Posted on 01/06/2015 1:09:50 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Not so much respect that the state should recognize their commitment as a legal marriage, he stresses, but respect nonetheless.
“We live in a democracy, and regardless of our disagreements, we have to respect the rule of law,” Mr. Bush said in a statement. “I hope that we can show respect for the good people on all sides of the gay and lesbian marriage issue – including couples making lifetime commitments to each other who are seeking greater legal protections and those of us who believe marriage is a sacrament and want to safeguard religious liberty.”…
Gay rights leaders said they found Mr. Bush’s statement on Monday encouraging. Fred Sainz, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, a group that has pushed for same-sex marriage, said that “most Republican politicians have been adamant in their opposition and provide no room for evolution.”
Mr. Bush “at least is expressing his respect for those who support marriage equality,” Mr. Sainz said. “That’s a big change for Republicans.”
Something of a change for Jeb too. BuzzFeed dinged him yesterday by digging up an op-ed from his first run for governor in ’94 in which he framed gay rights as a question of whether “sodomy [should] be elevated to the same constitutional status as race and religion.” This is the sort of line-walking he’ll have to do now, though, as a man whose base is in the middle but who’ll need social conservatives to show up for him if he’s the nominee. It’s the flip side of the position traditionally taken by some Democrats on abortion, that they’re personally pro-life but pro-choice as a matter of law (“safe, legal, and rare”). The party’s base has a litmus test on a hot-button issue that could cause the candidate headaches with the broader electorate. Solution: Pass the litmus test by siding with your own side on policy while paying carefully crafted lip service to the other side. I’m curious now to see if any of Bush’s more socially conservative competition takes the bait and knocks him for saying gay relationships deserve “respect,” if not legal sanction. That’d be a fun subplot at the debates: Does Mike Huckabee, who’s friendly enough to gay people to have earned a valentine from liberal Sally Kohn in the Daily Beast, want to make an issue of whether committed relationships between two men or two women deserve “respect”? Swing voters can tolerate a candidate who opposes legalizing gay marriage; I don’t know how they’ll feel about someone whom they regard as anti-”respect,” a real problem potentially someone like Huck whose retail power depends heavily on his perceived affability. And if Huck does attack him on this, so much the better for Jeb. It’ll give him a chance to please establishmentarians and independents by defending gays in a visible way, his anti-SSM position notwithstanding.
All of this is premised, though, on the idea that righties will give Bush a pass on his pronouncements on this subject so long as he continues to stick with them on the actual policy. Will they, though? Ted Cruz could get away with the same rhetoric because conservatives have no doubt where he stands ideologically. They do doubt where Jeb stands, such that I wonder if they won’t treat the “respect” verbiage as a sign that he might “evolve” as president a la Obama towards supporting legalized gay marriage himself. That problem isn’t limited to this issue either. Here’s a line from the mission statement from Jeb’s new Super PAC, “Right to Rise.” Quote: “We believe the income gap is real, but that only conservative principles can solve it by removing the barriers to upward mobility.” Pretty unexceptional; Marco Rubio and Mike Lee talk about using conservative policies to create new opportunities for the lower and middle classes regularly. Coming from Jeb, though, that line about the “income gap” sounds a bit … Warren-ish, no? “While the last eight years have been pretty good ones for top earners,” the statement goes on to say, “they’ve been a lost decade for the rest of America.” Quite Warren-ish indeed! And yet, you’ll hear variations on that from nearly every Republican candidate this year, especially ones like Scott Walker and Bobby Jindal who’ll be aiming at blue-collar voters and running on economic revival. Because Jeb bears the “RINO” burden, though, it feels more suspicious, an inkling that his presidency would be more left-wing than anyone suspects. Same goes for his statement on gay marriage. How does he solve that problem with conservative voters? Or does he even need to?
That they are willing to overturn the results of democratically created laws.
Jeb Bush/Anti-Crist 2016. If you vote for Jeb in 2016, it means you are a faggot.
Cruz or lose.
I'm not attacking, I'm just sick of libertarians and their stealth tactics to push the homosexual agenda.
Of course - state governments are involved in marriage issue although I don't think it's necessarily a good idea, but that's up to the people of the state.
Nonsense, people move from state to state all the time, it MUST be a federal issue.
But the Constitution does not delegate that power to the federal government.
Did you hear that at a Ron Paul rally or something?
And I believe in the Rule of Law as the legal bulwark to protect freedom.
There's no evidence of that on this thread, you believe in giving the left exactly what they want.
Then why are the feds sticking their big fat homo noses into it? As long as they do we’re going to resist!!
FUJB!!
The meaning of marriage can only be screwed up if you rely on the state to define marriage. What they really want is to use the power of the state to punish and to be able to keep punishing those they know can never accept ‘gay marriage.’
FReegards
The problem is, by demanding that the federal government NOT define it, it is actually FORCING the federal government to do that very thing.
If they don’t define it as between one man and one woman, they by default have bastardized the definition of Marriage, defining it as anything goes.
And it doesn’t prevent governmental intrusion into people’s lives because now anyone who defies the government’s definition, is subject to federal government action because they are *discriminating*.
There are no neutral positions on moral issues. Any government corrupt enough to destroy long held moral values is not a government we can afford to have around.
Also, don’t forget, that many moral things were illegal when the Founding Fathers established the Constitution and Bill of Rights and they did not see that as intrusive government.
Libertarians are looking to destroy this country and while I am all in favor of getting back to what the Founding Fathers established as far as the responsibility of the federal government, using the Constitution and Bill of Rights as the weapon with which to destroy the moral fabric of this country is NOT what they intended by any means.
We CANNOT survive with the moral depravity libertarians would inflict on us in the name of *limited government*
I agree. I am against anyone who even tolerates gay marriage.
It not a question of should the gay agenda be resisted but how.
IMO, the fight is to get this and all the other issues the Constitution doesn’t delegate to the feds out of the feds hands.
The states have anti-gay marriage laws already, just like they had anti-abortion laws before the feds stuck their bloody, murderous noses into that.
The issue is the feds meddling where they don’t constitutionally belong leading to a huge parade of horribles like banning prayer and Bible study in state schools, 70+ million abortions, threatening gun rights, interference with state marriage laws, threatening free exercise of religion, etc.
And I repeat, FUJB!!
I don’t care for the guy either, Jim. I’m “Bushed”.
But I see this fight on a different plain.
I’m still fighting for the Constitution, the supreme Law of the Land to be the Rule of Law in America, regardless of who gets elected. I’ll keep fighting for that forever I suppose.
Nonsense. We knew all along how he felt. He's a Rat, through and through. Like his brother.
Saying, "Let each state decide" IS NOT resisting, it is appeasement or worse.
IMO, the fight is to get this and all the other issues the Constitution doesn’t delegate to the feds out of the feds hands.
The full faith and credit clause and equal protection clause have ALWAYS meant that a state must recognize a marriage from another state. This was very much an issue with Mormons and Utah statehood.
The issue is the feds meddling where they don’t constitutionally belong
YOUR solution is to do NOTHING and say, "We tried, but the states didn't go along with us." This is the type of flawed libertarian thinking that lead to the Civil War.
Aren’t we all. Resist the godless libs and RINOs to the hilt and at every turn, including resistance to the communist homosexual agenda!
See tagline.
Btw, Jeb Bus is also a big advocate of commie core federal control over education. FUJB!!
So, when the law was passed banning gay marriage nationally, and it was overturned by the courts, that was respect for the rule of law, right?
Or is the fact that AG’s aren’t challenging lower court rulings respect for the rule of law.
He must think he can fool conservatives into thinking that being for Gay marriage is in the tradition of respecting the rule of law.
That’s like shooting semen up another man’s colon and expecting him to get pregnant.
Current and historical fact does not support your argument.
Letting the states decide is not only what America, as confirmed by the Tenth Amendment, is all about, but has always given us a relatively good, clean, moral, and happy and free society, the best in the world.
The facts of history show that whereas the states had /have laws to protect free exercise of religion, protect bearing arms, prohibit abortion, prohibit “gay marriage” (an oxymoron), the feds have been allowed to unconstitutionally overturn state law and states rights to allow 70+ million abortions, take away the Bible and prayer from schools, threaten gun laws and gay marriage laws.
My answer is not nothing. It is for the states to nullify unconstitutional federal law and stick with their constitutionally protected laws, which most people here are clamoring for.
I know that, and he's the latest in a long line. Nuke Jeb Bush, but be ready to nuke the fifty more ready to take his place.
What we need to nuke is the root problem - most of the unconstitutional federal cabinet posts including the Dept of Education, or the states at some point need to circle the wagons and say enough already.
You’ll get no objection from me on any of that. It’s the primary reason FR exists. Restore the constitution!
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Most people where?
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