Edwards' Gay Marriage Answer: A Train Wreck

[Plaid Adder]

Let me say that overall I think Edwards is doing quite well. However, his answer to the gay marriage question was horrible.

1) First of all, what Cheney said about the MA state supreme court ordering MA to amend its state constitution to include gay marriage is just wrong. They MA state court judged that the MA state constitution mandates that same-sex couples be treated equally, and ordered the legislature to find a way to do that. It's the anti-gay marriage forces that are now trying to amend the mA state constitution to BAN gay marriage. Edwards should have called him on that.

2) Second, it was not necessary for Edwards to get into whether they believe marriage is between a man and a woman or not, and when he was trying to explain about the necessity for benefits he sounded desperately uncomfortable with the whole thing. The only point he needed to make was that historically marriage and family law have been the domain of the states and not the federal government, and that to attempt to pass a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage was violating this tradition just to pull off a political stunt.

3) Edwards did try to make that point...but instead of mentioning DOMA, he said that "in 200 years a state has never been forced to recognize another state's marriage." That's just completely wack. The full faith and credit clause has certainly been used to force states to recognize marriages that are valid in other states, especially over the issue of interracial marriage, and that's exactly why everyone rammed DOMA through as soon as the issue came up. It may be that he didn't want to bring up DOMA because Kerry voted against it; but still, we couldn't figure out what the hell he was talking about. Since it's unlikely that nobody is going to call him on these mistakes, we can only assume that either he doesn't actually know what the legal issues are, or he was so uncomfortable with the question that he screwed it up.

ARGH!

Of course, we were disappointed that he didn't mention Liza having met him and personally appealed to him to support gay marriage...but we weren't really expecting it. Maybe he was distracted by the memory of her heartfelt plea and his own guilt for rejecting it.

At the end of the day, it's not really going to matter much; I don't think the swing voters give a shit, if you want to know the truth. And Edwards knows damn well that Liza and I are voting for these guys anyway no matter what comes out of his mouth tonight. But damn. Betray us if you want, but you could at LEAST get the facts right.

@#$!,

The Plaid Adder

[DarkPhenyx]

1. Plaid! You some kind of closet freeper?

Just joking. Someone had to say it you know.

[Plaid Adder]

2. never mind. sigh. n/t

[Voltaire]

4. He did seem to get himself twisted in a knot on that didn't he?

I spent that part of it scratching my head and going WTF???

[DarkPhenyx]

5. You should have gone with your first response.

Honesty in all things, and in all things honesty. Particularly to yourself.

[Doosh]

3. don't you mean Cheney's NON ANSWER?