I'll be honest with you. When I heard about President Barry's newly evolved thoughts on gay marriage the other day, I cringed. It wasn't because I disagree with his re-newly formed stance. (This is the third time that he's changed his mind of the issue. Not that you would know that because the media sucks so bad.) No, it was because I knew that once he waded into the issue that it would be all I'd have to hear about for days on end. Non-stop talk about gay marriage and how "evolved" the President is. Are you kidding me?! No one took the time to look at how gay marriage is really perceived in this country. (That would be that every single state that has voted on gay marriage has voted against it. That would also be that there are 30 states that ban gay marriage.) No, all it ended up being was a bunch of feel-good crap that makes everyone involved feel like they're so enlightened on the issue. You want some enlightenment? I'm here for you!
How's this for enlightening? Gallup did a poll over April 9-12 of this year. The question was "What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?" Now, if you went strictly by how the news cycle has been reporting things over the past 48 hours, you would swear that gay marriage was at the top of the list. At the very least, you would have to assume that it was in the top ten, right? Here are the top ten non-economic (even though gay marriage, and more so, gay divorce court, would do wonders for the economy, it isn't really considered an economic issue) responses from people as gathered by Gallup:
Dissatisfaction with government. Healthcare. Education. Ethics/Moral/Religious decline. Foreign aid. Immigration. (Have I said gay marriage yet? I haven't?! Then I shall continue.) Energy. Lack of respect for each other. Judicial system. War. (That's ten. Not yet? I'll keep going.) Poverty. Care for the elderly. Crime. National security. Abortion. Lack of military defense. Race issues/racism. (Bet you thought that racism would be a little higher up too, wouldn't you? Nope. It clocks in at number seventeen. Huh. Thanks, media.) Situation in Iraq. Welfare. Environment. (Environment is at number twenty. Again, thanks to the reporting of the weak, weak media, you'd have thought that all anyone ever thinks about is global warming.) Social security. Situation in Afghanistan. (I'm starting to get tired. I hope it shows up soon!) Unifying the country. (I don't even know what this one means. The Civil War IS over, right?) International issues. (How this doesn't include the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, I'm not quite sure.) Elections. Terrorism. War. (See previous war comments.) Drugs. Gay rights issues. There it is! I found it! Coming in in twenty ninth place, gay rights issues! Just barely eeking out The way children are raised, Overpopulation, Guns/gun control, The media, and The advancement of computers/technology.
I should also take this time to point out the the gay rights issues received less than 0.5% of the responses in the most recent polling of this question. It got 1% back in February, but that was the only time this year that it ranked above 0.5%. But would you get that from everything you read in the media? Hell no, you wouldn't! No, instead you'd be left with the impression that everyone wants gay people to be able to get married and that issue is first and foremost on the minds of all Americans! Not only is it not first, it's damn near DFL (Dead Effing Last). But that's all I'm hearing about. Non-stop. It will stop one day, though, right? Please? Why can't we have a President who has affairs again. At least that was interesting. (OK, it was still mis-reported, which probably explains why so many people still think that Bill Clinton was impeached for having an affair, but at least it had some substance! I'll take Presidential blow jobs over gay marriage any day of the week, starting NOW.)
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I just wanted to say one more quick thing that I left out (and that everyone else always leaves out) about the college students attacking Rick Santorum for a) being against gay marriage and, b) asking about how polygamy will fit into our laws if we're going to be OK with gay marriage. (Contrary to popular reporting, Rick Santorum was not comparing gay marriage to polygamy. But that's how it has been reported in most of the articles that I've read. And that's because...? The media sucks, that is correct.) I want to speak to that chick that was asking Mr. Santorum the initial question about why he was
against gay marriage. I want to speak to her (and the rest of the sanctimonious college students who booed Mr. Santorum during his town hall thingee that he did over there in Concord, N.H.) and I want to ask her one question. OK, fine. I want to ask her several questions, but only one that pertains to this discussion. The pertinent question is: Do you know that President Barry is against gay marriage? Because he is. 
Not only is President Barry against gay marriage, but Vice President Biden (aka Joey Veep) is against gay marriage also. Not only that, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (who was very nearly the Democratic party's nominee candidate for President last time around) is also against gay marriage. They're all against it. But no one ever talks about that! No, whenever this subject comes up with any candidate out there, if they're against it, it's portrayed in the media as if they're some sort of pariah who is so out of touch with the rest of the world. And every person who asks these questions of these candidates acts the same way. Would all of those college students who were booing Rick Santorum been cheering the President? Of course they would have. Because they just don't get it. 
For some reason, the media portrays gay marriage as something that is just universally accepted by everyone in the country and if you're against gay marriage that there is something wrong with you and you are in the minority. And I'm not pointing this out because I'm against gay marriage. I'm not. I'm pointing this out because no one else will! Out of the fifty states in America, there are six (plus Washington D.C.) where same-sex marriage is legal. And in all six of those states, same-sex marriage was legalized through legislation or a court ruling. It was not legalized through a vote put to the people. In the states where a vote was put to the people? Yeah, those states didn't vote in favor of it. Yet Rick Santorum gets booed and the media portrays him as being out of touch. Oh, someone's out of touch here. And while that might include Rick Santorum (but for reasons other than this), it includes a whole lot of other people that don't even know how out of touch they are. Media, I'm talking to you!
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First of all, I am not a Rick Santorum fan. I think that he's a little too gung-ho on too many Christian fundamental issues and I really don't think that those sorts of things should have much of a part in determining American policies and politics. Besides, it just opens the door for other sorts of fundamental religious groups to start acting like nutjobs. And they do it so well that the very thought kind of frightens me. But back to Mr. Santorum. Even though I think that he's kind of a tool, I think that I did find something that him and I might agree on. Actually, it's more of a theoretical agreement if anything, but it does lend credence to the fact that you would really be surprised at the things that you have in common with people that you don't particularly care for.
Here's the thing: According to USA Today, Mr. Santorum was doing a little town hall meeting in
Concord, New Hampshire and he got booed by a bunch of college students when he brought up what I feel is a realistic and logical argument. Now, Mr. Santorum is against same-sex marriage, also known as a gayrriage. (Well, known here as a gayrriage.) And one of the students said to him, "How you justify your belief based on these morals you have about all men being created equal when two men who want to marry the person that they love ..." That is when Rick interrupted and asked, "What about three men?" Needless to say, this wasn't well received among the oh-so-worldly (in their own minds) college students, who began booing him.
The woman who had posed the original question responded with the equivalent "I know you are but what am I?" Or maybe "I'm rubber and you're glue." She answered, "That's not what I'm talking about." It might not be what you're talking about, but it is something that is going to need to be addressed at some point as I don't see how you can argue that gayrriage is OK, but plural marriage is not. If you're going to take what is known as a 'traditional marriage' and start making an addendum to it, you're going to have to take other things into consideration. And I don't really see how, on a basic level, you would be able to deny plural marriage to people if you're going to allow gayrriage for people. If you think that this isn't a reasonable discussion to have, then you're simply being intellectually dishonest.
Mr. Santorum went on to say "Reason says that if you think it's OK for two, you have to differentiate with me why it's not OK for three." I agree. The students did not. They booed him. But he still was able to add, "Let's just have a discussion about what that means. If she reflects the values that marriage can be for anybody or any group of people, as many as is necessary, any two people or any three or four, marriage really means whatever you want it to mean." From what I can tell from the article (which really did an extremely poor job of summing up how the discussion actually went after Rick asked his question), the discussion went nowhere and the students booed Rick as he left. Good Lord, people.
I respect the man for wanting to have a reasonable discussion about this issue. What I don't respect are a bunch of self-righteous college students who think that they have everything all figured out, but aren't even willing to engage in a reasonable discussion about a subject that they are so blindly passionate in favor of that they won't even entertain the possibility that there is more to it than they think. Don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to gay marriage. And I don't really think that I'm opposed to polygamy either. (Regular polygamy, that is. None of that FLDS nonsense.) I think it's a bit weird (I can barely manage ONE relationship at a time, let alone several) and it's definitely not for me, but I'm not quite certain that it's hurting anything. But I do think that the polygamy question is one that has to be answered, as I don't see it being any fundamentally different than a gayrriage. And I was really disappointed that I don't know how those students feel about polygamy and, if they're against it, their reasoning for that position. Very disappointed indeed.
I'll be honest with you. When I heard about President Barry's newly evolved thoughts on gay marriage the other day, I cringed. It wasn't because I disagree with his re-newly formed stance. (This is the third time that he's changed his mind of the issue. Not that you would know that because the media sucks so bad.) No, it was because I knew that once he waded into the issue that it would be all I'd have to hear about for days on end. Non-stop talk about gay marriage and how "evolved" the President is. Are you kidding me?! No one took the time to look at how gay marriage is really perceived in this country. (That would be that every single state that has voted on gay marriage has voted against it. That would also be that there are 30 states that ban gay marriage.) No, all it ended up being was a bunch of feel-good crap that makes everyone involved feel like they're so enlightened on the issue. You want some enlightenment? I'm here for you! 
Dissatisfaction with government. Healthcare. Education. Ethics/Moral/Religious decline. Foreign aid. Immigration. (Have I said gay marriage yet? I haven't?! Then I shall continue.) Energy. Lack of respect for each other. Judicial system. War. (That's ten. Not yet? I'll keep going.) Poverty. Care for the elderly. Crime. National security. Abortion. Lack of military defense. Race issues/racism. (Bet you thought that racism would be a little higher up too, wouldn't you? Nope. It clocks in at number seventeen. Huh. Thanks, media.) Situation in Iraq. Welfare. Environment. (Environment is at number twenty. Again, thanks to the reporting of the weak, weak media, you'd have thought that all anyone ever thinks about is global warming.) Social security. Situation in Afghanistan. (I'm starting to get tired. I hope it shows up soon!) Unifying the country. (I don't even know what this one means. The Civil War IS over, right?) International issues. (How this doesn't include the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, I'm not quite sure.) Elections. Terrorism. War. (See previous war comments.) Drugs. Gay rights issues. There it is! I found it! Coming in in twenty ninth place, gay rights issues! Just barely eeking out The way children are raised, Overpopulation, Guns/gun control, The media, and The advancement of computers/technology.
I should also take this time to point out the the gay rights issues received less than 0.5% of the responses in the most recent polling of this question. It got 1% back in February, but that was the only time this year that it ranked above 0.5%. But would you get that from everything you read in the media? Hell no, you wouldn't! No, instead you'd be left with the impression that everyone wants gay people to be able to get married and that issue is first and foremost on the minds of all Americans! Not only is it not first, it's damn near DFL (Dead Effing Last). But that's all I'm hearing about. Non-stop. It will stop one day, though, right? Please? Why can't we have a President who has affairs again. At least that was interesting. (OK, it was still mis-reported, which probably explains why so many people still think that Bill Clinton was impeached for having an affair, but at least it had some substance! I'll take Presidential blow jobs over gay marriage any day of the week, starting NOW.)
