So... that happened

This is one of those fairly short hits which I’m forced to leave for the readers to evaluate. Sometimes there doesn’t seem to be much to say the face of staggering… I don’t even have the words. Congresswoman Janice Hahn weighed in during Thursday’s Small Business subcommittee hearing on Health and Technology in Washington with [...]

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Narratives.

An amazing catch from BuzzFeed. Remember Matt Salmon? Republican, congressman, strong social conservative, opponent of gay marriage — and father of a gay son. I wrote about him last week as a counterpoint to Rob Portman, to show how opponents of SSM with gay family members deal with this issue differently. Salmon hasn’t flipped like [...]

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Change.

And then there were three. U.S. Senator Tim Johnson today announced that he has decided to support marriage equality legislation. Johnson’s statement is below. “After lengthy consideration, my views have evolved sufficiently to support marriage equality legislation. This position doesn’t require any religious denomination to alter any of its tenets; it simply forbids government from [...]

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Inevitable.

And so, after a solid week of me picking Carper every day in the gay-marriage pool as the next Democrat to flip, only to be disappointed every time, he finally flips … the day after I switch my pick to Bill Nelson. Congrats to JohnGalt23 for scooping up Carper after I dropped him. See why [...]

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“My son is by far one of the most important people in my life. I love him more than I can say.”

Via NRO, Rob Portman was criticized by gay-marriage supporters for reconsidering his stance on SSM only after it affected him personally. This guy, naturally, will be criticized harshly for not reconsidering his stance after it affected him personally. His choice of words is interesting, though. Not only does he not think that his son chose [...]

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Resistance.

For gay-marriage opponents, it’s been an occasionally daunting period as they watch a steady stream of prominent politicians and institutions join the rival side… “There’s too many of them to effectively boycott,” he said in a telephone interview. Wildmon expects the U.S. to remain divided over gay marriage for a long time and hopes neither [...]

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Culture.

As attorney Paul Clement took to the Supreme Court to defend the Defense of Marriage Act on behalf of House Republicans, the lawmakers who hired him to do so stood silently by. It was the right thing to do, many Republican strategists say, to avoid distracting from the GOP’s core economic message. But some members [...]

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Marriage.

Despite Washington’s frigid temperatures and freezing rain Monday, a virtual tent city of activists both for and against same-sex marriage braved the elements together, holding a spot and a hope to see history unfold. Supreme Court oral arguments challenging the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8 are set to take place on [...]

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Principles.

You ready for this? Time magazine was prepared to publish a story noting that Warner’s position on SSM remains unclear because his office responded ambiguously when pressed for comment last week. At which point a panicky Warner (he’s up for reelection next year, remember) rushed out a statement on Facebook insisting that, indeed, he too [...]

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2016.

Alternate headline: “Wait, Hillary wasn’t already on record in favor of gay marriage?” Evidently not. Five years ago, top-tier Democratic candidates concluded that they couldn’t safely support SSM publicly; five years and a double-digit swing in public opinion later, they’ve concluded that they can’t safely oppose it. The GOP will wrestle with this issue for [...]

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Compromise.

This isn’t news because it’s novel for a Paul to be saying such things — his dad once called for getting the government out of marriage on a GOP presidential primary debate stage — but because of Paul’s growing prominence in the GOP. If he could rally a hawkish party to oppose the president’s power [...]

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No labels.

Huntsman endorsing gay marriage is like Karl Rove’s new group endorsing a candidate in a GOP primary. Given the suspicion and disdain with which most grassroots conservatives regard them, it’s practically an anti-endorsement. It’s like a neon sign flashing “HERE THERE BE RINOS.” I do agree with him on the merits about legalizing SSM but [...]

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Decision time.

At this point, after that ringing endorsement of gay equality in his inaugural, it’d be news if he wasn’t considering it. Still worth noting, though, partly because he has just one more week to make a decision and partly because, if he does wade in against Prop 8, it’ll mark the final stage of his [...]

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"Freedom means freedom for everyone."

Something new from the Respect for Marriage Coalition keyed to their splashy new poll about same-sex marriage. Want evidence of how much the phrasing of poll questions can influence the responses you get? Here you go: Voters express strong support for the notion that the ability to marry the person you love is a fundamental [...]

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Limited government, and religious liberty.

The ballot in my state has two somewhat controversial referendums, both of which probably have more drama than any of the candidate races — including, until just recently, the presidential election.  One measure should pass rather easily, as the voter-ID requirement has maintained its popularity throughout most of this cycle.  The other would move the [...]

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Victory lap?

I’ve known Steven Crowder for a few years now, and he’s a regular on my daily Internet show — providing laughs, a sharp perspective, and no small measure of controversial statements, just as he does in his videos and Fox News appearances.  Steven’s an outspoken Christian, and argues for living life by those values for [...]

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Unwelcome.

Two sure signs that we’re past the “earnest debate” stage of this story and firmly into “people milking it for advantage” territory. One: Menino sent his letter to Chick-fil-A fully five days ago but only today, apparently, did a copy turn up on Boston’s official community Facebook page. Sounds like somebody’s enjoying their star turn [...]

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Married voters back Romney by 13 points

Marriage plays a key role in strengthening civil society and reducing poverty. Families of married couples, for example, are approximately six times less likely to be poor than single-parent families. That suggests marriage is one way to reduce the growing dependence on government welfare programs. It also turns out that married couples think about the [...]

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"Evolution."

President Barack Obama’s ongoing evolution on the issue of same-sex marriage has ceased being only a topic of friction between him and the gay-rights community, becoming, in the dawn of the general election campaign, an early test of political character… “What I think you are seeing now is the extent to which the White House [...]

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How radical! Really!

Liz Bierendy, a 17-year-old artist who attends Pilgrim High School in Warwick, R.I., has had to defend her artistic vision for a mural to cover a wall of the high school. The work, designed to show the progression of a boy from childhood to adulthood, ends with a depiction of a man standing hand-in-hand with [...]

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To the same court that overturned Prop 8.

Federal court judge Jeffrey White ruled yesterday that a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. It violates the principle to equal protection under the law to offer healthcare benefits to heterosexual couples but deny them to homosexual couples, White wrote in his decision on Golinski v. Office of Personnel Management. House GOP leaders [...]

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No surprise here.

The administration yesterday announced that it will allow same-sex military spouses to receive marriage benefits like hospital visitation rights and side-by-side burials in military ceremonies: In a letter to the House speaker, John A. Boehner, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said that the Justice Department shared the view of plaintiffs in a lawsuit in Massachusetts that such laws — [...]

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Yippee.

Recently, American Life League came out with a six-minute exposé of Planned Parenthood that was so appalling that I would have had a hard time believing it was true had it not been about Planned Parenthood. The video included clips and images from PP educational materials — cartoons and the like — and the gist [...]

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"This era will be condemned for this."

With his speech at the Reagan Presidential Library last year, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio cemented his reputation as a particularly able spokesman for social conservatism — and, even as his name is repeatedly tossed out as a potential vice presidential nominee, he fearlessly addresses issues that many political strategists would argue are best left [...]

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"Destructive, vicious, negative."

Via Mediaite. BuzzFeed cynically titles this exchange, “Gingrich Wins The GOP Debate In The First Five Minutes.” Really? He won a policy debate with the sort of paint-by-numbers media-bashing grandstanding that literally everyone knew was coming? If that’s enough to win a Republican presidential debate these days, we’re in worse shape than I thought. Let’s [...]

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