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Once again, it takes a comedian to point out the absurdity of the Republican stance against gay marriage, something no journalist appears willing to take on. In presumably an attempt to appeal to the young vote, Republican presidential nominee John McCain appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and Ellen wasted no time talking about the "elephant in the room."
McCain didn't dance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, but he did field some tough questions on Ellen's upcoming marriage to actress Portia de Rossi in a newly legalized California civil ceremony. [..] She told the senator and the audience that she will be soon marrying her longtime girlfriend. She said she was planning on marrying her before the state made it legal and asked McCain what his thoughts are on the same-sex marriage issue.
McCain said, "I think that people should be able to enter into legal agreements and it's something that we should encourage, particularly in the case of insurance and other areas and decisions that have to be made. I just believe in the unique status of marriage between a man and a woman and I know that we have a respectful disagreement on that issue."
Ellen responded, "I think that it is looked at and some people are saying the same that blacks and women did not have the right to vote. Women just got the right to vote in 1920. Blacks didn't have the right to vote until 1870 and it just feels like there's this old way of thinking that we are not all the same. We are all the same people. All of us. You are no different than I am. Our love is the same. To me, what it feels like, I will just speak for myself, it feels like when someone says, 'You can still have a contract and you'll still have insurance and you'll get all that' -- it sounds like you can sit there, but you can't sit there. That's what is sounds like to me."
What McCain had to say was interesting in many ways--including his lack of honesty on his position regarding domestic partnerships. He told Ellen he opposed gay marriage--or her "position" on that issue, a strange way to put it when it is not a "position" to her, but an issue that affects her everyday life as she intends to marry her partner now that the California Supreme Court has asserted the legality of the practice.
But then he went on to once again redefine his position on the issue:
McCain, who also opposes an amendment to the Constitution to ban same-sex unions, said people should be encouraged to enter into legal agreements, particularly for insurance and other areas where decisions need to be made.
The problem is that McCain himself not only supported an amendment to the Arizona Constitution in 2006 that would have banned any "legal agreements" including "insurance" for domestic partners, but he cut advertisements for the measure (which failed). He also told prominent campaign supporter the late Jerry Falwell--who blamed 9/11 on gays and lesbians, among others--that if state constitutional measures such as this one were struck down by the courts, he would then support a federal gay-marriage ban.
*Gasp* Say it ain't so! Could this be another McCain flip-flop LIE????
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She's correct
Reminds me of McDonalds: "Over 100000000 flip-flops served!"
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He DID dance. He danced around the question, and badly, too.
Nice job, Ellen.
L.A. Confidential @ 3:
Sounds like the school I went to.
Whens Obama doing this show. Or has he already?
I watch about 12 hours of TV a year.
McCain ....... more flip flops then a tuna boat deck.
Jo @ 5:
Maybe we were classmates. I felt the same way. All the excitement was out in the "Real World".
It reminds me of the argument used during segregation: Separate but equal.
As we all know it was separate but equality had nothing to do with it.
I'm already exhausted from trying to track McSame's position switches. Didn't John Kerry get crucified for this? The MSM's love affair with this guy is baffling. He can do no wrong. They're still feeding the public that crap about him being a "moderate, straight-talking maverick." And as we know, repeat a lie often enough and it will soon be accepted as the truth. My fear is that the majority of Americans (not exactly a deep thinking group) will buy this load of shit.
We very well could be looking at a third Bush term.
I wish Ellen would have said something like "Are you just saying that because you're a Republican and need to appeal to religious bigots? C'mon, tell us what you really think."
He was on it already about two months ago. Ellen said it was the best dance she's ever had on the show.
She still supports Hillary.
Off topic but what in the hell is Arianna's bitch with the Clinton's anyway?
She missed the point and let him skate. His position is that he will defend his interests not hers.
... to her face.
This man believes that he does you a favor by forcing his values on you.
It was shocking watching her smile in his presence.
McBush "We respectively disagree.."
When a conservative (usually a white heterosexual christian man who gets all the "special rights" in this country) "respectfully disagrees", what that means is that they stand in the way of those they "respectfully disagree" with from getting the same special rights and privileges they get until they are drug kicking and screaming into modernity. ie: women's rights, rights for African Americans now gay rights. Easy to sit back and "respectfully disagree" when you get all the rights and privileges.
Of course, this is the same McCain who cheated on his first wife with a rich young thang (his current wife) - after his first wife stood by him while he was a POW.
Now he wants to talk about the sanctity of marriage.
Anyone out there in the blogosphere have a list of all the flip-flops McCain's done? If so, I know it must've taken quite some to list them ALL.
L.A. Confidential @ 8:
Maybe that is why television is so boring. I never watch the thing either. It IS a vast wasteland. The only TV I get is right here on C&L.
Is this never going to end? Can we let these repugs continue to treat gay/lesbian couples as last class citizens? Not even Chaney would support his daughter.
These people are pure slime.
The Truth Hurts @ 10:
This just means we have to repeat the truth more often and louder than their lies. As we have seen with the Hagee deal, eventually the MSM is FORCED to pay attention and report the facts or risk looking like they don't know what's going on. They know he's no maverick but it's too much like work to change their spiel without a large amount of prompting (that would be us).
Jo @ 17:
I stopped when I realized TV was making me ill. Especially the commercials.
FastMovingCloud @ 12:
Sorry. I meant this to be a response to LA Confidential's question. (Must hit "quote this comment")
Ellen just doesn't "get it". If she were heir to true American blood heritage, she would understand.
Frankly I think Ellen should have shot back with "And I think we should have a law banning marriages between polticial and social scheming adulterers and drug-addled, ghoulish Barbie-looking weirdos, but I know you and I respectfully disagree on that subject as well, don't we Sen, McCain? By the way, did you fly to the show on your wife's plane?"
L.A. Confidential @ 6:
He was on October 29, and danced.
No one here is going to vote for McCain.
Which is fine.
Who here wants a better America?
Everyone, I suspect.
Who running for president is going to make a better America?
Go back and find the video of him on Hardball a couple of years ago when Matthews asked him about gay marriage and he said he was fine with it. Then the show went to commercials and when it returned he changed his answer.
Well, as much as I hate to say it, it isn't like the vast majority of Dems can claim superiority on this issue.
Once again, it's not about what McSame thinks or "the others" feel about homosexuals getting married. It's about equal protection under the law. And Ellen said it in her very congenial manner: it's not just that it 'feels' like the old way thinking, it IS the way of thinking.
It truly doesn't matter what anyone OPINION is about so-called gay marriage. Their opinion really doesn't matter. If we have laws in this country that protects civil rights, those protections extend to EVERYONE. There aren't one set of laws for one group of people and one set for another. Our country has done that many times in the past, and it was wrong. Morality has nothing to do with it. Either we extend the laws of the land to everyone or we don't. I prefer we do, regardless of what ever the persons' creed is.
On a side note, I so enjoyed Mc-Old Fashioned sitting there doing his very best to contort his feeble logic and package into the nice little box of "We respectfully disagree". That's a load of garbage and condesending to boot.
Banana OUT!
Saint Augustine @ 24:
He do the moon walk or hip hop?
Reich-Wingers, please explain to us how same sex marriage is unconstitutional.
We'll wait for your answer....
Haha. Wow, does McCain look uncomfortable! Why did he even agree to go on the show?
I believe that everyone has gay tendencies anyway. I do not believe in this 100% heterosexual or 100% homosexual stuff.
I think sexuality is a very complex thing no matter what anyone says. People's sexuality can fluctuate over a lifetime. But, America is such a sexually repressed country compared to nation-states in Europe, that one would think American's attitudes toward sexuality is of the norm in industrial countries. It is rather odd but not inconsistent with history that even with all the sexual repression in America, that the adult porn industry is flourishing.
These elections should show Americans just how socially regressive America actually and that tolerance for being different is not tolerated in a nation that claims other leaders of the world detest because of such "freedom that is allowed here." Freedom of speech is allowed in America as long as its agreeable "language" that does not upset the apple cart.
All in all, Ellen DeGeneres is correct. But in this country-America where social regression is the NORM, gay marriage will be detested by political and religious hacks who oppose freedom and champion regression, and yes, I almost forgot, and, preach sexual repression.
That is exactly why McCain will be the next president. He can say or do anything he wants and the brain dead American voters
will hear only what the military industrial complex wants them to hear. Get ready for grandpa McCain!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is that jerk McCain is trying an end run around the issue like Darth Cheney pulled in 2004?
So far Repugs have succeded in appearing "caring" about gays when confronted personally, (see Cheney's stated support for his daughter) while pursuing policies that placate their gay loathing base.
I don't know if McCain's stated support of civil unions is simply another lie, or is another slip up that provides more evidence of his senility.
Spuds @ 32:
Nope. Believe what you want but your wrong.
McCain is such an old dumb douche. Makes him the perfect Republican.
The repugs have gotten very good at conflating equality with sexual preference which they do to keep the average joe on their side on this issue.
How many times have you heard, "I just think marriage should be between a man and a woman"?
The response should be, "I don't give a shit about your sexual preferences, we're talking about the law!"
Scy @ 36:
It's an inevitable part of life.
Man-on-dog Ricky Sanatorium has equated a loving homosexual relationship to incest and equates same sex marriage to skyrocketing birthrates in Norway.
Really....are you reich-wingers that fing dumb?
I just caught this on CNN a "news" organization that not only have never confronted McCain on this issue,but after showing the Ellen clip,failed to note that he outright lied to her-pandering phony bastard that he is.
Dr. (Bitter Hussein) Matt @ 30:
They can't do it without bringing the Biblical definition of marriage into the discussion... which should have nothing to do with it. If the law should be changed, change it.
An individual has the right to believe that marriage is only 'right' if it is between a man and a woman. If they believe that is Biblical law, then they should follow Biblical law and marry accordingly themselves and stop dictating to the rest of the country. People are supposed to be able to decide for themselves and as for everyone else, it is none of their business and they don't have the right to judge. What is so hard about that?
I've come to believe that "Christianity" as it's practiced by most American xtians today is all about passing, not withholding, judgement.
Blue Lensman @ 42:
It's a all a colossal guilt trip. Authority can not exist without guilt.
I respectfully disagree with Ellen that she and McCain are the same. Even if all she had done was make Mr. Wrong she'd still be one up on him.
Rusty Shackleford @ 44:
She actually said that?
VietVet8666 @ 25:
That's an easy one. It aint McCain.
Oh wait Ellen's beem assimilated into the GE-NBC Borg Machine I forgot that.
Blue Lensman @ 42:
Yup. They conveniently forget or rationalize their way out of that passage about "Judge not lest ye be judged". And the part about all sins being equal in God's eyes must have been left out of their Bibles otherwise they would know that someone who tells the smallest lie is equal to the gay man (or woman) they just turned their backs on.
Stupid.
The answer to this dilemma is simple and obvious: The government should be totally absent from the issue of marriage. The government should regard every citizen as an individual (tax code, finance, etc.). -- No judgments about relationships. If a couple (or threesome, foursome, etc.) chooses to enter a legal contract that they are financially responsible for each other -- fine. But this has nothing to do with marriage.
L.A. Confidential @ 35:
My husband worked for the NSA. Every five years, he had to take a lie detector test in order to keep his security clearance. Part of the questions were "gay" in nature (have you ever thought, fantasized, etc.) He passed the test but reviewer told him that there were indictions on the fantasy questions. Randy got upset but the reviewer told him not to worry, "everyone was a little bit interested and fantasized - it was a part of human nature."
And, yes, before you say anything, there are examples of homosexual behavior in the animal kingdom, especially among primates.
"In just the last decade, its heterosexual-marriage rates have nose-dived and its out-of-wedlock birthrate skyrocketed to 80 percent for firstborn children."
[...]
It would appear that these two factoids could not be any more incongruous. How would homosexual marriage increase any birthrate? What on earth would one have to do with the other? I knew Man-on-dog was a nutjob that made his own "facts" but I had no idea how much nonsense he would spew to make his point.
The good news is that after seeing that deer-in-headlight look Grampa had at the end when Ellen started digging in it's a certainty that Obama is going to mop the floor with the old man in any debates.
No disrespect intended to old men, floor moppers or deer.
Different Anonymous @ 52:
As an occasional floor mopper let me just say, none taken.
I can't speak for old men or deer.
This one is too obvious. If McCain opens his mouth and says that he thinks that people should recieve equal treatment under the law, and that people should not be prevented from marrying the person of their choice, he would lose the endorsement of Rod Parsley and John Hagee and their television flocks. McCain is just a panderer. I heard someone refer to him today as "Windvane McCain". Spot on.
Maverick Straightalk has secured the nomination of his party. He doesn't need to kiss the ass of the Christ-o-fascists any longer but he chooses too. He could run to the middle now but he chooses not too. Maverick Straightalk is too afraid to cut and run from the bigots, homophobes and hatemongers that are his party's base.
F. Reeder @ 49:
But, it is totally absent from the issue of marriage. The government's only involvement is ordaining clergymen, ministers, judges etc with the power to marry couples. The problem is the Christian right wants to draw a line in the sand that says: this is where you start respecting America as a country rooted in Christian values. As far as they are concerned, gays should appreciate their tolerance.
Two points.
1) Marriage is a construct of the church
2) A civil union is a construct of the government
Civil unions should have all the rights & responsibility of marriage same sex or not.
If a same sex couple can find a church to marry them then they are married.
It doesn't matter if the state recognizes same sex marriage or not, because it's a church issue not a government issue.
If a same sex couple finds a church to marry them, they still need to register as a civil union for the government to recognize the relationship.
Kay @ 57:
Counter Point. Marriage is not a construct of the church, not has it ever been exclusive to the church. It's basically being said that the definition of marriage will be redefine just so it won't apply to gays. The fact that gays want to marry is the only reason under the sun for discussing which marriages the word "marriage" should apply to. Being an equal opportunity offender doesn't make any less offencive.
The same churches that are preaching against gay marriage are the exact same churches that used to preached against inter-racial marriage.
ya....and we all know how much mcadulterer respected his first marriage now....dont we
if gays want to be as miserable as straight married people, i say the more power to them
Ellen is right in theory (and on moral issue liberals usually are). Unfortunately the correct, noble, intellectually-alive conclusion is not as valuable as the will to power, and it no longer has any sway in the political theater, thanks to lazy, liberal inaction for eight or more years (blogging has done dick for you).
McCain, in a completely honest universe, would have responded, "Oh no, you're wrong. I have much, much more power than you, and I'll have even more in 5 months when your noble, conscientous, intellectually-alive candidate loses again." Sadly, lefties prefer the numbing, baroque, abstract null-game of trying to reach republicans via logic, and/or exposing their pile of contradictions. The left never learns that it will take more than a sophmoric heart to heart to topple those who want power. This ruse leaves the left chronically impotent politically. As it will again this November with the next "can't win candidate" (can't-idate?) Obama.
Ahhhhh the "Loser Democratic Hopeful," a fine tradition going on for about thirty years now; Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry... and now Obama (or Hillary, it didn't matter which of them was chosen). Neither of them would have the numbers (or the platform) that reactionary voters will vote for.
You know, I realize that McCrazy is an absolute piece of shit who doesn't give a fuck about the troops and consequently would have voted against the new GI Bill, but you think he would have thought that the GI Bill coming up for vote in the Senate would have been important enough for him to at least be in Washington for the vote. I guess not, huh?
I guess we couldn't ask Ellen to ask McCain why he isn't being honest with the American people about his position on gay marriage and civil unions and federal amendments to ban gay marriage, since even America's "journalists" won't ask him. In fact America's "journalists" give John McCain cover for his untruthful position.
your mama @ 61:
You are absolutely correct. Democrats will lose again in November. And will be wondering "what happened".
kerplunk @ 64:
Bullshit !
mudshark @ 65:
What Mudshark said!
I hate to say it, but before we jump on the McCain-hates-gays bandwagon, we should think about the fact that his position on same sex marriage is pretty much indistinguishable from either Obama's or Clinton's position.
I'm gay and a strong Obama supporter, but this is something I've struggled with quite a bit...
your mama @ 61:
You are, of course, incorrect. Your conclusion is your largest error. There is no way the Republicans are going to keep the White House. If McCain was truly honest he would have said, "Ellen, if I thought I could win this election by giving you away; hell if I thought I could win this election by declaring myself to be gay, by golly I would. But you know what? I am running in the Republican Party and the only way I can win is to convince the right wing Christians. If they demanded that i burn you at the stake I would do my damnedest."
Eleanor @ 67:
A Presidential Candidate can not win if he or she supports gay marriage. You have to ask yourself who it is you think would be the most sympathetic. Such is the state of America's ignorance.
McCain said, “I think that people should be able to enter into legal agreements and it’s something that we should encourage, particularly in the case of insurance and other areas and decisions that have to be made. I just believe in the unique status of marriage between a man and a woman and I know that we have a respectful disagreement on that issue.”
I just don't get this! What is a marriage license if not a legal agreement? My husband and I got a marriage license and were wed on a Navy base by a retired Federal Magistrate and at no point in the ceremony was there anything of a religious nature! We are still married 11 years later. If we wanted to end the "legal agreement" (marriage) is it not true we would need a judge to finalize it?!?!
AAARRRRGGGHHH!!!!
Kay @ 57:
Incorrect, although it probably should be the way that you stated it in the two points. You don't apply to the church for a marriage license, therefore marriage is most certainly a construct of the government. While a church may perform a wedding ceremony after a marriage license is issued by the government, without the government's involvement it is worthless.
Perhaps you meant that his is how it should be, not how it is currently or in the past.
Eleanor @ 67:
I actually don't think that his is the case at all. Clinton and Obama both support civil unions an a national level that gives all of the same benefits and rights of marriage. While I would agree that calling it another name is not a great solution, it is a start. McCain supports civil unions on the State level which is quite a difference. It is no different than what exists in Vermont today. While you can be "unionized" or however you would call it in Vermont, it is meaningless in the nearest State.
The Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton solution, depending on which you like better, is a much bigger step. The McCain plan is to avoid it altogether and let the States sort it out, which would provide very little to gay people. It is hard to say that we live in a global economy; however your union is invalid at the nearest State line.
McCain wants it both ways. He wants Hagee's endorsement one moment then Ellen's in the next moment.
he won't walk you down the isle. but if he was prez he'd kick you to the curb
the position against gay rights crosses party lines. It's bigotry no matter how it's played. One does not have to be gay nor even particularly favorably disposed toward the life style to know that to oppose the rights of others is wrong, wrong, wrong. mark these words and they will be prophetic: fifty years from now school children will read about this kind of discrimination against homosexuals with the same kind of disgust that children today read about segregation that occurred in the south as well as parts of the north.
Oh that those i would vote for had the testicular fortitude to stand up and proclaim what is right, though it may initially cost them dearly.
L.A. Confidential @ 29:
I dunno, did Hillary line dance or went straight for the honkie tonk?
Marriage is an archaic method of property transfer.
Gretchen @ 48:
...as well as the husband who sleeps in the same bed as his wife when she's having her period, or anyone who eats shrimp or crabs (or any other non-finned marine organism.) They qualify as an "abomination" according to Leviticus.
And no one's been able to tell me where all the rest of the people in the world came from once Cain slew Abel. Did Cain have sex with his mother (the only woman on the planet, according to Genesis?)
no longer a proud american @ 75:
Spot on!! Our decendants will wonder why we didn't see the obvious logic in this, and think us either stupid or intolerant - or both.