Scott Walker's Anti-Gay Marriage Positions Displease His Own Family
There is no political future in fighting government recognition
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has never been a supporter of same-sex marriage in his politics. Prior to becoming governor he vocally supported his state's constitutional amendment defining marriage for heterosexuals only.
As polls started showing more and more support for government recognition of gay marriages, Walker didn't exactly flip-flop or even "pivot," exactly, but he did back off and argue that there were more important matters for the Republican Party to attend to. It made sense for Walker to want to push the issue away. Yes, he's the son of a Baptist preacher, but his niche in the presidential race (not that he has announced yet) has been as a problem-solving, pragmatic business conservative with actual small-government credentials and the ability to fight back public sector union largesse (read Peter Suderman's recent Reason profile here).
Then Walker became one of the frontrunners for the Republican nomination, if such a thing could said to exist at this point. He's currently outpolling everybody in the Iowa Republican Caucuses, and he isn't even expected to announce his candidacy until next week.
Now he seems to have gone back to his earlier anti-same-sex marriage position, even as it becomes less and less a disputed topic. Earlier in the year he said he supported a Constitutional amendment that would make sure that states would have the authority to decide their own marriage rules. He reiterated his position after the Supreme Court ruled that states must recognize same-sex marriages. He said in a statement, "[T]he only alternative left for the American people is to support an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to reaffirm the ability of the states to continue to define marriage."
There is no chance that such a constitutional amendment would ever come about. A weekend profile of Walker's wife, Tonette, in The Washington Post, gives very good insight as to why: Walker's own wife and two sons don't even support his position. He can't even get his own household on board to oppose gay marriage recognition:
In the political world, Walker drew immediate scrutiny for being particularly strident. In their house, Tonette Walker heard immediately about her husband's response from the couple's two sons, Matt and Alex, who are taking time off from college to help their father's campaign. She told them to talk directly to him.
"That was a hard one," Tonette said, pausing and choosing her words carefully. "Our sons were disappointed. .?.?. I was torn. I have children who are very passionate [in favor of same-sex marriage], and Scott was on his side very passionate."
"It's hard for me because I have a cousin who I love dearly — she is like a sister to me — who is married to a woman, her partner of 18 years," she said.
She said her son Alex was her cousin's best man at their wedding last year.
The Washington Post noted that in a subsequent speech with donors in Colorado, his tone softened a bit and he did not repeat his claim that the Supreme Court decision was a "grave mistake."
It is a little bit curious—in this day of micromanaged campaign messaging—that the Walker family is comfortable enough going on the record in opposition to their patriarch's stated position. The way Walker himself frames it is that disagreement with his family on his positions helps him "find a better way of explaining it, so they can appreciate where I come from."
But where Walker is coming from may not be as important as where the debate is going. Walker's millennial kids know which way the wind is blowing—or rather, which way they and their peers are blowing it. Millennials overwhelmingly support gay marriage. Even millennial Republican support for gay marriage recognition has hit 50 percent. Support for gay marriage recognition among evangelical millennials is at 43 percent, compared to 33 percent among evangelical Gen-Xers and 22 percent among evangelical Baby Boomers.
There is no long-term cultural or political support for Walker's position, so what is he going to do with these comments after the Iowa caucuses (along with his flip-flopping on ethanol subsidies and immigration)? Will this position even last until the caucuses, which aren't even until next February? It's worth wondering how far he will go to appeal to a vanishing demographic within the Republican Party when it completely distracts from his performance record with a proposal that will never go anywhere. If a Republican can't win a primary without seriously damaging the hell out of his or her general election chances (imagine how the discord in the Walker house is going to be used in a year by the Democrats if he maintains his current position on gay marriage and gets the nomination), they're pretty hosed.
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Man, can a girl get an en dash around here? Or at least a second hyphen?
Samesies
No more.
Shackford is the only cat around here who regularly uses “recognition” when talking about the issue, rather than the lazy “legalization” people are so very keen on. SO YOU LEAVE HIM THE EFF ALONE.
That is a really good point. Good for Scott.
Nothing’s ever enough for you, is it?
Well, she is the worst.
I did not believe when everyone said she was, but requesting an en dash is damn worst-worthy.
Ahem.
So, Tonette doesn’t do anal?
…there were more important matters for the Republican Party to attend to.
More important than the biggest attack of our lifetime on social conservative values? Way to go full RINO.
They must fight this to the end! Never give in! It’s what a RINO should do.
/stupid party gotta stupid
” “It’s hard for me because I have a cousin who I love dearly ? she is like a sister to me ? who is married to a woman, her partner of 18 years,” she said.
She said her son Alex was her cousin’s best man at their wedding last year.
”
Whaaa? Best man at a lesbian wedding?
Nothing against him, but isn’t that rather a low bar?
I guess it beats a best turkey baster.
Hey, when you’re the only man at a wedding, you’re automatically the best man at the wedding.
There you go othering the trannies and others in the LBGTQBAOERAEFNE;NAFEAWTF alphabet soup again.
There is no long-term cultural or political support for Walker’s position
Really? I have long term demographic and immigration trends that say otherwise. Gay rights and gay marriage in particular are things white people like. Show me where the Hispanic community or the immigrant community in general cares about such or when it does is anything but hostile. I don’t see it.
Maybe the attitudes of those communities will change and blend into the culture. Time will tell. There is, however, no guarantee of that. They could just as easily pull the culture the other way. Meanwhile, the evangelicals may become a smaller percentage of the population, but they are not going anywhere. They seem to be the only white people having a lot of children in this country and their culture and beliefs seems pretty sturdy through the generations.
It is entirely possible that Ogerfelt is the high point of gay rights in this country. That as the country gets less white and more Muslim and more Hispanic and more ethnic, it becomes more hostile to gays. The pendulum does swing both ways.
Dude, you don’t get it. Like climate deniers, SSM deniers simply don’t count. Doesn’t matter if they exist or not, they don’t matter.
Not even counting immigrants, people do change their mind sometimes. There were a fair number of self described hippies that voted for Reagan.
Yes. To give a very extreme example, no country in Europe had a better record of accepting and assimilating Jews than Germany. The tradition of Germany accepting Jews when the rest of Europe wouldn’t went back hundreds of years. If in 1850 you were told one of the European nations would within a hundred years try and exterminate European Jewry and you had to bet on which one it would be, France, Spain, Italy and Russia would all have been given much better odds than Germany.
One of the reasons Jews didn’t flee Germany in the 1930s is that no one thought it could ever happen in Germany. Not that I think the US is going to go insane and murder all of the gays. I give the example to show you that no opinion last forever.
Yes, indeed. How quickly the Weimar Republic morphed into Nazi Germany seems to have been forgotten. Rather odd, considering how quickly public opinion came to favor gay marriage in the first place. Public opinion is a fickle thing, and it doesn’t necessarily always change in the same direction. And in this case, not a few people are questioning their initial support in light of the harassment visited upon people who object due to the harassment of religious and other types who disapprove.
Worth reposting, and includes a few excellent examples.
If Weimar Germany had Twitter, it would have gone Nazi in a week.
Poland disagrees.
+1 Edict of Toleration.
But, to be fair, Poland was at the time (not yet) perished, so no one would think of it as Jew-friendly. And it wasn’t that good in Second Republic (though much better than neighbors to east and west).
Less than 1% of the German population was Jewish in 1933, about 500K. Poland had 3M Jews, Romania had 750K. France and Britain had a similar proportion of total population as Germany. Germany was not a Jewish refuge.
Jews had always been tolerated in Germany. Jews had it much better there than most of Europe. And the Poles rolled over and happily gave their Jews up to the Nazis.
None of this answers my basic objection. If Germany were such a (relatively) happy and safe and welcoming country, why were there so many Jews elsewhere? They had a century to move.
Because they didn’t need to. It is not like they were run out of Poland. Moreover, many Jews feared assimilation and especially the kind of assimilation that was going on in Germany and wanted no part of it. Assimilation has always been an existential threat to the Jews. The fact that Jewish communities in Poland didn’t pack up and move to Germany to assimilate doesn’t mean Germany wasn’t accepting of Jews. In fact, oddly enough, they didn’t come partly because it was so accepting.
John, don’t talk out of both sides of your mouth at once. It’s unbecoming.
That last quote is inconsistent with itself, not just the first quote.
Bullcrap. Poles weren’t asked anything, and were first up against the wall for mass extermination, before the Jews were.
Anti-Semitism was on the rise after Pilsudski died (1935) but never got close to Germany or Hungary.
But yes, traditionally German Jews were pro-Germany as a single state (as opposed to multiple statelets that existed before 1871), and a large number of them were quite proud of their service in WW1. Hell, Walther Rathenau enabled rebuilding of German Army and he was assassinated by an anti-semite before Hitler in power was anything but a hilarious joke.
Bullshit. The Poles were an active part of the Holocaust and refused to let the Jews who survived return home after the war. Just because the Poles were also victims doesn’t mean they didn’t participate too. They did. The idea that the Nazis did the Holocaust alone and most of Europe sans the Italians and the Dutch were not in on it too is a complete lie Europe tells itself.
Agh, fuck squirrels.
Long post summarized:
-There was no Polish quisling government or Polish SS. Their fascists were underground movement, who fought civil war against Ukranians, Communists, Jews and the Home Army, official army of Polish Govt.
-Poles could only collaborate by denouncing Jews, or serving as trusted inmates in concentration camps. This is substantial difference over France, Hungary, Croatia or occupied Serbia.
-Danes could prance around in yellow star to protest treatment of Jews. Poles trying that would just get shot out of hand. For most Poles, surviving the war was much harder than for Western Europeans.
-And yes, Poles treated Jews abominably after the war. So did the rest of Europe. Including Germans, despite death camps. Post WW2 ethnic cleansing was horrifying.
-Most of all, if every Pole who collaborated failed to do so, Holocaust numbers wouldn’t budge a digit. This is in stark contrast with France, Vichy or occupied.
Young people are overwhelmingly liberal in every generation. Then a lot of them start to grow up when they get jobs, pay taxes, and raise families. It’s perfectly normal.
No, shit, John.
Convincing a handful of judges, and a smaller handful of state governments, to license gay marriage is a hell of a long way from saying there’s no support for the contrary position. For more of the same, there’s this:
Now he seems to have gone back to his earlier anti-same-sex marriage position, even as it becomes less and less a disputed topic.
Maybe, but I think its way too early to say. Much will depend on how big an asshole the gay activists want to be. If they go full jackboot (as they have promised) on freedom of speech, religion, contract, and association, then there may be blowback that does indeed make this a disputed topic.
I think them going full asshole is a very good bet. Even though I like Scott’s writing on this issue generally, this is a pretty appalling statement when you think about it.
Now he seems to have gone back to his earlier anti-same-sex marriage position, even as it becomes less and less a disputed topic.
What does that have to do with anything? Walker wants to make it a disputed topic. Shackelford is basically telling Walker that once everyone agrees on something no one has a right to object or reopen the debate. That is a pretty curious position for a self proclaimed Libertarian to take. I guess Reason needs to shut up about ending the drug war, sans pot, since no one outside a few Libertarians disputes the need for it.
I think Scott (our Scott)’s saying that it’s polarizing in a way that could lose him the general election, and there isn’t shit that POTUS can do since the Nazgul settled the issue, so why bother? Does Walker support an amendment? It really doesn’t matter, the president doesn’t play a role in that process.
Maybe he believes in it. Again, it is pretty rich for a Libertarian to tell someone “just shut up and go along with the way things are”.
Oh, for crying out loud, John! Do you seriously think that evangelicals can outbreed same-sex couples?
Cute as your point is, the percentage of people with a certain sexual orientation is probably not related to who breeds, it’s just social values related to the whole LBQTWTFBBQ spectrum that are in play.
But I think gay rights will persist longer in the US than John is estimating, due to the fact that as persecution rises in Russia and under its shadow, and as Muslims get more clout in Europe, gays are going to be fleeing to the US like the Jews did before them. Aside from the demographics, being gay-tolerant will give us a way to feel superior to the wogs.
It’s that Whig view of history. It’s hard for some not to see history as a process of ever-increasing enlightenment and tolerance.
The actual course of history, where “progress” is moving in a million directions on a million issues, regressing on a bunch of measures while progressing on others, isn’t as fun.
John, your argument is basically entirely dependent on outdated cultural stereotypes. Multiple surveys with real data indicate that a majority of Latinos already support gay marriage, with an upward trend.
52% in favor, 34% oppose (68-25 split in the 18-29 age demographic) as of 2013
http://www.pewresearch.org/fac…..-marriage/
50% overall support, 62% among US-born Latinos (2014) – with a mention of a 2013 study that put overall support at 53%
http://www.hrc.org/press-relea…..arriage-eq
Lol of all the dumb take-downs of a position to do leave it to the Washington Post to literally find the dumbest.
Yeah. If his kids thought gun rights were bad, would he be obligated to support gun control? Are politicians now limited to supporting only those positions their little snowflakes approve?
No, but it might seriously hurt his run for presidency if even his own family does not support him.
Maybe. But frankly it shouldn’t. Who gives a shit what his kids think? What if his kids are assholes? I am not voting for his kids, I am voting for him. If he loved gays and gay marriage and his kids objected, would you not vote for him?
“This dude can’t even convince his own wife and kids of a political position” seems like a perfectly fine reason to doubt someone’s fitness for office.
I guess anything is a perfectly fine reason to doubt someone’s fitness for office seeing how everyone is unfit.
But seriously if your someone who is going to vote and this was the deal-breaker for you, imho you probably have some serious daddy issues.
…or maybe you have the opposite problem and actually think there’s something wrong with a man who isn’t controlling his whole household. How are SSM opponents going to believe that Walker will do anything good for them?
true.
“This dude can’t even convince his own wife and kids of a political position” seems like a perfectly fine reason to doubt someone’s fitness for office.
Actually, that strikes me as a non-reason.
If anything, the fact that his family doesn’t robotically repeat his every soundbite in a dead-eyed monotone is a plus, in my book.
I HATE YOU DAD!
Given who and what Chelsea Clinton is, and the trouble the Bush girls got into (and don’t get me into their father’s generation of that family), why do we suppose that the children of politicians should matter? Do we care if the Obama kids disagree with their dad on school charters in DC? Or on any other issue, such as bed times?
As I recall, Reagan’s kids were not politically aligned with him.
Support for gay marriage recognition among evangelical millennials is at 43 percent, compared to 33 percent among evangelical Gen-Xers and 22 percent among evangelical Baby Boomers.
I wonder what will happen to that support when gay marriage causes colleges and churches who don’t embrace it to lose their tax exempt status. Maybe the evangelical young will sign onto that.
Maybe, people do tend to get pissed when you take away their freebies.
I wonder what will happen if the Reason Foundation loses its nonprofit tax status?
Ah, but they’re a freedom-oriented organization, not an icky religious institution.
See my comment you responded to.
I thought you were viewing with equanimity the prospect that nonprofits will lose their status for “discriminating” against LGBTQs.
A tax exemption may or may not be a freebie, and maybe a Libertopian tax system will have no nonprofit exemptions, but this isn’t the issue here. The issue is the administration letting “pro-gay” groups have nonprofit status, while “anti-gay” groups lose their tax breaks.
Also, it’s a two-way street. Tax the churches, expect the churches to get political influence.
So what? Are you saying they don’t now? How about either everyone gets taxed or noone does? And I don’t give a rat’s ass about Libertopia.
Yeah, handing the SJWs the nail-spiked club of the IRS to wreak havoc on their enemies is nothing to worry about, right, guys?
…and give them to someone else.
Let’s not delude ourselves into thinking the freebies magically go away because gay.
I’m not deluded at all. I know well enough how many ticks are sucking merrily away.
What legislators would vote for a bill making it possible?
Under the Bob Jones precedent, Congress doesn’t have to act at all – the IRS, with the approval of the courts, just has to decide that gay marriage is an important public policy, and then the IRS gets to revoke the exemption of “discriminatory” institutions.
Bob Jones lost its tax exemption for its ban on interracial dating (though otherwise the school was integrated). And we’re often told that gay relationships are the same as interracial relationships.
Just as Congress never voted to revoke the tax exemption of private segregated schools, in like manner Congress won’t have to vote on this latest issue, the IRS can bypass Congress as it did back then.
Under the Bob Jones precedent, Congress doesn’t have to act at all – the IRS, with the approval of the courts, just has to decide that gay marriage is an important public policy, and then the IRS gets to revoke the exemption of “discriminatory” institutions.
Bob Jones lost its tax exemption for its ban on interracial dating (though otherwise the school was integrated). And we’re often told that gay relationships are the same as interracial relationships.
This will happen. Private (church-run) schools, hospitals, and other institutions will be forced to comply. The Hobby Lobby decision is in their crosshairs, and federal RFRA will fall with it.
They won’t get a choice. The IRS will do it via regulation. And Congress won’t be able to stop them because Obama will veto any attempt to reverse it.
And if not the IRS, courts will do it on their own by interpreting the existing IRS regulations to exclude the status for any college or entity that doesn’t accept gay marriage.
Yup, the slope is steep, coated in Teflon, and glistening under a thick coat of grease.
Enjoy the ride, because we’re taking it whether we want to or not.
When churches lose their tax exemptions, they also lose any reason not to become directly, vocally political in support of or against specific candidates. So, there’s that.
Yes there is. And I don’t think Progs are going to like that very much. At that point, you can expect them to turn the full force of the campaign finance laws against the Churches.
I don’t even know how they plan to do that. “A church is not a person. Freedom of religion shouldn’t protect churches like it protects people.” Uh…. That’s around the point where any intellectually honest person with a triple digit IQ just walks away shaking their head.
Easy. Rephrase “freedom of religion” as “separation of church and state” then completely bastardize the meaning of the latter, like they’ve already done to “regulate commerce among the states” or “a well regulated militia”.
How many evangelical millennials are there? Sounds like a niche demographic.
More than you might think. I imagine traditional religion appeals to people who only want to have to update their morals once every few hundred years, rather than every other week.
View from Canada says that won’t come for a while. We still haven’t had direct attacks on churches over the issue, though individual priests were dragged before HRTs for fire-and-brimstone sermons.
However, a local religious college just got their law school basically shut down because they insist all students must pledge to only have sex within bounds of church-approved marriage. A gay guy sued them because this would deny him access to one of 50 seats available, and law societies of numerous provinces responded by refusing to recognize the graduates as lawyers. Since you can’t operate as a lawyer without approval of the law society, this basically kills the program. And the appeals court just ruled that college is in the wrong.
So yeah, expect this sort of thing first, and they may leave crazy people in their crazy churches alone.
If anything, this public disagreement between Walker and his family will help him in both the primary and in the general election.
Walker and some of his children and his wife disagree on the issue. They disagree passionately.
Yet, they still respect and care about each other, and work together. He hasn’t fired his sons. Nor have his sons quit.
Sooo, he can disagree with people yet work with them.
Shockingly, this is true of the vast majority of the people living in this republic. Even more shockingly, this quality is seen as a plus by the vast majority of the people living in this republic.
Many of the immature defectives who people the news media and the public policy media will see this as a negative, expecting him to either whip his kids in line or for his kids to abandon him. I expect they will make a big deal about it.
Rather than hurting him, I think it will help him; the people who hate gay marriage will see a guy who agrees with them taking heat for their position. The people who are indifferent will see a guy with convictions they don’t necessarily agree with, but that he doesn’t see it as a end-all-be-all my-way-or-the-highway issue, and the people who absolutely won’t vote for any politician who doesn’t wear the rainbow flag on their lapel are likely not to vote for the socon child of a baptist preacher anyway.
I think you are likely right about that or at the very least this won’t hurt him. I don’t think his position is going to hurt him in the general election either. I think most people are tired of the issue and are put off by the gay mobs going after anyone who objects. They may not agree with him on the issue but I don’t think voters are going to say he is unfit for public office because of it.
The fact that a majority of voters disagree with you on an issue doesn’t mean anything unless that majority feels strongly enough about it to refuse to vote for you because of it. And I can’t see that happening here. The people who consider this a disqualification likely wouldn’t have voted for him anyway. The rest of the voters are likely tired of this little culture war and will vote for or against him based on something else.
Nikki is gonna kick you in the balls for using the wrong dashes.
tarran’s hyphens were perfect and beautiful.
Fuck it, someone has to maintain HTML standards. You go, Nikki!
I think some people will find it more attractive, and some less. I don’t know which group will be bigger or have a stronger opinion on that.
yeah…kind of a minor thing. Interesting, but still minor.
My cynical side thinks Walker told his family to speak about the support of gay marriage to give him cover to retreat.
He has *de facto* already retreated with his constitutional amendment nonsense – he knows an amendment won’t get anywhere, and the voters know he knows it. And if he’s President, when he appoints Supreme Court judges he won’t care if they support Oberdorfer (or whatever the decision’s called).
The only way gay marriage gets de-recognized is if the culturally conservative voters pump out lots of kids who will outvote the hipsters with 2.1 designer kids and 2 cats.
There is more to the country than hipster doofuses and bible thumpers. There are more foreign born people in the country today than at any time since the founding. Those people and their kids, not the hipsters or the evangelicals will determine the future. And them being sufficiently gay affirming as Reason likes to call it is hardly a sure bet.
And some of the immigrants are…religious conservatives. Maybe not on economics (though the Latin American Protestants tend to be a bit more free-marketish than others), but maybe on “culture issues.”
Good for them. When they stop voting for Democrats then maybe you’ll have something.
They won’t have to stop voting Democrat to get the Democrats to pay attention to them. They just have to threaten too and also throw around money.
I don’t think the Hispanics or any other groups is going to be like the blacks and give away all of their political influence by mindlessly voting Democrat. Hell, even the blacks are starting to slowly realize what a mistake that was.
They don’t vote for Democrats significantly at the statewide level. (Look at state legislatures and Governorships)
Many are and support for gay rights is pretty sparse outside of white western countries. I wouldn’t say it is certain they will turn the country against gays, but it is possible. Moreover, if things get hard in this country, which is not exactly a bad bet, you never know how people will react. I don’t recall Russia being particularly anti-gay 20 years ago. They sure as hell are these days. Things got worse for the Russians and they turned on minorities and outsider populations like gays, which is what people almost always do in such times.
One of their concerns is birth rate, so to some extent gays and sexual liberalism seem to be contributing to an existential crisis.
Yes. And I don’t see any reason why that same thing couldn’t happen here.
“There are more foreign born people in the country today than at any time since the founding.”
In raw numbers, probably, but nowhere close in terms of % of population.
“While immigration has increased drastically over the last century, the foreign born share of the population was still higher in 1900 (about 20%) than it is today (about 10%).”
http://tinyurl.com/oajxv58
Also, if you read the links I posted in my comment above, there is no indication that immigration is going to reverse the trend. A majority of Latinos (the largest immigrant group) already support gay marriage, and numbers for young Latinos and US-born Latinos are overwhelmingly in favor of it.
Time will tell. As I say below most people have no idea what mandated recognition actually means. And there is no question that the gay activists and the Progs are going to use this go after churches and any person or organization that dissents. Maybe that will make gay marriage more popular. There is a chance, however, it will make it a bit less popular as people who thought it just meant gay couples having wedding realize it means a lot of other things too,
Gay marriage hasn’t been used as a means of oppression yet. That is about to change.
He has *de facto* already retreated with his constitutional amendment nonsense
After the SCOTUS opinion, it would be a dead letter. The only way that gay marriage could be reversed would be either (a) a federal Constitutional amendment (not in a billion years) or (b) couple-three new Justices.
Amazing, isn’t it, that a full-blown Constitutional amendment and two new Justices carry equal weight in the New American Order.
Remember it was a 5-4 decision and the minority justices were pretty adamant in their dissent. Also remember Kennedy was the deciding vote and is likely going to retire in the next few years, especially if the Republicans take the White House.
So imagine the Republicans win in 2016 (not a certainty but hardly an impossibility), Kennedy retires and the Republicans use their Senate majority to replace him with someone hostile to gay marriage. Where does that leave gay marriage then? Especially when the cases involving polygamist come before the court, which should be happening right about this time.
At that point, why wouldn’t the court take the opportunity to overrule Oberfelt and turn down the polygamist and overturn the right to state recognition of marriage in one shot?
the Republicans use their Senate majority to replace him with someone hostile to gay marriage
Very low odds of that happening. The Republican establishment and the judicial establishment are both drawn from the same pool of squishy, unreflective coastal elites who don’t stray far from their herd. And right now, their herd is telling them that gay marriage is the best thing to happen to the US since schools were desegregated.
Those are the same people who put Altio, Roberts, Scalia and Thomas on the bench. All of whom are very hostile to gay marriage. And they will be under tremendous pressure not to nominate another stiff.
And lest you forget, they are incompetent. I have no doubt they love gay marriage. That however doesn’t mean they are competent enough to nominate someone who supports it. In fact, they are more likely to do the opposite as they throw the base a bone figuring a court justice won’t do much to interfere with their stealing.
“All of whom are very hostile to gay marriage.”
All of whom are free to be since it doesn’t affect anything. Add another conservative justice and we’ll see if they stick to it.
Maybe. I defiantly would buy that in Roberts’ case. I do not, however, buy it for a moment in regard to the other three. And RBG is likely to retire under the next administration as well.
There is nothing certain about the future of a five four decision.
(c) Somebody in modern State governments actually reads the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions. Then things get, interesting.
If so many voters think SSM is it, why did we have to take it to the courts?
That is a good question. There is a big difference between saying you support a policy and actually changing your vote based upon your position. The two are not the same thing. This is why the Democrats always get murdered when they go on a gun control bender. They look at these push polls that say a majority of the country supports “common sense gun control” and convince themselves that means supporting gun control will command a majority of voters. Wrong answer. The vast majority of people who are actually willing to change their votes based on gun control are people who oppose it. So no amount of “but the majority agrees with me” is going to save you at election time.
Hmm yeah. I recall in the recent past, polling showed that the referendum on a Yes vote for accepting austerity would win with a small margin. About the same margin that polls show Americans are in favor of gay marriage, in fact.
The actual vote worked out a bit differently.
Referring to Greece, there…
That’s interesting phrasing.
I’m a “Millennial”, I guess. Do I support same-sex marriage? That depends on what you mean by “support”. Government has no authority over marriage and shouldn’t use force of arms against anyone who happens to use words or contracts in ways they don’t like. That being said, I’m also a Christian who knows that the word “marriage” is nonsensical if you apply it to people of the same sex.
So what does the author mean? That younguns want government out of sex/contracts or that they endorse the practice? I thought libertarians shouldn’t make these kind of errors.
We need another poll to determine that!
/Rupe
Understand too what geeks the people on this board are. Most people have no idea what gay marriage rights actually entails. They think it just means gay couples get to have weddings. And who can object to that?
More importantly, most people don’t pay a lot of attention and are ready to move on from all of this. As the full consequences of forced recognition of gay marriages becomes apparent and people realize that this isn’t going to settle the issue or satisfy the gay community, I suspect a few of them will rethink their position.
So what does the author mean?
Millenials got sucked into a preference cascade of social signaling, would be my guess.
Many libertarians certainly did.
Millenials got sucked into a preference cascade of social signaling, would be my guess.
“Sucked into” implies that they weren’t there in the first place. Public school is a hive of rewards for playing the social signalling game and punishment for ignoring it.
I don’t even understand the insistence in holding on to a religiously-based definition of marriage when that argument was lost many years ago already. It is a losing bet and standing alone in the hill, fighting to the last man, is closer to ignominy than glory.
What Scott and the rest of the Republican field should be engaging is an issue the Republican party has been, up to now, too cowardly to discuss, and that is the defense of Property Rights. Whether it is eminent-domain, asset forfeiture or the alphabet soup of different civil “rights” laws and regulations that purport to unduly transfer property from owners to those who claim a historical grievance, the Republi-rats completely dropped the ball on this issue by letting the Marxians erode the most important right ANY human could have which is his or her right to his or her PROPERTY.
Instead of whining about the inconsistent justification for the Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage, Republicans should retake the fight FOR property rights.
Hey, Reason.The gay marriage thing is done, finished, finito. Put on dry pants and underwear and find something else to wet yourselves over.
Homple circa 1937
Hey, Reason. The Nuremberg Laws thing is done, finished, finito. Put on dry pants and underwear and find something else to wet yourselves over.
Well, at least nobody’s going to concentration camps over gay marriage. Hopefully it stays that way.
I’m not sure what the N?rnberg laws have to do with devoting an article to Scott Walker’s kids’ opinion of their old man’s flogging of the dead anti-gay-marriage horse turned into glue by the Supreme Court.
If this is a millennial thing, Reason, forget millennial support until you get rid of that “no free shit” idea.
Millenials also support Obamacare. Is liberty to be thrown to the (democratic) mob to be raped?
Note what is supported is big federal government recognition of a temporary (no-fault divorce) sex (contraception – who cares about kids) contract.
Note my form of permanent, no divorce, till death, marriage is recognized in ZERO states.
Liberty or license?
“Anti-Gay Marriage”
Shouldn’t this be written “Anti Gay-Marriage”?
The issue, in my opinion is, or at least should be simply about using the word ‘marriage’ to describe the union of a same sex couple. First, and foremost, it is an adulteration of the English lexicon, and some more appropriate word which would be defined as a union of two persons of the same sex would achieve the same results allowing government to recognize and apply the same rights, responsibilities and privileges as those applicable to a union of a man and a woman.
I question how “same-sex marriage” may be used going forward. Will two brothers or two sisters now be able to marry? Or what about a father and a son, or a mother and a daughter? Or for that matter, why not a father and a daughter or a mother and a son, since it has been presented as a union between two persons based on ‘love’?
What about sex education in our school system? Will anal and oral sex be included in the curriculum?
The issue is about redefining the word ‘marriage’, NOT about being pro-gay or anti-gay as most often seems to be how it is presented.
Well, I guess this will be the first time I disagree with Reason, maybe not the last. It seems Reason doesn’t believe state’s rights which is what the founders set up as bulwark against federal tyranny. The states should have a right to define marriage within their borders, I would expect Reason to be against usurpation of the tenth amendment because that ruling on gay marriage certainly was. Just to be clear I think government should get out of the marriage business completely but as it stands, if you don’t like the laws of one state you should be able to go to another one. If you the issue is really important to you, get married in a state that allows gay marriage, don’t force each state to recognize or adopt it. If anything, go about changing your state’s laws, I am very damn sure that eventually every state would’ve adopted it without federal overreach. Reason is being ridiculous and anti constitution on this issue.
It’s not unusual for Republicans to run the culture war divide this way. Both presidents Bush let it leak that their wives were vaguely pro-choice, and the conventional wisdom was that this was intentional posturing to try to have it both ways. So it’s possible that releasing this information is a way to soften Walker, so that we see he isn’t from a crazy family (something akin to Michelle Bachmann) and that he’s not driven by hatred of gays. He gets to state a very conservative position without seeming quite so harsh.