Here’s the latest bluster from the religious right as they face a potentially crippling defeat in the Senate on their anti-gay amendment:
Any senator of either party who votes against traditional marriage will be opposed for reelection by the Campaign for Working Families Political Action Committee. If a dozen or more Republican senators jump ship on this fundamental issue it will be a sad day for the Party of Lincoln and Reagan and it could go a long way to causing an electoral disaster for the party in November.
By “vote against traditional marriage,” he means vote against putting a ban on marriage for gays into the Constitution. His apparent inability to see the distinction is partly what got him into this mess. Others are getting paranoid. Here’s Senator Wayne Allard, using the kind of language often deployed when speaking of a despised minority:
“There is a master plan out there from those who want to destroy the institution of marriage to, first of all, begin to take this issue in a few select courts throughout this country at the state level.”
A “master plan?” By people who want to “destroy” the institution of marriage? Who on earth is he talking about? But few, as usual, come close to the hysteria of Senator Santorum. Again, listen to his description of those of us who fought for so long for equality in marriage:
“Marriage is hate. Marriage is a stain. Marriage is an evil thing. That’s what we hear.”
From whom? Certainly not from anyone I know of in the marriage movement. The only possible justification for his remarks is the Massachusetts’ Supreme Court’s description of an arbitrary bar against gays being a “stain” against the notion of equal rights in the Massachusetts constitution. But that is not the same as saying that marriage itself is somehow a stain or evil. Why do these people have to demonize and lie about their opponents? Because if they accurately described us, the hysteria and ignorance that fuel this amendment would be even plainer to see.
MBEKI AGAIN: Yes, it’s not crazy to worry about drug resistance using a monotherapy for HIV. But when you can reduce the chances of passing HIV from mother to child by fifty percent, and when other medications are not easily available, it makes no sense at all to keep nevaripine back. But that’s what the South African government is now doing. Their obtuseness in the face of a massive crisis keeps beggaring belief.
The Dish 