“The GOP Gay Marriage Freakout”: The Modern Republican Party Is Operating More And More Like An Underground Crime Network
Marriage equality has won at the Supreme Court, but the fight over gay marriage is far from over. Now we enter the Republican temper tantrum phase.
Even before the Supreme Court’s ruling, several prominent Republicans had pledged to disobey any high court ruling in favor of marriage equality—and had called on their fellow Republican leaders to do the same.
For instance, Republican presidential candidates Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee have both signed a pledge that reads, “We will not honor any decision by the Supreme Court which will force us to violate a clear biblical understanding of marriage as solely the union of one man and one woman.”
Huckabee also challenged the authority of our nation’s highest court when he said, “The Supreme Court can’t overrule God.”
Republican Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Steve King also called for Congress and any future Republican president to flagrantly ignore such a Supreme Court ruling.
Let’s be clear: These are current and former officeholders, who have taken an oath to uphold the laws of our nation, literally pledging to violate those laws as interpreted by the Supreme Court.
In any reasonable political environment, this should be a disqualifier for elected office. Certainly, measures should be considered to charge those of them who hold office with violating their oath.
Republicans in Congress recently filed suit against President Obama for using his lawful executive authority to de-prioritize certain deportations of immigrants. Said Republicans were outraged! Now here we have Republicans treading far beyond the legal gray area, actually pledging to violate their duties and break the law.
I’d love to say such behavior is unimaginable. But unfortunately, it’s becoming predictable within the GOP.
“If the court tries to do this it will be rampant judicial activism,” Cruz said before the ruling. “It will be lawlessness.”
No, actually, saying that as a senator or as president you will disobey the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States of America—that is the very definition of lawlessness.
Of course this attitude comes from the same party that after 60 failed votes to repeal Obamacare and two now failed legal challenges rising all the way up to the very same Supreme Court, still pledges to keep trying to undo the law. The modern Republican Party is operating less like a responsible partner in governance and more and more like an underground crime network—continually abusing and threatening the otherwise democratic process if it doesn’t get its way.
So far, in the aftermath of the decision, Republican candidates have offered statements affirming their opposition to the ruling and leaning on the new, more modest GOP chestnut that “religious freedom” must be protected.
Governor Huckabee took to Twitter after the ruling, saying that the Supreme Court could no more overrule “God’s nature” than overrule gravity. But alas, just as it has in fights for justice and equality throughout history, the Supreme Court has done its job—interpreting the Constitution of our nation and applying it equally to all Americans.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker issued one of the more curious formulations. “I call on the president and all governors to join me in reassuring millions of Americans that the government will not force them to participate in activities that violate their deeply held religious beliefs,” he said in a press release. “No one wants to live in a country where the government coerces people to act in opposition to their conscience.”
Apparently, Walker is afraid people will be forced to get gay married. Don’t worry, America, that’s Phase 143 of the gay agenda. It’s still early. Right now, we’re preoccupied trying to uphold the basic values and laws of America—which elected officials of both parties should be doing, too. But frankly, when it comes to some Republicans, it’s indeed more likely that gravity will be overruled and pigs will fly.
By: Sally Kohn, The Daily Beast, June 26, 2015
“Calling Them Out”: Rand Paul Is Pushing The GOP To Confront Its Terrorism Problem. Too Bad The Other 2016 Candidates Won’t Listen
Any time there’s a genuine difference of opinion concerning a policy issue within a presidential primary it’s worthy of note, even if there’s only one candidate standing apart from the others. Rand Paul may be the one you’d expect would dissent from his peers when it comes to foreign policy, but he nevertheless surprised many when he said on Wednesday that it was his own party that bore responsibility for the rise of ISIS.
When asked on Morning Joe how he’d respond to attacks from foreign policy hawks like Lindsey Graham, Paul responded, “ISIS exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately, and most of these arms were snatched up by ISIS.” He even tied his Republican colleagues to the despised Hillary Clinton: “ISIS is all over Libya because these same hawks in my party loved Hillary Clinton’s war in Libya, they just wanted more of it.”
Whatever you think of the particulars of Paul’s analysis, his charges probably aren’t going to go over too well in a party where the consensus is that everything in Iraq was going swimmingly until Barack Obama came in and mucked it all up. Jeb Bush spoke for the other candidates when he recently said, “ISIS didn’t exist when my brother was president. Al Qaeda in Iraq was wiped out when my brother was president.” As it happens, neither of those assertions is even remotely true. But the fact that Paul is making the claims he is means Republicans might have to grapple with the substance of an alternative perspective on ISIS in particular and terrorism in general.
The prevailing view among Republicans is that the most important thing when confronting terrorism is, as with all foreign policy questions, strength. If you are strong, any problem can be solved. Likewise, all failures come from weakness. Barack Obama fails because he is weak (and also because he hates America, but that’s another story).
Rand Paul, even in his unsophisticated way, is saying something fundamentally different: Strength not only isn’t enough, sometimes it can make things worse. Seemingly alone among the Republican candidates, he realizes that there’s such a thing as unintended consequences. You can have all the strength in the world — as, for all intents and purposes, the U.S. military does — and still find events not working out the way you want.
One might think that the experience of the last decade and a half would have taught us all that. In justifying their support for the Iraq War, Republicans will often say that “the world is better off without Saddam Hussein,” as though it were self-evident that conditions improve once you remove a brutal dictator. But it’s not at all clear that that’s true — Saddam is gone, but a couple hundred thousand Iraqi civilians have been killed, a corrupt sectarian government in Baghdad allowed ISIS to take hold, Iran’s strength in the region was enhanced — all things that the architects of the Iraq War either didn’t consider or thought wouldn’t happen.
ISIS itself offers a demonstration of a common unintended consequence terrorism analysts have been talking about for a while, which is that a strategy aimed at decapitating terrorist groups can actually produce more violence. When one leader is killed, his successor feels the need to prove his mettle by expanding the group’s ambitions and increasing its level of brutality. ISIS started out as Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; after Zarqawi was killed by an American airstrike, an action hailed at the time as a great victory, the group not only didn’t disappear, it evolved into the ISIS we see today.
Yet to hear most of the Republicans tell it, all we need to solve the problem is strength. They quote action heroes as though there might be some genuine insight from Hollywood B-movies on how to combat terrorism. “Have you seen the movie Taken?” says Marco Rubio. “Liam Neeson. He had a line, and this is what our strategy should be: ‘We will look for you, we will find you, and we will kill you.'” Or Rick Santorum: “They want to bring back a 7th-century version of jihad. So here’s my suggestion: We load up our bombers, and we bomb them back to the 7th century.” So strong.
Yet when it comes time to say what specifically they would do about ISIS or Syria if they were to become president, the candidates grow suddenly vague. It’s almost as though, the tough talk notwithstanding, they know that getting into too much detail about the policy challenge will inevitably force them to confront the possibility that saying they’ll be strong doesn’t quite answer the question.
Perhaps on a debate stage a few months from now, Rand Paul will manage to get his opponents to address that possibility. Or maybe they’ll be able to just give a look of steely resolve, quote a movie they saw, get an ovation from the crowd, and move on.
By: Paul Waldman, The Week, May 28, 2015
“We Will Not Obey”: Taking The Law Into Their Own Hands
It’s going to take me a while to absorb this document, and remember (probably with Sarah Posner’s help) the backgrounds of some of the signatories. But the newly released “Pledge of Solidarity in Defense of Marriage”, drafted by Vision America’s Rick Scarborough, semi-retired culture-war maven James Dobson, and Liberty University law school dean Matt Staver, represents the boldest effort yet of Christian Right types to claim a revolutionary right of resistance to marriage equality. Without question, the “pledge” asserts that marriage discrimination is part of the warp and weave of the universe, via divine fiat and natural law, and that no Court has the power to overturn it. Thus, the signatories announce their intention not to obey any such decision, as explained by Todd Starnes at townhall:
“We will not obey.”
That’s the blunt warning a group of prominent religious leaders is sending to the Supreme Court of the United States as they consider same-sex marriage.
“We respectfully warn the Supreme Court not to cross that line,” read a document titled, Pledge in Solidarity to Defend Marriage. “We stand united together in defense of marriage. Make no mistake about our resolve.”
“While there are many things we can endure, redefining marriage is so fundamental to the natural order and the common good that this is the line we must draw and one we cannot and will not cross,” the pledge states….
“Yes, I’m talking about civil disobedience,” Staver said. “I’m talking about resistance and I’m talking about peaceful resistance against unjust laws and unjust rulings.”
That’s quite a shocking statement. So I asked Mr. Staver to clarify his remarks.
“I’m calling for people to not recognize the legitimacy of that ruling because it’s not grounded in the Rule of Law,” he told me. “They need to resist that ruling in every way possible. In a peaceful way – they need to resist it as much as Martin Luther King, Jr. resisted unjust laws in his time.”
Yes, of course, the Pledge of Solidarity is loaded with references to the civil rights movement (they predictably secured the signature of Aveda King, the niece of MLK who has long been a committed right-wing culture warrior) and comparisons of any SCOTUS decision upholding same-sex marriage as illegitimate, just like Dred Scott. So what grievous harm do they claim for themselves that makes them and their largely well-fed suburban flocks qualified to stand with protesters like King and Gandhi fighting for the most basic rights?
[Scarborough] referenced the “outrageous penalties” being assessed against people of faith simply because they don’t want to participate in a same-sex union.
An Oregon bakery is facing a $135,000 fine for refusing to make a cake for a lesbian wedding and a Washington State florist faces fines for refusing to participate in a gay wedding.
Yep, it’s still the bakers and florists of conscience on whose behalf these birds are calling for an overturning of the Rule of Law and the shattering of a constitutional order that’s worked reasonably well in the past. Almost to a man or woman, of course, they’d call themselves “constitutional conservatives,” a term that means pretty much the opposite of both words, insofar as they claim “higher laws” like fetal rights, absolute property rights, and yes, a heterosexual monopoly on marriage, have to be imposed on the Constitution. No wonder David Barton, the author of so much historical fiction on the theocratic designs of the Founders, is a signatory of the Pledge, along with a rogue’s gallery of Christian Nation radicals he helped inspire.
So, too, are two candidates for the presidency, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee. You kinda get the impression they would really love to find a way to get themselves arrested for their brave defense of “traditional marriage,” so they could campaign from a jail cell like Eugene Debs in 1920. Maybe they could take up baking or flower arranging.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, April 29, 2015
“There Is A Contradiction In Almost All Their Positions”: Does It Matter If The GOP Presidential Candidates Would Attend A Gay Wedding?
Presidential candidates have to face a lot of tough questions over the course of a campaign, ones that are directly relevant to the problems the next president will face. For instance: “What would you do with the millions of undocumented immigrants already in the U.S.?” Or: “Which programs would you cut to reduce the deficit?” Or: “Under what circumstances would you invade Iran?”
There’s another class of questions that is designed to bore deep into the candidate’s heart and reveal what kind of person he or she really is. These are mostly irrelevant or inane.
The question all the 2016 GOP hopefuls are now being forced to answer — Would you attend a gay wedding? — seems to be of that latter kind. But perhaps we can salvage something informative and useful from it.
First, let’s look at how the candidates who have been asked directly have answered:
- Scott Walker: When he was asked, Walker treated it as a question about the past, not the future. “For a family member, Tonette and I and our family have already had a family member who’s had a reception. I haven’t been at a wedding. That’s true even though my position on marriage is still that it’s defined between a man and a woman, and I support the constitution of the state. But for someone I love, we’ve been at a reception.” So…maybe?
- Marco Rubio: He may have been the most straightforward: “If it’s somebody in my life that I love and care for, of course I would. I’m not going to hurt them simply because I disagree with a choice they’ve made.”
- Ted Cruz: The rock-ribbed conservative and defender of traditional marriage wouldn’t say. When radio host Hugh Hewitt asked him, Cruz said, “I haven’t faced that circumstance…what the media tries to twist the question of marriage into is they try to twist it into a battle of emotions and personality.”
- Rick Perry: The former Texas governor said, “I probably would, but I think the real issue here is that’s the gotcha question that the left tries to get out there.”
- Rick Santorum: So far, Santorum is the only one who has put his foot down. “No, I would not,” he said when Hugh Hewitt asked. “I would love them and support them, I would not attend that ceremony.”
One assumes that Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, and the rest of the field will get asked the question before long. So is this a “gotcha” question? The answer is complicated.
On one hand, there are few issues on which the personal and the political are more entwined than gay rights. The increasing openness of gay Americans is what has spurred the rapid transformation of public opinion and law on this issue. It becomes much harder to oppose those rights when you have loved ones who are gay. A question like this can help us get insight into the personal feelings that might guide these candidates in the future.
But on the other hand, what a candidate does or doesn’t do in his personal life is ultimately irrelevant. We’re electing a president, not choosing a best man. The important question is what laws and policies they would or wouldn’t change. Unless they’re actually related to him, no gay couple is affected by whether Marco Rubio will come to their wedding. But they may well be affected by the policies he supports, which include allowing certain vendors to discriminate against them.
So when the candidates protest that the real question is about the law and the Constitution, not about their personal feelings, they’re absolutely right. That’s what they ought to be pressed on, so we understand exactly what decisions they’d make if they win.
Having said that, there is a contradiction in almost all their positions (Santorum excepted; he’s the consistent one) that reveals something important: At this moment in history, the Republican Party is in a very uncomfortable place. They all support the idea that marriage is only between a man and a woman; and they all support the idea that state governments should be able to exclude gays and lesbians from the institution of marriage. Yet they also want to show voters that on a personal level, they’re friendly and caring and open-minded and tolerant. We’ve now reached the point where a national figure is expected to have gay friends or family members, and treat them with dignity and respect.
The problem is that the policy position the Republican candidates have taken isn’t friendly or caring or open-minded or tolerant, and focusing on what they would or wouldn’t do personally lets them off the hook. Does a presidential candidate deserve credit for not being a jerk to his cousin who’s getting married? Sure. But what really matters is the decisions he’d make that would affect millions of lives.
By: Paul Waldman, Senior Writer, The American Prospect; Contributor, The Plum Line Blog, The Washington Post, April 22, 2015
“Ted Cruz, Christian Warrior Supreme”: Hell-Bent On Outhustling Everybody For Allegiance Of Evangelical Crackro-Americans
Even as we learn that on at least one occasion the scion of the Ultimate WASP Family, Jeb Bush, identified himself as “Hispanic,” an actual Hispanic proto-candidate for president, Ted Cruz, seems hell-bent on outhustling everybody for the allegiance of conservative evangelical Crackro-Americans. Per a report from Politico‘s Alex Isenstadt, Cruz ran the first campaign ads of the cycle over Eastern Weekend on programs (especially the latest biblical docum-drama, A.D. The Bible Continues, which premiered last night) with special appeal to Cruz’s fellow Southern Baptists. Cruz’s staff was very open with Isenstadt about their candidate’s dedication to Bible-thumping:
Ted Cruz’s aggressive pursuit of the evangelical vote began with a deliberate choice of venue for his presidential announcement two weeks ago: Liberty University, which bills itself as the largest Christian university in the world.
The Texas Republican senator’s strategic play for Christian conservatives comes into even sharper focus this weekend as he rolls out the first television ad of the 2016 race. Titled “Blessing,” the commercial is aimed directly at evangelical and social conservative voters in early voting states, timed for Easter weekend and slated to air during popular Christian-themed programming.
It’s an exercise in narrowcasting that telegraphs exactly how Cruz intends to win the GOP nomination against better-funded and better-known rivals. His advisers say the Liberty University backdrop, the TV ads and even his recent two-day tour of Iowa are all part of a detailed blueprint designed to tap into the power of two distinct GOP wings — evangelicals and the tea party movement.
Since probably about 80% of these two “wings” overlap, it’s an even narrower casting than Isenstadt’s account indicates. But there’s no question the Texan doesn’t have the luxury of being able to rely on any subtle dog-whistling. Mike Huckabee, after all, is an ordained Southern Baptist minister who’s been working this particular audience for eight years. Rick Perry has deep Christian Right roots. Rick Santorum is an accomplished veteran of the campaign to build counter-cultural ties between conservative evangelicals and “traditionalist” Catholics. And Bobby Jindal’s tongue has been lolling out for about a year now in his relentless pursuit of the mantle of the Christian Right’s very best friend.
So Ted’s got to just come right out and say things others may just imply. One indicator of how it’s going may well be the extent to which he deploys the powerful but perilous weapon of his deranged father, the Rev. Rafael Cruz. In “Blessing,” he plays the bit role of a drunken would-be deadbeat dad saved by Jesus. If Rafael starts speaking in his son’s ads, Ted’s campaign to become the Christian Warrior Supreme is either going really well or really badly.
By: Ed Kligore, Contributing Writer, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, April 6, 2015
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