What's with the porn-bashing? Surely Romney is smart enough to know that most men, especially Republicans, really dig porn. I mean the gay bashing and unmarried parent bashing I understand - those are tried-and-true vote getters. Who doesn't enjoy throwing fags and young pregnant girls under the bus after all? But porn bashing? Major mistake.
Yeah, damn them judges! We should just fire them like Musharraf did in Pakistan!
My guess is that the loonie's rise is fueled by increased exports of gay porn and same-sex wedding cake toppers.
@1: you apparently don't understand Republican psychology. Porn-bashing and porn-loathing are not at all incompatible with porn-consuming.
The foundation of society is 'the family'?
Well actually, Marriage (but especially straight marriage) often leads to children, which then leads to minivans, which then put more stress on our limited oil resources, which then leads to picking fights overseas, which then leads to instability, so maybe he has a point. Marriage itself is troublesome, but I think he needs to attack the real source of the problem--people who procreate.
@4 Fnarf - Ah, that makes sense. Nothing like a little self-loathing to enhance the porn experience.
@6 - To hell with sarcasm - People who procreate ARE the problem.
dude, the decline of the dollar isnt the end of the world as you know it. I dont even think you know what a decline in the dollar means, or meant before the current dollar situation.
Supreme court judges in Washington and Oregon are elected, mister.
Clearly, Canada is benefiting from the gay marriage boom. Between nelly gay men demanding thousand dollar wedding cakes and lipstick lesbian couples out-bridezillaing each other, the money is pouring in.
I kid, but my husband and I did spend close to a grand on the weekend we went up there to get gay married.
The reason the dollar is in the toilet is all these blabbermouth conservatives going around bragging about the family. Once America's secret was out, the rest of the world got families too and took our advantage away.
The best predictors of family instability on a societal level are all economic. Fewer living wage jobs = more broken marriages and more out-of-wedlock births.
For example, in Britain under the Thatcher administration's "labour reforms" the percentage of women aged 18 to 49 who were married fell from 74% to 61% while the proportion cohabiting increased from 11% to 22%. Births outside marriage doubled during the 1980s. One-parent families increased from 12% to 21%.
If the American family can be said to be under attack, the fact that real wages for most families have been falling steadily for nearly 40 years might give an indication from whence the problem issues. But of course to admit this would be to admit that decades of misguided Republican economic policy have led us to this point.
So yeah, according to cynical shills like Romney, it's all the fault of queers. And porn. Probably rap music, while we're at it. In short, it's "those people" (and sure, lots of Republicans like porn but in public still loudly proclaim their disgust and disdain for it.)
@ 7 I agree, I was just trying to avoid a flame war. People take things TOO seriously. Certainly procreation is much more of a problem that gay marriage, and definitely more of a problem then gay sex, which is what really freaks these conservatives out (except, of course, when they are engaging in it).
I swear to gosh, if any of those dumb shits win (steal) 2008, I really am moving to BC. I just can't bear to face 4 more years of this shit.
Meanwhile same-sex couples are moving in large numbers to the Midwest, according to the latest statistics.
Hmmm.
@12 Interesting, and makes sense, but can it be proved to be causation and not correlation?
@15--I saw that! How odd. I could understand moving to Chicago or some place, but Indianapolis? St. Louis? I'm less sure of those places. What with the talk of gay bars going the way of the dinosaurs and gayborhood disappearing, I don't know what to do! We're fleeing to the coast for a number of reasons, one of them being Michigan's disregard for teh gays. That, and we miss being connected to larger cities and more culture. But apparently I'm an old school gay at age 31!
Printer@16:
That is obviously a tall order. However, it's pretty clear that it doesn't work the other way 'round (say, higher divorce rates causing falling wages) by the order things happen in. First wages fall, then divorce rates go up. In the above example, while Britain was enacting American-style deregulation of labor markets, the rest of the EU countries did not. Those countries did not experience an equivalent spike in divorces, out-of-wedlock births, or single-parent homes during the same period.
This phenomenon is pretty consistent over time as well. The irony being that the conservative appeal to family values is a trojan horse for economic policies that actively erode the primacy of the traditional family in society.
Okay, so maybe this is why gay couples are moving to the midwest--the old Urban Planning cycle on a bigger scale. Example: Gays and artists move to a neighborhood with low rents that no one wants to live (Capitol Hill years ago) fix it up and make it cool, then get kicked out by gentrification (those f*in condos) and the cycle starts all over again. Well, not many people want to live in the Midwest, what with the weather and all, so maybe this is the same thing on a bigger scale. Personally I never want to be that cold again!
They should just relax. The gay uprising is just natures way of controlling the (out of control) population. It'll all even out in the end.
While Dan erred, slightly, in referring to "unelected judges" in Washington, Romney's point is that judges are not elected to represent the people, which indeed is true. That's the legislative branch which, Romney now claims should make the gay marriage call. This in no way excuses the piss-poor defensive majority opinion of the Supreme Court of Washington, which babbled on about having to defer to the legislature, ignoring the fact that the majority has been an activist court for years, happily striking down legislation and substituting its own policy opinions on lots of topics.
I always thought of the Midwest in general as being more relaxed about homosexuality. I'm from Indiana, and there much seemed to be kind of a farming attitude - if they don't bother the cows or have sex in the corn, who cares what they do?
Besides, the only time I ever got threatened over my sexuality in high school, I managed to throw the girl off by threatening to kiss her if she came near me. She never came close enough after that for me to figure out who she was. =) I mean, how cute is that? Indiana's a pretty good place, overall.
Romney is only doing what has worked so well for the Republicans recently - inspiring people who'd rather be sitting in church mumbling prayers and passages from the Old Testament to get off their knees and go vote, because if they don't it's Sodom and Gomorrah! We can mostly thank that pig, Karl Rove, for that.
Also, if Romney can pull some hate mongering slogans out of his ass, it focuses attention elsewhere and takes the spotlight off him belonging to a cult - one based on some guy saying he read some tablets in a special box and when asked to produce the tablets said he'd buried them. That's some crazy shit. And buying into it is, I think, even crazier.
So now I'm a threat to wellbeing of the USA for not giving a shit left or right about porno, being absolutely pro gay marriage, and being a bastard? Delightful.
Apparently there was something WRONG with "America's families" otherwise, arranged marriages would still be "vogue", and the feminist movement wouldn't have happened.
And my parents, who never married, actually BETTER than my friends parents, who are married, who sometimes tell their children they're a waste of space, to put it in kindly terms.
And jackass, on gay marriage, I think that Bible you worship has something on "Love thy neighbor", but it's obviously not important...
@ #17:
I live in Indianapolis, and I can honestly tell you the attitude and atmosphere if you're gay is outstanding. People here have an "I don't care what you do" attitude, much more so than Chicago or St Louis (where my partner was from) and there're surprisingly few reports of violence or even basic hassling.
I've lived here full time for 20 years, and on and off for the last 42, and I can say with certainty it's nowhere near the backwards cornfield you might assume it is.
Marriage and family are NOT the foundation of civilization. Women can get pregnant and not be married! SHOCKING! Come folks we need to stand up and de-bunk that myth. Commerce and agriculture and war are the foundations of civilization.
Oh, and re: Indianapolis--we have a thriving arts district. Two, in fact, within walking distance of my gayborhood and a third less than a mile away. Downtown has the ArtsGarden, there's also the Mass Ave art strip and the Fountain Square Arts District...all within 2 miles of one another. And I live in the Fountain Square/Fletcher Place district, downtown, which is nothing if not traditional gayborhoods shared by young couples who have no opinion on gays--or at least realize they're outnumbered enough to shut up and deal.
St Louis' arts community is far more constipated than Indy's is. My partner (now my late partner) was an artist from St Louis who didn't gain fame there until he moved away--to Indianapolis--ironically with the same material he produced when he was a local St Louisian.
I believe musician Sheryl Crow found out the same truism--the only way to get famous in St Louis is to get out of St Louis: "If you're good enough for another city, you're good enough for us" seems to be the mantra.
Oh, *Wolf*. I'm sorry for dissing Indy. I grew up 50 miles east of there in New Castle, the Gem of East Central Indiana. Even in that dinky town the gays were pretty accepted. I mean, a manager of a local grocery store left his wife for my mom's hairdresser and they lived down the street from my best friend. I am usually the first to defend my home state.
I know Indy's no cornfield (those are next to the soybean fields a few miles out of town near), and it's probably the only place I'd live in the Hoosier State. Perhaps I should visit again one of these days. . .My dad lives close enough in the northern 'burbs.
the issue has nothing to do with gay marriage. The gays are just being demonized in the way that the jews were demonized before the holocaust. there are many similarities between the Jews in germany and the gays today. It starts with stereotyping and demonization and then before you know our houses are being taken and the police look the other way while we are beaten or killed. The politicians who are claiming that gays are the biggest problem know that this is not true. they are looking to bait a universally hated minority group the same way that Hitler deflected the public away from germanys real problems by targetting the jews. I am sure that the preachers and politicians see themselves as holy and pure but so did hitler.
Michigan Matt: You're always welcome to stay here for a night or so. Unless you're one of those preverts. Or mass-murderers. Can't be too careful, you know.
I'd love to be a guide for something like a food or wine tour of what Indy has become. I think you might be surprised. I have been...
@9 and 21:
Well, I don't know about you folks, but I have never cast a vote for ANY judge in my entire life, much less a Supreme Court justice. (Here in Colorado, all judges are appointed.)
Mitt Romney is an embarassment to humankind.
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