If your town got as many presidential candidate visits as little Decorah, Iowa, does, you might need your own electronic sign to keep tabs of all the comings and goings, too.
On Thursday, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney became just the latest presidential contender to stop by Decorah, a college town within spitting distance of the Minnesota border.
Here's a partial transcript of what he said when asked what he would say to a gay couple that wants to get married;
"For those who are not familiar with it, of the four nationally leading candidates for president -- and I count myself as one of those, but also Mayor (Rudy) Giuliani, and Sen. (John) McCain and (former Sen.) Fred Thompson -- there's only one of us who's in favor of a federal amendment to the constitution to limit marriage to the relationship between a man and a woman. And that's me."
"I feel very strongly about this because, as I said earlier, I believe that maintaining the strength of the marriage relationship, the family relationship, is critical to the strength of an entire society."
"And I believe that the development of children is enhanced by having a male and a female as part of their upbringing in their home. Even when there's a divorce, you still have a mom and a dad. And even where one member of the partnership may pass away, the memory and the characteristics of that gender, of that partner influence the development of a child."
"I'm in favor of promoting, as a society, the marriage of men and women and the development of children in that kind of setting."
So I guess Romney thinks it is okay for a child to have one dead parent, over that of a child having two gay parents. Excuse me while I bang my head on the computer here:
What scares so many people about Gay Marriage? I have gay friends that have been together in a loving relationship much longer then any hetero marriage. Any whether Mitt wants to admit it DIVORCE does devastate children so does death much more than having two dads or two moms. Being Gay is not a choice!
ReplyDeleteHello Jude:
ReplyDeleteI think the real problem for Romney, Giuliani, and the rest of the GOP candidates is that they are really forced to take these extremist positions on social issues like abortions, school prayer, and gay marriage. You need to remember that the Religious Right still has control over the Republican Party, and these guys need to pander the Religious Right base for votes in order to secure the nomination. The problem for the Republicans is when they need to explain their extremist positions to moderates and independent voters in the general election. In Ronald Reagan's day, it was a wink and nod--I'm only talking to the base, but I'm not going to do anything about it. Those days are long gone--the Religious Right wackos are demanding that the candidates toe their hard-lined positions, and President Bush is happily doing so.