It takes a special kind of twisted mind to come up with the convoluted track with which Right Wingers and, specifically, the GOP presidential nomination contenders subject the public to deliver their messages of hysteria and hatred.  

In last Sunday’s Manchester, New Hampshire debate, Newt Gingrich dismissed the significance of gay unions by claiming that gay couples are “just friends.” He went on to say while “…we want to make it possible to have those things that are most intimately human between friends, it is a huge jump from being understanding and considerate and concerned, which we should be, to saying we therefore are going to institute the sacrament of marriage as though it has no basis,”  

,Keep in mind that Newt Gingrich has been married three times with serial adulterous affairs signalling the culmination of each previous marriage. I guess if that kind of intimacy between unmarried friends is good enough for Newt, he’s okay with allowing it for less-than-whole deviants. If they have to.  

Gaud, these guys make me tired.  

Not that it’ll make an impression, but it’s pretty important to remind these guys that LGBTs don’t want the approval of straight people, nor do we want their validation. We just want their hands off our lives and their noses out of our business. Nobody among the LGBT community is asking for a sacrament. That’s church stuff. Marriage equality is about secular contracts between 2 (Two! count ‘em: 2) consenting adults and full government acknowledgement of same, accompanied with equal protection under the law. You know, like it says in the Constitution. We are all understanding and considerate over the fact that haters like Newt Gingrich are entitled to their selfish opinions. And, heaven knows we’re concerned about the effect their disproportionate political power has over innocent families who would like nothing better than to carry on without the traditional impediments making our social and private lives a gantlet to be eternally endured. But, frankly, we’re pretty tired of the endless imposition of haters’ religiously motivated, false sacraments of gratuitous “righteousness” against us.  

 Double standard alert: If marriage is so sacred, how come he’s had three?   

I agree about the one man and one woman…at a time. Just like it’d be one man and one other man, or one woman and one other woman, at a time. And, he’s calling the Obama administrations evolution on the subject, which is lately leaning more and more toward support of marriage equality biased and bigoted.   

Double speak alert! Newt thinks inclusion, diversity and equality are biased and bigoted.

Tired. They make me oh-so-weary and tired.

 Speaking of evolution, this week’s debate also signalled the most generous terms from Rick Santorum who now says gays may adopt in states that allow such a thing but only if nobody else but gay couples are available to adopt. But, they still can’t be married and therefore must be denied any protections, supports or helping-hand gestures afforded real married couples by the government. I mean, hell, it’s their own fault for being free enough to make the wrong choice and not marry someone of the opposite sex, welfare of the children involved be damned.   

More of religion motivated, righteous double standard.  

The previous week, before a gathering called the College Convention 2012 in New Hampshire, Santorum was asked why he didn’t think equality mandates allowing same sex couples to marry were valid. Never one to give a simple answer and move on when pressed on this socially pivotal issue, he countered with the question, “Don’t you have to make the positive argument why the law should be changed?” Uhm…let me think. How about: 1) Free Speech, 2) Equal Protection under the law, 3) Association, 4) Privacy 5) Separation of Church & State. The law as it stands is unConstitutional. Well, the students responded with points about the morality of denying equal rights. Like building a bridge, he posited, you have to have a reason to build it. Most of what same sex couples want is already available through private contract. 

Uhm…no. Why should anybody have to jump through hoops to realize Constitutionally guaranteed rights, especially when other people are encouraged to embrace those rights without any impediment?

What about happiness, they asked. He countered, “If you’re not happy unless you’re married to five other people, is that O.K.?”  

The audience didn’t like that. He got booed. In true paternalistic fashion, he admonished them with, “I’m happy to engage in a discussion,” explaining that he wanted to “give people a chance to answer, but we’re going to have a civil discussion.”

Double Standard Alert: Frothy Rick can say whatever the hell provacative inanity he likes, including vilifying innocents, overt oppression of minorities and denying rational equality,  but being challenged on those counts is uncivil.

 The woman who asked the question chastised the former Senator, pointing out that opposing marriage equality with questions about polyamory, pedophilia and beastiality are irrelevant. Pressing on, Santorum added, “What about three men?”  

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” she said. In the end, after about 80 minutes with the crowd, many of the students booed him as he excused himself for his next appointment.   

On all accounts, Rick Santorum is just plain wrong. Gratuitously, myopically, impenetrably, obstinately wrong. It is unconscionable to deny others rights one holds for ones self. Santorum would amend the Constitution to cement his religiously “righteous” prejudice in law. His slippery-slope challenge is irrelevant non sequitur. Recognizing LGBT equal rights does not in any way lead to polyamory, incest, beastiality or any of the other hair brained, be-very-afraid horror fantasies self anointed elites like Santorum and the rest of the regressive religious right engage in.

The issue is emotional, they’ll say, and complicated. The implication is that it’s too deep an issue, too intractible a conundrum to solve without returning gays to social invisibility, banished to irrelevance. Safe, quiet, out of the way, out of sight, out of mind. Such hogwash. There isn’t any depth to the issue beyond whether or not ours is a nation founded upon equal protection under the law. Religious implications are irrelevant. Religion has no place in civil law and accomodation for them is Constitutionally inappropriate. Marriage equality doesn’t redefine anything, and indeed would return same sex unions to their previous historical position of inclusion as when even the Catholic church celebrated same sex unions, revering such unions’ members so highly they canonized at least one same sex couple together for their recognized good deeds.

But, then, that would be in recognition of  factually accurate history and not the picked and chosen stories more convenient to Newt or Rick’s double speak, double standards.

© 2012 Nathan Garcia. All International Rights Reserved

The audience didn’t like that. He got booed. In true paternalistic fashion, he admonished them with, “I’m happy to engage in a discussion,” explaining that he wanted to “give people a chance to answer, but we’re going to have a civil discussion.”