McCain isn't sure what to think about gay adoption
By Steve Benen Tuesday Jul 15, 2008 4:00pm
John McCain sat down with the New York Times the other day for a wide-ranging interview that covered quite a bit of ground. The NYT brought up a culture-war subject that we haven’t heard too much about lately.
Q: President Bush believes that gay couples should not be permitted to adopt children. Do you agree with that?
McCain: I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no I don’t believe in gay adoption.
Q: Even if the alternative is the kid staying in an orphanage, or not having parents.
McCain: I encourage adoption and I encourage the opportunities for people to adopt children I encourage the process being less complicated so they can adopt as quickly as possible. And Cindy and I are proud of being adoptive parents.
Q: But your concern would be that the couple should [be] a traditional couple–
McCain: Yes.
Now we’ve known for a while that when it comes to opposition to gay rights, McCain is pretty extreme. He not only campaigned in support of an Arizona anti-gay measure a couple of years ago, McCain is even on record opposing civil unions at the state level. Hell, McCain is so far out there, he’d even remove well-trained U.S. troops from the military — in the midst of two wars, when the Armed Forces are severely stretched — if they’re gay, calling them an “intolerable risk.”
But to say that a child would be better off in an orphanage than a stable household with gay parents is surprisingly callous. It’s not even premised on reality — McCain said “we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family.” It’s not clear who “we” are, but the evidence actually points in the opposite direction.
Today, the McCain campaign reversed course, arguing that McCain didn’t mean what he said.
Jill Hazelbaker, McCain’s director of communications, emailed Andrew Sullivan directly:
“McCain could have been clearer in the interview in stating that his position on gay adoption is that it is a state issue, just as he made it clear in the interview that marriage is a state issue. He was not endorsing any federal legislation.
“McCain’s expressed his personal preference for children to be raised by a mother and a father wherever possible. However, as an adoptive father himself, McCain believes children deserve loving and caring home environments, and he recognizes that there are many abandoned children who have yet to find homes. McCain believes that in those situations that caring parental figures are better for the child than the alternative.”
Well, yes, I suppose McCain “could have been clearer,” given that what he said, and what Hazelbaker described as his policy, are completely different.
In reality, my suspicion is that McCain simply doesn’t know what he thinks. The Times brought up a topic that he doesn’t frequently consider, heard the word “gay,” and reflexively expressed his opposition.
I’m glad McCain’s position on July 15 is better than McCain’s position on July 13, but I’d be even happier if he could get the basics right the first time.
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Thinkin's fer libruls.
Latency obviously. I'll be the Cong cornhole'd him so many times that he got to like it a bit too much.
Watch out fer Teh Gay!
This is not an abusive comment!
I know the MsM loves McCain and keep shilling for him, but does Crooks have to constantly post negative on him, even with a non news post like this one? I hate him too, and of course he is against gay adoption. That is not news or out of character for even a Republican "maverick".
I guess my point is that we KNOW who he is, but we don't really know Obama. Obama has been saying and doing stuff for the past few weeks that are freaking this Democrat out!!
I would like to see Crooks try to hold Obama's feet to the fire more than lampoon the already ridiculous McCain!
Just my opinion! Thanks for the means to express it.
Wow! Wonder what the Vice President thinks about that view. What say, Dick?
BobDobbs @ 2:
What an offensive thing to say. I hate McCain but jeez that was bad.
Maybe Doug and Wendie Whiner could adopt.
Leadership @ 6:
Yeah, a smidge over the top :-)
Remember Reslug idiots only care about the unborn babies and then once they're born they ignore them.
Leadership @ 4:
1. Find some positives.
2. I think C&L was somewhat perturbed about Obama's about-face on FISA, and I do not recall them being overly shy about expressing their feelings regarding that.
McCain Opposes Gay Adoption of Highways
ysbaddaden @ 7:
Even worse, how about all of the foster homes where kids go and are abused. Maybe they could go here - http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g_aPAOC23O5bWyTr-WeidyQq6r9wD91UJOV0B
McC*nt clearly thinks it's still 1953. His views are far removed from today's reality.
He's a joke. A stumbling, decaying fossil who's "still learning to get on the Internet."
Go back to the home, Grandpa. Your time has come....and definitely gone.
Mmmmmmm, nice breeze from McCaint's latest flip-flop....
Leadership @ 4:
Obama is a centrist, which in today's twisted frame is located just to the right of center. I've got it through my thick leftist skull that I'm probably gonna like Obama as much as I liked Clinton, which isn't much. But I wouldn't like McCain at all; he just bleeding scares the shite out of me.
I think that McCain's negative points need to be stressed as many times in as many places as possible between now and Nov IMOHO
Ricky Bones @ 8:
I think its more like a lot over the top. Is the site-moniter asleep? That's got to be against the commenting policy. No offense intended to the SM's.
How about shortening the title of the post to: "McCain doesn't know what to think."
More apropos.
What is the problem here? I adopted a couple gay guys a while ago. They are really useful around the house and are wonderful at parties. How could anyone be against adopting gays?
Mickxotic @ 15:
Exactly how I'm feeling.
JudyLou @ 14:
Hey c'mon, why is the NYT even asking this kind of question? Don't they know we're at war?
I think we should just start calling him "Thong" McCain. Because he's walking such a tight line on every issue that sometimes he gets caught in the middle of things. ;)
I think Catholic Priests should be allowed to adopt their altar boys.
Mickxotic @ 15:
Both parents? The question was about gay couples, right?
These people piss me off. They call themselves pro-life, but they'll let a kid sit in an orphanage before they let gay people have even the smallest acceptance. They're supposed to be "strong on military matters" but "don't let that gay translator touch anything! He might be contagious."
What an asshole.
We hates McCain, we hates it!
LibertyLover @ 21:
Especially those wedgie issues.
McCain simply doesn’t know what he thinks
But he knows what his religious right-wing bigotted base thinks. And that's who he was consciously and with forethought appealing to with his first answer.
With the second answer, he's simply cravenly trying to have it both ways (as he has throughout this campaign).
LibertyLover @ 21:
Ha-ha!
He has to watch out for the wedgie issues.
No, don't tell me, not another flip flop from McCain. Damn, it's difficult keeping track of what McCain stands for. He's for it then he's against it... I'm getting dizzy trying to follow him.
If McCain gets elected president, he will be 76 years old at the end of his first term. I'm not sure McCain has the energy to be president. All the presidents age considerably during their time in office. Even the boy Bush got old looking and all he did while in office is cover his ass.
Yellow Elephant Safari @ 26:
Missed it by that much. Well played, young elephant.
Cats r Flyfishn @ 29:
See comment at 21...
Cats r Flyfishn @ 29:
He cleared a lot of brush. And he roughed up Angela Merkel. Those are both pretty grueling.
And now the Bush lot are talking to Iran ......... how long till the cries of "flip flopping" and "appeasement" are completely not heard used against the same people that make up that crap ........... I dare say Bush is going to say that he's wanted to talk to them all along and it's the democratically controlled congress that is stopping him ........
In another "policy reasessment" today, John McCain said that he would support gay marriage as long as all children resultant of these unions would be put up for adoption by "normal" families.
Young Elephant and Old Billy... you are too funny!
Documenting McSame's flip-flops is important, and I encourage C&L to continue.
Just remember, McSame is Bush on steroids. The country won't survive another 4 years under the 'thuglicans -- there simply won't be anything left for them to mortgage/steal/give to the wealthy.
And regarding the vulgar remark: grow up! What do you think they did to McSongbird to get him to give up the names of the
Green Bay PackersPittsburgh Steelers? Oh wait... we'll find out when it becomes the official policy of this nation and that will happen if McSame wins!He was against gay adoption before he was for it.
I'm all in favor of adopting gay children.... and straight ones, too. I mean, there's really no need to discriminate.
Whose the agent of intolerance now?
"Both" parents would be "two parents." Are not a gay couple "both" parents? McCain is a dinasour.
That's pure shit. McC*nt would gladly kill gay soldiers in illegal and unwinnable wars just as much as he would support killing straight soldiers.
BTW, why do the reich wingnuts want to save gay soldiers from dieing in wars of agression so badly? Do they have a homo-military fetish they need to support? Why aren't gay people good enough to die useless meaningless deaths just like straight people?
Cats r Flyfishn @ 29:
When he could find it.
What about "snowflakes?" These "unborn babies" don't need just homes, they need wombs to gestate in. Would McCain allow them to degrade in viability rather than give them a chance at life in a loving Gay home?
J² @ 36:
You mean this old man McCain is Bush on steroids? LOL McCain moves so slow and looks so tired I'd hate to see what he is like without the steroids.
Jo @ 42:
With both hands.
LibertyLover @ 35:
It's been a really long time since I've been called young in any context so I'll take it.
Way OT but I've just gotten back from a long hiatus to the north woods of Wisconsin where the news was pretty much all Brett Farve all the time and I had no computer access at all. It's good to be back among my own kind.
I think an adopted child would have better luck in a gay household than in a household run by a drug addicted wench... Cindy McCain for instance.
Mickxotic @ 15:
Listen and watch mccane and he will show you his negative points. Each and every day/hour/minute.
Many here hate John McCain.
Real question: How bad will he be as Pres?
Shoot me down. Ban me.
But if we project our hopes on Obama, what will we get?
My suggestion: Let's vote for change. But let's be realistic.
So leave it up to the states. In some states, if a gay woman gives birth to a child, her partner has to legally adopt the child or possibly lose custody if the birth mother should die unexpectedly. In those instances, the state might take control of the child, taking the child from one of its parents.
If the Civil Rights Act had been left to the states, no progress would ever have been made.
what?
[Haha. Seriously, you need to pick a handle- screen name- and stick with it. And not the one you just used, thank you. Site Monitor]
Other things he doesn't know:
From Yesterday: Czechoslovakia doesn't exist http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/14/mccain-forgets-that-czechoslovakia-i...
From a year ago: Condoms help prevent HIV http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/mccain-stumbles-on-hiv-pre...
Check out the second comment in the second link there (about Cheney/Yugoslavia) for some awesome, 1yr in advance prognosticated unintended hilarity
Leadership @ 4:
I totally agree... what is up with Obama lately?
[Deleted. Off topic. Did you mean to post that on the "contraception=abortion" thread? It will fly there or on an Open Thread. Site Monitor]
oops clicked on the wrong item
[I thought so! :D No worries. Site Monitor]
I'm just speculating here you understand but I wonder,given McCain's reversal on the probity of torture in obtaining information to be used at trial (show, kangaroo or whatever). If my information is correct McCain, while a prisoner of war, confessed to war crimes against the North Vietnamese. If such confessions are to be considered valid do you think we could persuade the Vietnamese to seek a warrant for his arrest for those alleged crimes. There is no statute of limitations on war crimes and it would surely highlight the hypocrisy of his position.
More throw away questions....
Is John McCain and Cindy traditional couples?
Obviously McCain's position on two parent families has evolved since he apparently didn't feel that strongly when he dumped his first wife of 14 years. He and Carol, his first wife, had three children (two sons from her previous marriage that he adopted and a natural born daughter) when McCain began his affair with
BarbieCindy thus resulting in a single parent home for his three children. So I guess it would be appropriate to ask the Senator how awful his own children have turned out since he obviously feels the success of raising a child is based on their need to have two parents yet he didn't feel strongly enough to provide that "family unit" for them. Once again the straight talk express has become the double talk express.McCain don't want a bent one.
And so, on to the next McCain press statement.
"Today, the McCain campaign reversed course, arguing that McCain didn’t mean what he said."
Rinse and repeat.
"If you're pre-born you're fine, if you're pre-school you're fucked" - George Carlin
McCain is supposed to be "pro-life", but doesn't care if a kid is shuffled around shitty foster homes until he/she is 18. How awful that a loving gay couple wants some kids of their own. Go back to your rocking chair, Grandpa.
Wow he is SUCH the straight talker.
Leadership @ 4:
we think we know who he is........at least i speak for my self.......now i know how he feels about gay couples adopting....i could have guessed but now i don't have to
he's kind of a homophobic maverick
McCain isn't sure what to think. Period.
Doesn't McCain realize that not too long ago, the term "traditional couple" was interpreted to mean that parents and child should belong to the same race? I imagine there are still people around who think this way, and who wouldn't see the McCains as a traditional couple relative to the child they adopted. But the rest of us have moved on.
Leadership @ 4:
I completely agree. Obama's actions lately deserve far more attention here. We all know McCain is a moron, but Obama just recently stabbed the whole progressive community in the back on a range of issues. C&L should do leftists a favor and keep Obama's shortcomings in their spotlight. He is no doubt going to be a major disappointment as our president.
"McCain: I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no I don’t believe in gay adoption."
I suppose he came to that conclusion when he was first boinking Cindy while he was still married to his first wife/first mother of his children. What a hypocrite.
At this point shouldn't the headline be "McCain unsure what to think!"
.
McBigot thinks I'm half a person.
Are ALL single parents half a person?
Or are just gay parents half people?
Is McBigot suggesting that ALL single parents aren't qualified to raise children?
Or does he suggest that only gay parents aren't qualified?
What about divorced parents?
Was Johnny McBigot "unqualified" to raise a family when he divorced his first wife?
... Oh, I forgot. He married Cindy, the trollop of a wife, as fast as he could call her a C*NT!
.
"surprisingly callous"??
You obviously haven't been paying attention.
McCain isn’t sure what to think.
his lobbyist handlers have to fill him in.
We should DEMAND more out of our presidential candidates and not lower our expectations of them just because they seem old, folksy, slow, puppet-ready. Beware! Candidates should be in touch with American culture, economics, price of milk, breads, x-rays without insurance, race, growing economic & educational gaps, struggles of single-parents, educational vacuums, ethics, science, and be able to communicate these concepts strongly and quickly. They need to show they have a mind of their own and will not be easily manipulated by the rich and powerful. They need to be self reliant and resourceful. They need to be consumer advocates, champions of the environment, protectors of our changing people, teachers, compassionate, thinkers, communicators, scientists, but above all a humanist. Let's not settle for "My-Pet-Goat" standards... Let's demand MORE!
To place politics, bigotry, and homophobia above the needs of a child sickens me!
I take it that McCain's next step would be to offer Obama as proof of his position. (snark) :)
McCain's and Bush's homophobia is as disgusting as it is sad. But statements like "Even if the alternative is the kid staying in an orphanage, or not having parents." fringe on poor journalism and sensationalism. If the man is against gay adoption then he is against gay adoption. I suppose the reporter could have gone further and said, "Even if the kid will end up on the streets, a drug addict who kills someone outside a 7-11?" Wouldn't the better, more challenging question be, "Why, Senator, do oppose gay adoption? What are the grounds for yoru conviction?" Yes, we know the rote answer, but as a journalist the goal should be asking questions that get to the root of the matter and add to the public record of the candidate.
I think there were other points worthy of mention in the interview as well, including this exchange, where McCain continues to show his affinity for not directly answering questions while inferring he supports faith-based discrimination:
Q: Do you think religious organizations that get federal funding to deliver social services – faith based organizations – should be permitted to take faith into account in deciding who to hire. You saw Obama’s proposal.
Mr. McCain: I support faith-based organizations and I support a lot of the things that the president did. I was in New Orleans after Katrina and I went to their Resurrection Baptist Church and I saw volunteers from all over America working and helping in the clean-up, and the work that they did and talking with people like Governor Jindal, he said they did great work. I would continue along the model of what the president has done. And I certainly applaud Senator Obama’s, what I heard of his position basically the same.
Q: I think the one difference is whether or not as a condition of getting these monies, that these organization say they will not take into account religion or other factors in hiring decisions.
Mr. McCain: Obviously it’s very complicated because if this is an organization that says we want people in our organization that are Baptists or vegetarians or whatever it is, they should not be required to hire someone that they don’t want to hire in my view. Listen, this is the kind of the issue that goes on with the Boy Scouts, it goes on with a number of other issues. I think the president’s faith-based organization has been successful and I support what he has done
Q: I guess the way opponents describe it means that these groups are allowed to discriminate in hiring.
Mr. McCain: I can only answer it to say that I think faith-based organizations have been one of the more successful parts of the Bush Administration and I would continue it.
And then, finally, there is this hypocritical gem:
McCain: "...there’s a role for our government and society to care for those who can’t care for themselves, to make sure there are not abuses of individual rights as well as the rights of groups of people."
Yeah, those touchy-feely, watch-out-for-your-rights Repubs.
"Tradition." What a great justification for discrimination.
I wonder if he would approve of adoption if both parents were adulterers? Whoops - in Bridgit's case, they are!
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