In a 2005 interview with The New York Times, Bush said: "I believe children can receive love from gay couples but the ideal is -- and studies have shown that the ideal is where a child is raised in a married family with a man and a woman."
He sidestepped the issue when questioned by People magazine about whether he still held that belief.
"Mary Cheney is going to make a fine mom and she's going to love this child a lot," he said, according to an excerpt from the interview.
(Reuters, via Andrew Sullivan
Of course they aren't anti-gay when it's one of their own who's gay. And Mary Cheney can afford great lawyers so she won't be too adversely affected by a lack of gay marriage, civil unions, or anti-discrimination law.
I'm reminded of a racist I knew in yeshiva who used to go on about n*****s. When I asked him, what about [a certain African-American mensch], he said, "Oh, I'm not talking about people like that!"
George Bush happily throws millions of gay Americans under the bus to win votes, but is nothing but supportive when it's someone close to him.
To his credit, he's better than Alan Keyes who kicked his daughter out and cut off her tuition money when she came out of the closet. Better hypocrite than 100% evil, I guess.
18 comments:
The second post in a row where I don't get it. Where's the hypocrisy? He says children can receive love from gay couples and that he's sure Mary Cheney will love her child. He's merely on record as saying he believes a man and a woman married to each other are the best context in which to build up a child.
And George Bush hasn't thrown anybody under a bus. He just refuses to sign up to every last dot and comma of the gay rights agenda. Or is that all he needs to do to be an anti-gay bigot and to be a hypocrite if he congratulates a new mother on the birth of her child?
Bah. Bring up a child, of course. Always preview...
No studies showing that a gay couple bring up kids as well as or better than a heterosexual couple but that's beside the point.
Every state but 1 voted to ban gay marriage. When given the ability to vote on this issue, the populace doesn't want it.
Also, what difference is it what Bush thinks of his vice president's daughter's child?
And the joke is...any heterosexual single woman will agree with the statement: The only single men who want to gay married are gay.
He just refuses to sign up to every last dot and comma of the gay rights agenda.
That's a little disingenuous. He supported amending the constitution to ban gay marriage. He also rode to victory in '04 largely on turning out the anti-gay vote across the nation.
I don't think you you showed how Bush was hypocritical here. I expected more accuracy from you than to say that he is being hypocritical.
He didn't say that Mary Cheney and her partner were the ideal situation. He just said that she would love the child and make a fine mom.
Which is the same as he said before, that gay couples can love children.
His hard-core base is made up of people who are opposed to Mary Cheney's giving birth. Just do a quick survey of the Christian right websites. Bush may not have quite said that, but he used them to get elected by pushing the anti-gay-marriage amendment as well as the state refferenda.
J.A., I'm really impressed with the way you've got a serious dialog going with conservative religious people. It's something I've kind of tried to do on my blog and haven't really succeeded...
I'd like to say that your last few posts are very insightful, well-written, and right on the money. But it pains me to say that because I imagine I'm nailing your coffin with your conservative readers if they see that even Americans who have moved to France agree with you... *shudder*
The conservative mantra - do as I say, not do as I do.
They have been reticient in criticisng religious republicans like haggard too, who talk the talk and don't walk the walk - isn't hypocrisy in their dictionary?
Hypocrisy is the virtue that made the Declaration of Independence possible.
Joseph:
Good point. I already conceded that hypocrisy (Bush) is better than 100% evil (Keyes.)
You might need to explain to me how hypocrisy made the Declaration of Independence possible.
JA,
sorry, but you still haven't shown any trace of hypocrisy in Bush's recorded statements. To say that some people who's votes he received (and arguably solicited) believe that therefore he must do so too is very poor logic. Or do you want me to dig out every last piece of hate filled, crackbrained rubbish to appear on the likes of Daily Kos and Democratic underground and claim that the likes of, say, Howard Dean are being hypocrites when they say something that appears to contradict this?
And I know this may be hard to believe, but you don't have to hate gay people to be opposed to court-mandated gay marriage. You could simply believe that mariage is too important an institution to be experimented on in such a manner, and that it should not be altered except as a result of a thoroughgoing democratic debate.
Beepbeeb,
I suspect Joseph is referring to a bunch of slave owners coming up with all that "all men are created equal" stuff when he refers to hypocrisy and the DoI. That's how I read it anyway.
BBIM:
Random got it. Slaveowners wrote the Declaration.
Random:
Maybe "hypocrisy" isn't exactly right. But I think his recent statement hints that his strong anti-gay-marriage stand was just playing politics with millions of anonymous gay people's lives. Don't get me wrong -- Dems have been just as bad or worse on this. Many of them really do believe (I believe) in gay marriage but won't say so publicly because it's unpopular.
Maybe "hypocrisy" isn't exactly right.
...or just completely wrong. There was nothing contradictory of any of his statements. And I believe that most politicians are against gay marriage in their own personal beliefs but are afraid to say so because it's unpopular, particularly if they're Democrats.
Ahhh ok. Got it. Thanks for the explanation.
Could this at the time be considered wilfull hypocrisy though, or ignorance? (Not rying to excuse racism in anyway - I wanna make that clear.)
But the historical timeline is relevant as it was considered knowledge at that time that african americans were not human.
(Hard to even type that, but you realize I am refering to what was considered knowledge during a particular time frame and is no longer considered an accurate description of any social constructs of "race.")
So, was it a decision based on what was considered knowledge at that time, ignorance or hypocrisy?
I figure they were just ignorant about race, I am not sure it was an act of deliberate hypocrisy.
I could be wrong though, I often am.
What did you expect Bush to say? Bashing his VP's daughter would simply be a mean thing to do.
And as others have pointed out, there's no hypocrisy because he's already on the record for saying that "children can receive love from gay couples."
RE half
But does he approve of a lesbian choosing a sperm donor, and raising that child in a lesbian relationship? I think not.
The only reason he says nothing, is because he is a hypocrite. If it was the daughter of a democratic senator, he wouldn't be so quiet on the issue and neither would his party.
The fact is, the reason he says nothing is because it is the daughter of someone in his party. That makes him a hypocrite. He says nothing because it is politically expedient to say nothing.
We know that he considers homosexuality to be an abomination, yet, apparently, it isn't as much of an abomination if a member of your own party's daughter does it.
(Queue "Animal Farm" - We are all equal, but some of us are more equal than others.)
Can I say "hypocrisy" one more time? :)
JA,
Thanks, actually I think I understand what you are trying to say - that his expressed views do not seem to be consistent with some of the company he keeps. I don't think it's fair to call this hypocrisy though, it's just a basic fact of political life that you sometimes have to do deals with people you don't like very much if you're going to get your agenda passed. People on all sides do it (when was the last time a senior Democrat called Al Sharpton on his blatant racism? This doesn't make Dems hypocrites when they attack racists, it just means they don't want to pick a fight with one of their key constituencies). Pity that Beep's kicked in again, using his amazing telepathic powers to share with us what he *just knows* Bush's innermost thoughts must be...
And Beep - sorry, but the "not human" line doesn't work. In England at least in 1771 a black slave was sufficiently human to be allowed to issue a writ of habeas corpus against his master to prevent him being shipped off to Jamaica, which case led to the definitive confirmation that slavery was illegal in England and that any slave who set foot in England was automatically free simply by virtue of touching English soil. Livestock and property do not have the legal right to go before a judge.
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