“The fact of the matter is, what he said is where he is on this issue. No one in the campaign is going to sit here and try to nuance it. That’s just where he is personally on the issue. At this point, there’s really nothing else to say about it. He was asked point blank the question, and he gave an honest, heartfelt answer about where he is on the issue. The question was how does he feel about a gay couple adopting a child. His personal belief is that parents of the opposite sex are better for adoption to raise a child. If push came to shove specifically when it came to a ban, yes, he would be supportive of a ban.”
There are two things to note here. 1. McWherter is admitting that, as governor, he will not protect people from the tyranny of bigotry. In fact, he will join in. It’s just where he is. 2. We can stop pretending that this “unmarried couple, living together” is anything other than a ruse to fuck over gay people. That straight, unmarried people get caught up in it is just tough. All you straight, but unmarried people? This hatred of gays is so deep that you’re acceptable collateral damage.
You’re not even gay and bigots like McWherter have all but ensured that you’re caught up in the civil rights for gay people issue. The gay civil rights movement is now your civil rights movement, single straight people.
You want to adopt, but you have your reasons for not getting married? Now’s the time to lock arms with your gay brothers and sisters and remember that voting in their best interest is voting in your best interest.
Filed under: Politics and Other Nonsense, The State of Tennessee
Hammer…Nail…*smack*
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
[...] Cat Pants » I Now Have an ‘Honest, Heartfelt’ Revulsion to McWherterPosted 44 minutes [...]
It seems to me there are only three ways of looking at this:
If you’re going to let your personal prejudice against gay people set public policy, then you’re a scary bigot who has no business in public office.
If you’re not going to let your personal prejudice set public policy, then you’re a stupid scary bigot for advertising your bigotry when you didn’t have to do so … and you’re too dumb to hold public office.
Finally, if you really don’t have anything against gay people, but you think it’s good politics to say you do, then you’re an unscrupulous opportunist … and we already have plenty of those.
The guy has lost my vote, my wife’s vote, and the vote of everyone over whom I have sufficient influence.
Right on!!! How long do you think it will actually take to find someone that will knock down this ban? Someone that will actually get elected.
Aunt B:
Civil rights for everyone should be everybody’s issue. Even straight, right-wing, white, men like me are entitled to equal protection under the law.
Why should gay people who want to adopt kids or the children who need real parents be any different?
Mke McWherter doesn’t deserve to run as a dem gubernatorial candidate in TN with his bigotry against gays and his desire to deny children placement in any home of an “unmarried, co-habitating” couple. We should not let this bigotry stand! His campaign office is on Church Street, for f’s sake! Let’s go Sunday, National Coming Out Day, and stage a protest in front of his office at 1814 Church Street, Nashville, TN 37203. We’ll all be at Tribe from 4-6pm for the Toast to the National Equality March, anyway!
Its not like there are studies that show a much greater risk of child abuse for children living with cohabiting but unmarried couples.(vs. living with a mother and father who were married to each other).
And if there WERE studies that showed that, it would be bigoted to bring them up.
redhatrob, here’s the problem with that argument. The majority of problems that kids have are perpetrated by men–the majority of child abusers are men, the majority of sexual predators are men, the majority of people who kill kids’ moms are men, etc, etc, etc.
We don’t ban men from being around kids, because we know that while the vast majority of people who cause trouble for kids are men, the vast, vast majority of men are not harmful to children, but in fact, benefit kids.
We don’t hold group preponderances against individuals who’ve done nothing wrong and we shouldn’t argue for policy that forces people to get married or stay married when individual circumstances can be so terrible. Even if you can broadly say that kids are better off in homes of their married biological parents, that’s no reason to force a man to stay with a woman who beats their kids.
And it’s certainly no reason to oppress people who share some broad category in common with assholes.
redhatrob,
The other problem with that argument is that correlation doesn’t equal causation.
The problem with prohibiting a netural (or positive) circumstance because it has a correlation with a negative circumstance is that it ignores the actual cause. If you give pain killers to a dental patient with a cavity, you may solve the immediate problem (the pain) but because you haven’t addressed the cause (the cavity), the real problem won’t actually improve, and in fact will most likely get worse.
According to the National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect, children from the lowest income families were 18 times more likely to be sexually abused, almost 56 times more likely to be educationally neglected, and over 22 times more likely to be seriously injured from maltreatment as defined under the Harm Standard than children from the higher income families. Would you be so fast to suggest that we prohibit the poor from having children?
Seems to me a more appropriate solution would be to discover what circumstances face poor families that make child abuse more likely for them and try to solve those problems.
Thankfully, we haven’t reached the point where bearing children requires state approval.
On the other hand, every adoption agency does in fact require documentation that a family has adequate financial resources before they will approve an adoption.
Rob: You’re missing at least two points:
1) Stats about unmarried couples are way off base here because the legislation isn’t even aimed at them. It’s aimed at me. The unmarried couples happen to be blowback in the “lets fuck over the gays” war.
2) The studies done of children raised in long term committed relationships between same sex partners has shown them to be just as healthy and safe as Het marriages.
Thankfully, we haven’t reached the point where bearing children requires state approval.
Yet, the right not to have one does. Funny, that.
Everybody has the right not to have children.
But if you have one, you don’t have the right to kill it.
Rob, you know women read and write here, right? So, you know the chance of you speaking to a woman who’s had an abortion because she was raped or because she had to choose between having one kid or none, because she wasn’t going to be able to have two or for many other reasons are astronomically high.
And yet, you still come in here squawking about killing children.
Do you have any idea what a cruel and heartless ass that makes you look like?
bit of a quantum leap there.
I thought we would all agree with the simple assertion that killing children is wrong.
I think few people would argue with you that killing children is wrong.
I also think few people would believe you were actually talking about living, breathing children when you made your comment.
Thankfully, we haven’t reached the point where bearing children requires state approval.
Why thankfully? Your argument is that we should deny children access to millions of loving homes because the chances of them be abused in such a home may statistically be some tiny fraction of a percent higher. Why on earth would you be thankful the state doesn’t prevent children from being born into homes where the potential for a abuse is statistically much higher? At least try to be consistent.
On the other hand, every adoption agency does in fact require documentation that a family has adequate financial resources before they will approve an adoption.
I think you may be very surprised if you bothered to look into what qualifies as “adequate financial resources.”
Do I really need to explain why I DON’T want the government to regulate who can have children? cf. China’s one-child policy.
“adequate financial resources” is a topic I’m reasonably familiar with, since we’ve been through the hoops and adopted twice.
Sorry about that, previous comment really was me.
Do I really need to explain why I DON’T want the government to regulate who can have children? cf. China’s one-child policy.
“adequate financial resources” is a topic I’m reasonably familiar with, since we’ve been through the hoops and adopted twice.
Sorry about that, previous comment really was me.
Well, at least we know what one of your sock puppets is now.
Rob: nice duck of the main point of the post and my refocus. Gotta love the anti-choice dog whistle and red-baiting. Oldies but goodies. Care to actually address either of the points?
I’m hardly anonymous.
Actually, I think it was Andy who first led us off track.
Back to the point. There may be a variety of reasons why one would advocate a state policy favoring married couples for adoption. Some of it probably is hostility to gays. But there are other reasons why one might adopt a policy of preferring married couples for adoption. I’m no fan of McWherter, and I don’t know what his motivation is… but I think it’s unfair to automatically assume his adoption position is motivated by or intended to be anti-gay.
He might just feel like the best placement options for children being placed for adoption are with married couples. There’s certainly room for debate over whether this policy is correct. But I don’t think its fair to assume you know what his motives are.
Bullshit. It’s a hot button issue and mcwherter knows full well what he said and what he meant and everyone else does too. This whole “well maybe he has a carefully thought out plan that has no bias against homosexual parenting” is a disengenuous canard.
It’s an evil, bigotted policy.