Skip to main content

Buyer's remorse? President Obama will support Federal marriage equality in 2nd term

Quoth the President to MTV:

"For us to try to legislate federally into this area is probably the wrong way to go."
Now I realize several things:  First, Mitt Romney wasn't even going to give lip-service to marriage equality, and would have presided over attempts to roll back the gains that have already been made.  Second, we have a very good chance of passing true marriage equality here in Delaware next year, given the margins of victory the Democrats piled up.

But there is an important point to be made here:  there is a distinct difference between passing marriage equality one state at a time and acknowledging that marriage equality is a Constitutional right.

Mr. Obama has just shown that his support of marriage equality during the campaign was more likely than not an opportunistic response to the hole VP Biden put him in rather than a profound personal evolution on the subject.

There was only one candidate on the ballot across the nation who made a point of saying--in every stump speech--that marriage equality is a Constitution right.

That was Governor Gary Johnson.

I am used to responses I know I will get from Obama supporters (who say them to me even when they don't write them here):  Romney would have been worse.  I'm not a single-issue voter.  Gary Johnson could not have gotten elected anyway.

But please remember that this past election cycle in Delaware ONLY the Libertarian Party of Delaware put marriage equality into its platform.  Only the Libertarian Party of Delaware candidates spent hours at the Delaware State Fair collecting signatures for the marriage equality petition drive.  Individual Democratic candidates (Pete Schwarzkopf, who answered the question fully and frankly when I put it to him) were straight-up about their support, but many were quite squishy.

Remember that when there are votes in the General Assembly next year.

Without Libertarians this year, it would have taken longer.

Comments

Delaware Watch said…
Beautiful example of arguing post hoc ergo propter hoc. It no more follows that IF the General Assembly passes marriage equality, it was because the DE Libertarian Party supported it than that most felons committed crimes because they once drank milk.
Dana, what part of "we contributed" do you not get. I have been told by several Democrats and marriage equality advocates that the activities we engaged in DID make them feel pressure to move further down that line. I have been told directly by one of the most active marriage equality PAC directors that he constantly uses the Libertarian activities and platform to push Democrats.

I DID NOT say it would not happen without us. I said it would have taken longer.

Quit spouting latin and actually read what I said.
anonone said…
Steve, the Green Party has long supported equality under the law for all people, including LGBTs. And, unlike the Libertarians, they support civil rights laws to protect those rights and prevent discrimination.

The Libertarian platform is for legalizing discrimination in the private sector, including all businesses and contracts. Touting the Libertarians as champions of protecting civil rights when they support rolling back laws outlawing discrimination by private businesses is ridiculous.

In the Libertarian world, private property rights trump civil rights in every case.

Not to mention that the Libertarian Congressional Candidate, Scott Gesty, was the only candidate who wanted to tax "everything" including food.
But tell me, A1, what did the Green Party in Delaware actually DO this year to advance marriage equality.

We gathered several thousand signatures for the petition for marriage equality, appeared at numerous LGBT events, actively campaigned for marriage equality, and otherwise actively promoted the cause.

Your other comments about "the Libertarian world" are your usual claptrap . . . .

And Scott's consumption tax is, ironically, very similar to those used in many parts of Europe and the rest of the developed world.

But continue your rants.
tom said…
in future rants, perhaps a1 could at least try to stop a bit short of libel when making shit up about what Scott Gesty or other persons a1 doesn't like "want" to do.

Nowhere on Scott's site or other literature does he give any specifics about what his consumption would apply to, or how it would be implemented, aside from the statement that it would replace the Income Tax and IRS.

If a1 is assuming that Scott was talking about the Fair Tax rather than some similar plan of Scott's own invention, then a1's comments are demonstrably malicious, because a1 has been accused several times of substantially misrepresenting their position.

Even if a1 wasn't just lying about Scott's intent, he would hardly be "only candidate who wanted to tax "everything" including food" because the Federal Government already taxes "everything" including food, so that should be considered the default position of any candidate for Federal Office who doesn't explicitly state otherwise.
delacrat said…
"The Federal income tax (along with the entire IRS) should be scrapped in favor of a national consumption tax."

http://gesty4congress.org/content/issues

Nowhere on Scott Gesty's site does he say or suggest there would be any exemptions to his consumption tax.
Therefore, A1 is not unreasonable in concluding that Gesty's plan, in fact, taxes everything.
No, A1 would be justified in ASKING Scott if that's what he was proposing, not in enforcing a conclusion on him based on the peculiar prejudices A1 brings to the conversation.
Anonone said…
No need to ask. Scott wrote about his plan to tax "everything" iincluding food in a comment here a few weeks ago.
Anonone said…
Steve asked, "But tell me, A1, what did the Green Party in Delaware actually DO this year to advance marriage equality."

I think that the Green Party Senate candidate was collecting signatures with his Libertarian friends.
Your inconsistencies are hilarious. You have attacked Andrew Groff for accepting the Libertarian endorsement, and said he wasn't a real Green. Now you cite the fact that WE invited him as a Libertarian-endorsed candidate to collect signatures with us.

Got any other good ones? ROTFLMAO
tom said…
"Scott wrote about his plan to tax "everything" iincluding food in a comment here a few weeks ago."

cite?
Anonone said…
Groff collected signatures as a Green Party candidate (the pictures show his Green Party banner with him) and he ran officially as the Green Party candidate.

My criticisms of his alignment with Libertarians notwithstanding, I voted for him anyway.

Tom, I don't see a way to search this site for comments, but Scott's position on taxing "everything" was clearly stated in a comment of his here. If I am wrong about this, he has had a number of opportunities to refute this, but he hasn't because it is true and he believes it.
Anonone said…
Tom:

http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7893272060787897238&postID=8511062517012497393
tom said…
I stand corrected.

although my point still stands that w/o knowing the full details, or even a basic outline of how Scott's plan would be implemented you can not make any valid statements about whether it would be better/worse or more regressive/progressive than the
Federal Government's current regime of taxing "everything" including food
Tom

I do not think you stand corrected. Scott's comment said food was "on the table." That means a discussion of the legislation could include food. It doesn't mean it would have to.

Moreover, we already have multiple taxes on food, though many of them are hidden. Dairy price supports function as a tax on consumers, as do ethanol mandates (by artificially removing x% of the corn crop from food production each year), as do sugar tariffs, etc, etc,

While individuals can make an argument for any of these programs by itself, the reality is that there has never been a government commitment to keeping food prices low for poor people. Food prices have always been a tool used by government without any regard for the regressive impact on the poorest among us.

Popular posts from this blog

Comment Rescue (?) and child-related gun violence in Delaware

In my post about the idiotic over-reaction to a New Jersey 10-year-old posing with his new squirrel rifle , Dana Garrett left me this response: One waits, apparently in vain, for you to post the annual rates of children who either shoot themselves or someone else with a gun. But then you Libertarians are notoriously ambivalent to and silent about data and facts and would rather talk abstract principles and fear monger (like the government will confiscate your guns). It doesn't require any degree of subtlety to see why you are data and fact adverse. The facts indicate we have a crisis with gun violence and accidents in the USA, and Libertarians offer nothing credible to address it. Lives, even the lives of children, get sacrificed to the fetishism of liberty. That's intellectual cowardice. OK, Dana, let's talk facts. According to the Children's Defense Fund , which is itself only querying the CDCP data base, fewer than 10 children/teens were killed per year in Delaw

With apologies to Hube: dopey WNJ comments of the week

(Well, Hube, at least I'm pulling out Facebook comments and not poaching on your preserve in the Letters.) You will all remember the case this week of the photo of the young man posing with the .22LR squirrel rifle that his Dad got him for his birthday with resulted in Family Services and the local police attempting to search his house.  The story itself is a travesty since neither the father nor the boy had done anything remotely illegal (and check out the picture for how careful the son is being not to have his finger inside the trigger guard when the photo was taken). But the incident is chiefly important for revealing in the Comments Section--within Delaware--the fact that many backers of "common sense gun laws" really do have the elimination of 2nd Amendment rights and eventual outright confiscation of all privately held firearms as their objective: Let's run that by again: Elliot Jacobson says, This instance is not a case of a father bonding with h

The Obligatory Libertarian Tax Day Post

The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?