Jim’s Blog

“There’s never been a civilization that has rewritten what marriage and family means and survived.”

Mike Huckabee said this in an interview with GQ. (According to this page: Is This Guy For Real?)

I don’t even know where to start with this one. I think the single worst part is that this is what candidates are all about. They’ll just say something as if there’s no way it can be countered. The sick part is that it’s usually not. If I was doing an interview and heard that, I would have fixated on it pretty hard. Why didn’t the interviewer ask for a list of civilizations, or if Mike was suggesting some kind of causality, or even if Mike had ever had any experience with world history?

I’m going to break my response down into parts.

Number One: What marriage and family means is constantly being rewritten. Let me throw out some word snippets to save me the time of explaining this one. Dowry, women as property, arranged marriages, marriage as a political tool, divorce, and common-law marriage. Wasn’t there a time when inter-race marriage was illegal? Wasn’t abolishing that considered rewriting marriage?

Marriage, like all things in the analog world we live in, is in constant flux. The definition is constantly being rewritten, enough that in just a few generations, the entire dynamic of marriage has completely changed. We have rewritten what marriage means in this country in 4 generations. Are we doomed?

Number Two: Mike, can you define civilization? Obviously, this is a big word, and is likely to have many definitions. (I’m tempted to go on a rant about the American English Language, as I periodically need to do to stay sane, but I’ll resist.) We’ll just assume that we live in “Western Civilization.” This includes Europe. More and more European countries are allowing same-sex unions in a variety of forms. Countries like Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Germany, France, Luxembourg, and Britain. (BBC World News: Gay Marriage Around the Globe.) According to Mike, they’ve rewritten marriage and have thusly doomed us all.

I think I’ve made my point. It disgusts me that bigoted candidates are permitted to yammer unchallenged while the media just nods and smiles, overjoyed at being permitted to be manipulated by a wealthy minority. What I really want to see is for someone to force the candidates to really justify their stance on gay marriage and to get them to promise that they’ll stand by their convictions. I could respect Mike if he had also insisted that atheists shouldn’t be allowed to wed. That makes sense to me. If marriage is primarily a religious thing, then those without religion should not be permitted to be wed, and the state should not be involved. Fight for what you believe! Otherwise, follow the damn constitution, decide that everyone really is equal, and give everyone the same rights.

I can’t support a candidate who gets off by saying that gay marriage is scary and concocts ridiculous statements to back it up. I can’t support any candidate who wants to have it all ways. You can’t please everybody. Laying down noncommittal, generic statements only make you look like a tool. Stick to your guns, candidates, and earn some respect.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 9th, 2007 at 10:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.