Dumbass quote of the day
I don't have to prove that marriage is a man and a woman in a relationship for life. They have to prove that two men can have an equally definable relationship called marriage, and somehow that that can mean the same thing.-2008 Republican Presidential Semifinalist Mike Huckabee,
quoted in a college magazine last week.
Heh, yeah, actually Mike, seeing as how it seems that half of first marriages, nearly two-thirds of second marriages, and nearly three-quarters of third marriages end in divorce, I'm kind of thinking you do have to prove that marriage is a "relationship for life." Hell, man, for Britney Spears a couple of years back it wasn't even a relationship for, what, a whole week?
Look, let's be honest--as long as there's any such thing as civil marriages, the single greatest threat to the "institution of marriage" is straight people. And let's also be honest about the likelihood that government is going to do what it probably should do and get out of the marriage game altogether. And let's be honest about the fact that even if government got out of marriage altogether, the history of "lifelong" religious marriage is that it's always been full of loopholes and technicalities for those able to find them (see also); I mean, at a very basic level the entire history of Europe from the beginning of the Middle Ages to the end of the Reformation can be described almost entirely as the history of monarchs trying to figure out ways to get out of their "lifelong" marriages, right? (See also.)
So, c'mon. Seriously, Mike. Really? Really really?
Huckabee also thinks that legalizing gay marriage would also be like legallizing drugs, which, you know, ixnay on talking about California and Oregon's egalay edicalmay otpay when the former Arkansas gov is around, lest his head explode like that guy in Scanners. It would also be like legalizing incest, which, uhm... actually, seriously, not trying to gross anyone out, but your mileage varies, dude. Finally, he says it would be like legalizing polygamy, which, I'll grant him, is illegal throughout the United States and probably would violate the Eighth Amendment if it wasn't, but at this point are we still taking Huckabee seriously enough to even bother pointing and laughing?
Oh wait, I can't pass this one by:
Am I the only one who thinks this one was ill-timed No, no, it's true, children aren't puppies--you can't give a puppy a note and put it on a plane back to Russia. I'm pretty sure they'd make you crate it.
Sometimes a political figure says things so outrageously stupid, you can't even get offended by them. I mean, really--the fundamental problem with what Huckabee is saying here isn't even that it's morally offensive or bigoted, which it is, or that it comes from a ridiculously-cloistered Bronze Age worldview, which it does, but that it's simply fucking dumb. Thanks, Mr. Huckabee, I needed the larf this afternoon! You, sir, are the greatest!
Look, let's be honest--as long as there's any such thing as civil marriages, the single greatest threat to the "institution of marriage" is straight people. And let's also be honest about the likelihood that government is going to do what it probably should do and get out of the marriage game altogether. And let's be honest about the fact that even if government got out of marriage altogether, the history of "lifelong" religious marriage is that it's always been full of loopholes and technicalities for those able to find them (see also); I mean, at a very basic level the entire history of Europe from the beginning of the Middle Ages to the end of the Reformation can be described almost entirely as the history of monarchs trying to figure out ways to get out of their "lifelong" marriages, right? (See also.)
So, c'mon. Seriously, Mike. Really? Really really?
Huckabee also thinks that legalizing gay marriage would also be like legallizing drugs, which, you know, ixnay on talking about California and Oregon's egalay edicalmay otpay when the former Arkansas gov is around, lest his head explode like that guy in Scanners. It would also be like legalizing incest, which, uhm... actually, seriously, not trying to gross anyone out, but your mileage varies, dude. Finally, he says it would be like legalizing polygamy, which, I'll grant him, is illegal throughout the United States and probably would violate the Eighth Amendment if it wasn't, but at this point are we still taking Huckabee seriously enough to even bother pointing and laughing?
Oh wait, I can't pass this one by:
Huckabee also told college journalists last week that gay couples should not be permitted to adopt. "Children are not puppies," he said.
Am I the only one who thinks this one was ill-timed No, no, it's true, children aren't puppies--you can't give a puppy a note and put it on a plane back to Russia. I'm pretty sure they'd make you crate it.
Sometimes a political figure says things so outrageously stupid, you can't even get offended by them. I mean, really--the fundamental problem with what Huckabee is saying here isn't even that it's morally offensive or bigoted, which it is, or that it comes from a ridiculously-cloistered Bronze Age worldview, which it does, but that it's simply fucking dumb. Thanks, Mr. Huckabee, I needed the larf this afternoon! You, sir, are the greatest!
Comments
"That would be like saying, well there's there are a lot of people who like to use drugs so let's go ahead and accommodate those who want to use drugs."
Well, we all use drugs of some kind. Alcohol, over-the-counter drugs, prescription drugs.
Oh wait, he means drugs that are currently illegal. Well, no, just because people like to use them doesn't, ipso facto mean they should be legal. But it also doesn't ipso facto mean they shouldn't.
"There are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, should we accommodate them?"
Really. Gays being able to marry is the same as a brother and sister marrying. How? Just, how? Proscriptions against persons marrying because of the level of consanguinity is generally based on the problems associated with inbreeding.
Beyond brother/sister father/daughter and mother/son proscriptions, other incest prohibitions, such as those against cousins marrying, vary widely throughout history and cultures. In North Africa, the Middle East and large parts of Asia, marriage between first cousins is common and generally legal. In South Korea before 1997, however, anyone with the same last name and clan was prohibited from marriage.
In Deuteronomy, a man is forbidden to marry his brother's widow, unless his brother died childless. In that case, he is required to marry his brother's widow.
As for polygamy, I can't speak as to whether marriage involving multiple people would violate the the Eighth Amendment, but as radical as this may sound, I personally haven't a problem with that type of marriage being legal. I think the likelihood of those marriages being even less stable that a two-person marriage is pretty high, and how to handle parental rights and distribution of assets should the marriage, or portions of it, dissolve would require some serious thought. But with the right safeguards in play, why not?
"Marriage has historically never meant anything other than a man and a woman."
Not true, my non-historian former governor and Presidential wanna-be. For example, there certainly is evidence that Romans looked down upon male homosexuals as "unvirtuous," and men who engaged in consensual liaisons were often mocked as unmanly (though oddly little is mentioned about female homosexuals). But consensual male and female homosexual unions were not illegal until the fourth century.
Of course, none of this actually matters either to Huckabee or those to whom he is actually speaking.