Kudos to John Stewart for demolishing Mike Huckabee's religio-socialism on the question of same-sex marriage.
Huckabee sounded like every typical out-of-touch bible-thumping bigot, with their tired nonsensical circular arguments that essentially come down to : marriage is an 'institution' only between one male and one female because the law says only one male and one female can be married....and that's the way it's always been and that's the way it must always be...world without end, amen.
Many religious fundy social engineers like Governor Huckleberry are often quite adept at dancing around and obfuscating the simple truth that the whole question comes down to their desire to make the law of the land forever conform to their medieval-minded biblical interpretations and pseudo-Christian religious beliefs.
They have nothing else (certainly not any real moral suasion) to support their position. As a result, their hackeneyed quasi-secular arguments simply fall apart under any serious legal, historical, or logical scrutiny.
Stewart aptly notes how inter-racial marriage was once illegal, while polygamy was once the norm. He also notes that slavery was once the law of the land, as was segregation.
Let's face facts. Mike Huckabee's facade as a thoughtful, soft-spoken, logical individual is just that : a facade.
Huckabee's seemingly-reasonable demeanor masks the essential socialist that he is on issues directly bearing on the personal lives of American citizens.
The extent to which he wants government to have a decisive role in regulating the most personal of interpersonal relationships between consenting adults in a free society, particularly through the continued codification and reinforcement of arbitrary discrimination, is disturbing.
This type of reactionary ideology that puts religious dementia ahead of equal protection of the law, based purely on faux-moral hocus-pocus dredged out of some fear-driven backwater of ignorance, is why Mike Huckabee will never be anything more than an ex-Governor of Bubba land, also-ran presidential wannabe, and Fox News time-filler.
Comments
It is spiecous at best to try to make this a civil rights issue and not a public policy issue. You have to misread all of history to buy the stuff that you are selling.
That statement is false. Polygamy was--and still is--normal in many cultures and areas.
And even if the statement were true, it's still no reason to prohibit gay marriage. Feudalism was traditional for centuries, too.
Bowly - I can't imagine a more profane way of treating something "sacred" than putting in the hands of government to dole out (or nullify, as the case may be).
My approach is get marriage out of government, and get the government out of marriage.
Those who want this civil right for themselves while denying it to others purely on the basis of the genders of the individuals have absolutely zero rational justifications for such inequity before law.
Maintaining the status quo, defending 'tradition', citing popular will, arguing statutory grounds, and last but not least falling back on so-called moral concerns (a bare disguise for purely religious doctrine) were all used to defend slavery and other forms of dehumanization and subjugation throughout our history. These arguments are all you will ever get from those who oppose same-sex marriage. It's all they have, and none is sufficient to deny equal protection of the law.
The so-called defenders of "traditional marriage" are much like the hopelessly self-absorbed and selfish child who brings candy to school, only to have teacher tell them they can either share it equally with the rest of their schoolmates or have none at all.
Marriage has no bearing on public policy other than having government control and manipulate personal and social relationships.
Really any form of legal "marriage" should be totally reduced to a matter of private contract, subject only to existing laws and precedent bearing thereon.
Further, if it is to remain a matter in the realm of "public policy" and law, those who want it should have to bear ALL of its costs currently charged to the taxpayer, beginning with payment of every penny to have any court litigate matters of marriage.
Marriage is simply not a public good that serves any public interest, such that taxpayers should be fleeced to fund its bizarre incarnations (and declinations).
Why should taxpayers, more than half of whom are unmarried, be hijacked to fund such a truly cheap and frivolous short cut around personal responsibility?
Why should the public be forced to administer purely private social relationships and subsidize the ignorance and irresponsibility of those entering them?
Why should not these private social arrangements be relegated to instances when the parties have been responsible and thoughtful enough to commit their arrangements to binding civil contracts?
Why is that?
In most states in the union, the people voted overwhelmingly for legal racial segregation in education too. Why wasn't that a "public policy" issue?
Is it only a civil rights issue if a majority votes against discriminatory conduct by government?
If so, then the original civil rights movements in the early 1900s (women) and mid 1900s (African Americans) weren't civil rights movements either.