “Grey Lady” an in-person  interview.

“The Times’ desire for a sit-down interview with Biden by the newspaper’s White House team is no secret around the West Wing or within the D.C. bureau,” Politico reported. “Getting the president on the record with the paper of record is a top priority for publisher A.G. Sulzberger. So much so that last May, when Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the newspaper’s midtown headquarters for an off-the-record meeting with around 40 Times journalists, Sulzberger devoted several minutes to asking her why Biden was still refusing to grant the paper — or any major newspaper — an interview.”

“In Sulzberger’s view,” Politico explained, “only an interview with a paper like the Times can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency.”

But it was this statement that made Politico’s scoop go viral.

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“’All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day,’ one Times journalist said. ‘It’s A.G. He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.'”

Popular Information founder Judd Legum in March documented The New York Times’ (and other top papers’) obsession with Biden’s age after the Hur Report.

Thursday evening the Times put out a “scorching” statement, as Politico later reported, not on the newspaper’s website but on the company’s corporate website, not addressing the Politico piece directly but calling it “troubling” that President Biden “has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term.”

Media watchers and critics pushed back on the Times’ statement.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“NYT issues an unprecedented statement slamming Biden for ‘actively and effectively avoid[ing] questions from independent journalists during his term’ and claiming it’s their ‘independence’ that Biden dislikes, when it’s actually that they’re dying to trip him up,” wrote media critic Dan Froomkin, editor of Press Watch.

Froomkin also pointed to a 2017 report from Poynter, a top journalism site published by The Poynter Institute, that pointed out the poor job the Times did of interviewing then-President Trump.

Others, including former Biden Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon, debunked the Times’ claim President Biden hasn’t given interviews to independent journalists by pointing to Biden’s interviews with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and a 20-minute sit-down interview with veteran journalist John Harwood for ProPublica.

Former Chicago Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob, now a media critic who publishes Stop the Presses, offered a more colorful take of Biden’s decision to go on Howard Stern.

The Times itself just last month reported on a “wide-ranging interview” President Biden gave to The New Yorker.

Watch the video and read the social media posts above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

 

 

Continue Reading

News

CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial

Published

4 hours ago

on

April 26, 2024

By

Donald Trump’s Friday morning claim Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building is “heavily guarded” so his supporters cannot attend his trial was torched by a top CNN anchor. The ex-president, facing 34 felony charges in New York, had been urging his followers to show up and protest on the courthouse steps, but few have.

“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! Getting ready to do my Courthouse presser. Two minutes!” Trump wrote Friday morning on his Truth Social account.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins supplied a different view.

“Again, the courthouse is open the public. The park outside, where a handful of his supporters have gathered on trials days, is easily accessible,” she wrote minutes after his post.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

Trump has tried to rile up his followers to come out and make a strong showing.

On Monday Trump urged his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, while complaining that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”

On Wednesday Trump claimed, “The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present. If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”

After detailing several of his false claims about security measures prohibiting his followers from being able to show their support and protest, CNN published a fact-check on Wednesday:

“Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away ‘thousands of people’ from the courthouse during his trial; only a handful of Trump supporters have shown up to demonstrate near the building,” CNN reported.

“And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that ‘for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.’ In reality, the designated protest zone for the trial is at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and, in addition, people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.”

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

 

 

Continue Reading

News

‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

Published

20 hours ago

on

April 25, 2024

By

Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is responding to Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was a U.S. president, and she delivered a strong warning in response.

Trump’s attorney argued before the nation’s highest court that the ex-president could have ordered the assassination of a political rival and not face criminal prosecution unless he was first impeached by the House of Representatives and then convicted by the Senate.

But even then, Trump attorney John Sauer argued, if assassinating his political rival were done as an “official act,” he would be automatically immune from all prosecution.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, presenting the hypothetical, expressed, “there are some things that are so fundamentally evil that they have to be protected against.”

RELATED: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military, or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?” she asked.

“It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act,” Trump attorney Sauer quickly replied.

Sauer later claimed that if a president ordered the U.S. military to wage a coup, he could also be immune from prosecution, again, if it were an “official act.”

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and an expert on Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs, was quick to poke a large hole in that hypothetical.

“If the president suspends the Senate, you can’t prosecute him because it’s not an official act until the Senate impeaches …. Uh oh,” he declared.

RELATED: Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted the Trump team.

“The assassination of political rivals as an official act,” the New York Democrat wrote.

“Understand what the Trump team is arguing for here. Take it seriously and at face value,” she said, issuing a warning: “This is not a game.”

Marc Elias, who has been an attorney to top Democrats and the Democratic National Committee, remarked, “I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the U.S Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act.’ I am in despair that several Justices seemed to think this answer made perfect sense.”

CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, a former U.S. Ambassador and White House Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform under President Barack Obama, boiled it down: “Trump is seeking dictatorial powers.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘They Will Have Thugs?’: Lara Trump’s Claim RNC Will ‘Physically Handle the Ballots’ Stuns

 

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.