By Dan Gonzales, www.modern.prosaic.nu
for Ex-Gay Watch
I was baffled by the Family News in Focus audio program (Windows Media, Real) even more than normal Aug. 26.
Rather than taking the moral high ground and criticizing Cheney’s remarks from a Jeffersonian (states rights) approach to gay marriage, the two guests quoted both dealt exclusively with Cheney’s “undermining and hurting the president.” Focus and the day’s guests also seemed unsure of how to react to Cheney’s statement, “freedom means freedom for everyone” and failed to formulate a rebuttal. Apparently we’re supposed to ignore this freedom statement and get all worked up that his greatest sin was not maintaining a consistent facade with Bush.
There was then a story on a custody case in Virginia and how it is being affected by the former couple’s now-dissolved Vermont civil union. One party involved, who Focus reports is now “ex-gay” (Washington Blade article) has ended the relationship and now wants sole custody of her biological child which was raised jointly by the couple. This obviously messy situation is only made messier by Virginia’s recently enacted oppressive legislation and Focus seems unsure of how to react here as well.
I couldn’t tell if the story was supposed to be about the evils of homosexuals, the evils of civil unions, or how states like Vermont are only “exporting marriage confusion.” Quote from the radio broadcast:
Victoria Cobb of The Family Foundation of Virginia calls for a sympathetic Christian perspective.
[Cobb:] It is cases like this that are the reason we passed in Virginia the marriage affirmation act, the sad part of this case is that a child is being used by the homosexual movement for their radical agenda.
Am I missing something here? I don’t see an ounce of sympathy in Cobb’s statement or for that matter anything the least bit constructive.
I can’t quite put my finger on either story but something just seemed “off” about Bob Ditmer and his guests’ rhetoric today.
–Dan Gonzales
Addendum, Aug. 31: In retaliation against Cheney, the New York Times reports that President Bush’s campaign staff worked with FRC and other religious-right leaders to toughen the GOP platform’s repudiation of gay civil unions.
At a news conference yesterday, Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a group of social conservatives, said that the push to strengthen the platform’s opposition to same-sex civil unions was partly a response to Vice President Dick Cheney’s statement last week that he personally favored leaving the issue up to the states.
“We are obviously troubled by the vice president’s comments last week, which in ways led to the strengthening of the language in the platform,’ Mr. Perkins said.
You shouldn’t expect to hear logic out of Focus. Their agenda is to send gay’s back to the closet by any means possible. If a few children get hurt in the process, that’s just the collateral damage of their culture war. The ends justifies any means.
What is off about the religious right’s rhetoric is that they are based on hatred not on Godly love or “family values”. They view gay issues not as family relationships, but from their own religious fundamentalism. Anti-gay laws just don’t look family friendly when used to separate a mother and daughter or when enforced by the VP against his own daughter.
Here is an excerpt from the vice president’s web site of comments he actually made. I’m not sure is these are the exact comments the uproar is over.
Q We have a battle here on this land, as well. And I would like to know, sir, from your heart — I don’t want to know what your advisors say, or even what your top advisor thinks — but I need to know what do you think about homosexual marriages.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, the question has come up obviously in the past with respect to the question of gay marriage. Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it’s an issue that our family is very familiar with. We have two daughters, and we have enormous pride in both of them. They’re both fine young women. They do a superb job, frankly, of supporting us. And we are blessed with both our daughters.
With respect to the question of relationships, my general view is that freedom means freedom for everyone. People ought to be able to free — ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to. The question that comes up with respect to the issue of marriage is what kind of official sanction, or approval is going to be granted by government, if you will, to particular relationships. Historically, that’s been a relationship that has been handled by the states. The states have made that basic fundamental decision in terms of defining what constitutes a marriage. I made clear four years ago when I ran and this question came up in the debate I had with Joe Lieberman that my view was that that’s appropriately a matter for the states to decide, that that’s how it ought to best be handled.
The President has, as result of the decisions that have been made in Massachusetts this year by judges, felt that he wanted to support the constitutional amendment to define — at the federal level to define what constitutes marriage, that I think his perception was that the courts, in effect, were beginning to change — without allowing the people to be involved, without their being part of the political process — that the courts, in that particular case, the state court in Massachusetts, were making the judgment or the decision for the entire country. And he disagreed with that. So where we’re at, at this point is he has come out in support of a federal constitutional amendment. And I don’t think — well, so far it hasn’t had the votes to pass. Most states have addressed this. There is on the books the federal statute Defense of Marriage Act passed in 1996. And to date it has not been successfully challenged in the courts, and that may be sufficient to resolve the issue. But at this point, say, my own pre
More questions, yes.