News Roundup - Hour 1
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-08-06/news-roundup-hour-1
President Barack Obama gestures during a briefing about the ongoing response to the BP oil spill, at the Gulfport Coast Guard Station in Gulfport, Miss., in June 2010
Official White House photo by Pete Souza via Flickr
California's ban on gay marriage is struck down. BP's runaway well may finally be sealed. And the House is called back into session to vote on a state aid bill. A panel of journalists joins guest host Susan Page for analysis of the week's top national news stories.
Guests
E.J. Dionne Jr.
senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, Washington Post columnist, and author of "Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right" and of "Stand Up Fight Back."
Margaret Talev
White House correspondent, McClatchy Newspapers.
Stephen Dinan
Congressional bureau chief, The Washington Times.
Friday News Roundup Video
The panelists respond to a caller who disagreed with a California judge's decision to overturn the ban on gay marriage in that state, and mull the future of the legal debate over the issue across the nation:
The panelists talk about the history behind the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and explore recent efforts by some Republican lawmakers to repeal citizenship rights for children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants:
Comments
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@ Etaoin Shrdlu
"Marriage rights are entirely a creation of statutory law." Yes, I know.
And yet you said, "I don’t agree that the Constitution requires gay marriage."
I would have simply said the Constitution does not require marriage.
Why did you specify "gay marriage" in that statement instead of marriage in general? Perhaps a reflexive, uninterrogated heterosexist bias?
To cbc (writing on August 6, 2010 - 11:52 am):
Here is a thought: consider a Christian born after the entire U.S. has allowed religious freedom to Jews. Christian children will grow up in a world being taught and likely believing that there is no inherent difference between Christianity and Judaism, that they are of equal value.
To me it would seem that these children are being cheated of what many consider to be an important truth: that “religious correctness” is important, that a faith that worships Jesus is not the same thing as one that doesn’t. These children will be deprived of the freedom you and I had to make our choices knowing that society recognized (until recently) that salvation is through Jesus alone. Does that make sense?
I am in favor of preserving traditional discrimination against Judaism, not so much because I am worried about my rights but because I am deeply interested that the rising generation be able to make choices based on truth.
Sir or madam, in case this was “too subtle” for you, I’m being sarcastic in order to demonstrate what utter nonsense you wrote!
No doubt you care deeply about this issue and have spent significant time thinking about it. Let me simply explain why this issue is important to me. In a phrase, it is to preserve the sanctity of the family.
The family is the fundamental unit of society. It is the where children are raised, nurtured, and taught how to be responsible, ethical, capable adults. Children have the best chance at success when there is a mother and father in the home who love each other and who love their children. To support my claim that both mother and father are necessary in the home I would refer you to social scientist studies that show how children raised in homes without both mother and father present are more likely (not automatically of course) to engage in harmful behavior. There are always exceptions, but generally speaking, success in the home seems most likely under the above stated conditions.
I care about preserving the family. Our government would do well to also care about promoting stable families that produce law abiding citizens as that would reduce their need of policing and regulating deviant behavior.
Where does gay marriage fit into this picture? Quite frankly, it's a minor appendage to a bigger concern regarding families. The disintegration of the family has been happening for decades now (increases in divorce, co-habitation, kids being raised in day care centers, teen sex/pregnancy, having children out of wedlock, etc.). Maybe families are a lost cause, but I hope not.
@ Elizabeth C.
I see. Blame The Gays. It's The Gays fault.
Sexual orientation is not "deviant behavior". And what of single parent families? Shall we make them illegal?
The stench of special rights for heterosexuals is thick with complacency and entitlement.
I've rarely, if ever, been disappointed across the board with a panel on News Roundup. Today it happened. It seemed clear that none of the panel or the moderator had read Judge Walker's decision in the CA case and were simply talking based on old premises and campaign slogans. In response to the caller who was Morman, no one focused on history of marriage and the eclipse of traditional gender differences, which are well-discussed in the the Judge's decision. No one mentioned that the arguments made against gay marriage are the same arguments made against interracial marriage. No one mentioned that the proponents of Prop 8 simply presented NO evidence at trial, abandoning their claims about the impact on children and families because there is no scientific evidence to support those claims. The panel was completely confused and all of the comments were simply wrong about the nationwide application of a US Supreme Court decision on this topic. If panelist do not know the topic, they should simply say so and not speak further. I was embarrassed for Diane this morning. An apology is due to listeners for this uninformed discussion.
Mark Graff on August 6, 2010 @ 1:54 pm wrote: “Marriage rights are entirely a creation of statutory law. Yes, I know. And yet you said, I don’t agree that the Constitution requires gay marriage. Why did your statement specify gay marriage and not marriage in general? Perhaps an uninterrogated heterosexist bias?”
The answer to your question, sir, is found in the parts of my prior comment you left out: “We have plenty of legal rights that are not required by the Constitution . . . . The legal question in this case was whether the Constitution requires that those rights be extended to gay couples. I don’t believe it does, though I do believe such rights should be extended.”
Get it? We don’t need the Constitution to have marriage rights. The legal question is whether (in the name of Equal Protection, for example) those rights must be extended to gays - a completely different issue .
As for my having a “heterosexist bias”, if that were true why do I support extending those rights to gays? Shouldn’t I oppose it? It’s one thing to think Prop. 8 is bad law (which I do), and that recognizing gay marriage is good law (which I do), it’s another thing to say the courts should change the law. It’s the old distinction between the ends and the means.
Viellicht on August 6, 2010 @ 1:13 pm wrote: “‘Democracy is NOT just symply majority rule. It is about life, liberty and the persuit of happiness and protecting the rights of all--especially the rights of the few from the many! Thank you the framers of the Constitution!"
Unfortunately, your argument is as simplistic as that of people who oppose gay marriage. As I’ve said elsewhere, we have many legal rights that do not come from the Constitution. The real question is whether the rights to Due Process and Equal Protection (which are in the Constitution) require extending marriage rights to gay couples.
By the way, the Constitution does not mention “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. That’s from the Declaration of Independence, which is not part of our law.
Mark Graff on August 6, 2010 @ 1:47 pm wrote: “I have been in Gay Rights activism and AIDS activism for 20 years. I have not ever known of explicit support from ADL or those other groups”.
And so have I. The difference between us, sir, is that I’m not deaf, dumb, and blind. I’ve seen plenty of instances where the “ADL or those other groups” have joined in rallies for gay rights, and actively worked for gay rights. I’ve offered you just a few examples, and you are too bigoted to even consider that maybe you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Do the research, unless you’re afraid of the truth!
@ Etaoin Shrdlu
"The answer to your question, sir, is found in the parts of my prior comment you left out..."
There is no such statement or answer in your "prior" comment.
Again, why not simply say, "I don’t agree that the Constitution requires marriage." Why specify "gay marriage" in that statement at all?
Must be a generational thing. People of a certain age just don't get it.
Elizabeth C. on August 6, 2010 @ 1:57 pm wrote: “”Let me simply explain why this issue is important to me. In a phrase, it is to preserve the sanctity of the family. . . . I would refer you to social scientist studies that show how children raised in homes without both mother and father present are more likely (not automatically of course) to engage in harmful behavior.”
Hogwash. As my sarcastic rejoinder demonstrated, one can uphold the “sanctity” of the Christian faith without having to denigrate Judaism. The same principle holds true for gay marriage.
There is no connection between the harms you fear and allowing gays to marry. There are plenty of “studies” that show children raised by gay parents do just fine, thank you. There’s even an indication they may do better! (Though I wouldn’t turn that into an argument against “traditional families”.)
The other things you mention (increases in divorce, co-habitation, kids being raised in day care centers, teen sex/pregnancy, having children out of wedlock, etc.) differ in this material respect from gay marriage.
Divorce, obviously, is the “death” of a marriage. One cannot divorce without ending a marriage, thus the “threat” from divorce is clear. (That’s not a good reason to outlaw divorce, however. Forcing people to stay married to someone they loathe is idiocy.)
Similarly, those other ills have nothing to do with gay marriage. They existed long before gay marriage, and will continue to exist even if all gay marriages are banned. Your argument reminds me of the old joke about the guy who constantly snaps his fingers to keep the dinosaurs away!
Mark Graff on August 6, 2010 @ 2:31 pm wrote: “You made no such statement in a ‘prior’ comment.”
Oh, brother! You really do need to get your eyes examined. Here’s what I wrote in my Comment @ 1:43pm:
"We have plenty of legal rights that are not required by the Constitution: the doctor/patient and attorney/client privileges for example. Marriage rights are entirely a creation of statutory law. The legal question in this case was whether the Constitution requires that those rights be extended to gay couples. I don’t believe it does, though I do believe such rights should be extended."
Emphasis is added to the parts I re-quoted in my 2:05 pm Comment:
"We have plenty of legal rights that are not required by the Constitution . . . . The legal question in this case was whether the Constitution requires that those rights be extended to gay couples. I don’t believe it does, though I do believe such rights should be extended."
See, they are the same. These are the statements in question.
As for why I specified “gay marriage”. Gee, I dunno, maybe because it’s the topic of this discussion!
Why don’t you save your energy for someone who opposes gay marriage? I support it! (I just don’t believe it’s a constitutional issue.)
I wonder how supportive of “democracy” the Mormon caller would be if his group were the target of Prop 8? Would he justify a ban on Mormons marrying each other with the argument that they retain the same right as everyone else: to marry a non-Mormon? That’s like the old line about how the law, with wonderful equality, prohibits both rich and poor from sleeping under bridges!
Prejudice, bigotry, is more than just an animus directed against a particular group. We can be prejudiced in our thinking. The word literally means to “pre-judge”, to reach a conclusion without full consideration of all the facts.
Hatred and bigotry are intertwined, of course. But so is ignorance. One of the most vile pieces of bigotry was the infamous “blood libel”: the charge that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood to bake matzo. Not only was it a monstrous accusation, but it was especially vile considering that the Jews were the first people to outlaw human sacrifice (the point of the story of the binding of Isaac), and that the Torah forbids consuming blood.
The blood libel worked, of course, because most Christians were ignorant of Judaism (except for being told repeatedly “the Jews killed Christ”), and because it preyed upon the natural desire to protect the helpless: children in this case. Those who “fell for it” came to hate Jews because they honestly thought Jews were a threat. That was the source of their bigotry. A desire to protect children is noble, but falsely calling Jews a threat to children is still bigotry.
I trust the similarity with accusations made against gays is clear.
@ Elizabeth C
Let’s say for the sake of argument that your are correct when you write, “Children have the best chance at success when there is a mother and father in the home who love each other and who love their children.” To promote just the sort of union you favor, more than 1,000 rights, benefits and protections that are provided by our marriage laws. How well do they work?
More than one-third of children are born out of wedlock, and that’s just for starters. What about the remaining two-thirds of children who are born within marriage. As we know, the divorce rate if roughly 50%. All things being equal, half of the remaining two-thirds (or another one third of all children born) end up without a mother and father together in the home. That means that the laws designed to promote marriage fail twice as often as they succeed.
Now, here’s what I see as the kicker. Think of the families you know that fall within that remaining one-third, families with a mother and father who love each other and who love their children. If there were no laws bestowing numerous rights and benefits, how many of these families would cease to exist? How many of these mothers and fathers love each other and their children because the state has passed laws that reward them? I don’t know any loving families that are a product of the state. I suspect you don't either.
As I see it, the laws to “promote” the kinds of families you favor don’t promote families. Loving families would exist with or without these laws. If these laws don’t promote families as claimed, then they are nothing more than spoils doled out to the politically favored, and that’s wrong.
What is the solution? Give these legal rights and benefits to all couples in a committed relationship, or give them to no one. To do otherwise because we like one group more than another is discriminatory.
I found the argument presented by the Mormon fellow to be particularly offensive. He stated that gays already have the right to marry (within the context of heterosexual marriage only) and that "moral" arguments have no place in the courts. Blacks in the South in the 1950s had the right to drink from a public drinking fountain and they had the right to sit on the bus. We all know exactly what those "rights" entailed. A HUGE MAJORITY of voters in the South at that time would have kept the limitations. Does that make them proper? Did the courts have the right to get in the way of the majority vote? Weren't white preachers thumping on Bibles at that time talking about the "moral" correctness of segregation? I am not at all interested in the "moral" trump card being thrown at me by conservatives, Mormons, Catholics, or any other religious or political group.
@ Elizabeth C.
So you want to deny equal rights to LGBT people because heterosexuals are not living up to your standards in the marriage department? Completely illogical.
I found the marriage debate on the show to be disappointing, an uninformed panel that missed some significant points. State constitutions have been amended across the country because the legal argument for denying equal rights falls flat on its face, the argument against marriage cannot be made without using prejudice that's usually based in religious beliefs, an argument void of facts. The only way to prevent LGBT people from gaining full and equal rights in the long run is to amend the US Constitution and there is not enough political will to do so. This is about a relatively weak minority seeking protection from mob rule in a homophobic society through the Constitution and court system. An "activist" court system designed to be a check and balance against the will of the majority.