I refer to those Christian Right noisemakers as SCREAM'ers:
S upreme
C hristian
R epublican
E vangelical
A merican
M oralists
And here's what's on my mind today.
If I were in charge, what I'd do about the sanctity of marriage and families:
Thinking that citizens are better served by an insistence that gay marriage deserves more concern right now than many other national concerns, the SCREAMER lobby insults us.
In a naively sober sanctimony, that gang - pretending to deep and profound spiritual and scriptural thoughts - declares that we absolutely must defend that "sacred institution upon which this country is based."
Really?
Today I stumbled across a powerful writing from over a year ago by Cheryl Seal at Democrats.com:
The Real Assault on American Marriage: 10 Top Ways Bush Republicans Have Undermined Marriage
Taking a cue from Cheryl, here's my two cents.
1.
I'd worry more about those couples already married than about those who want to get married.
I'd be concerned and working toward seeing that they kept their jobs or, if unemployed, found good ones upon which they could economically stabilize their marriage.
2.
I'd work intensely to stabilize marriage by doing everything in my and my administration's power to achieve - not "work toward" - health coverage for every member of every family and every member-to-be of every family-to-be.
3.
I'd work for increasing family incomes with minimum wage increases and expanding worker benefits.
I wouldn't stand there like a dope and pretend that corporate tax cuts have created meaningful long term income opportunities for that sector of society where the largest number of marriages already exists.
4.
I'd understand that the sacred institution of marriage is placed more at risk when it attempts to survive inadequate housing, bottom-line cheapskate and/or corporate slumlords, and home ownership as an impossible dream.
5.
I'd strengthen marriage by dropping the swagger and the "bring-it-on" rhetoric that sounds like it spilled from the urinal in a junior high boys' locker room.
I'd tell all those macho image-makers and self-serving patriarchal philosophers that marriage is incomplete without intellectual, spiritual and moral equality.
I'd insist that earned income is a function of ability and has absolutely nothing to do with gender.
6.
I'd take a long look and seek answers from those who truly know about failed marriages among our minority populations and stop thinking that unfettered capitalism includes within its framework some sort of naturally-occurring equal opportunity for every citizen to succeed in some idealized cookie-cutter manner.
7.
I'd tell the neocons to shut the f*** up and give priority to our married soldiers and their spouses.
I would not see world politics and economy as a giant game of RISK with our quite human single and married military population as mere wooden markers on a map.
I would certainly not let the neocons write out political and military checks that the children in our families - built on our sacred insititution of marriage - will have to cash.
8.
I'd focus on those military families and single soldiers in another significant way - I'd care about what happens when they come home and are no longer wooden markers on a map.
I'd make sure that the VA is truly an effective and functioning VA - a boon to our society of veterans and something for which we as a nation can all be proud and not suspicious.
I'd see to it that families and the marriages that build them are not hampered by a need for food stamps and other welfare.
9.
I'd sustain our sacred institution by getting out of the business of trying to control one gender's right to chose.
If I were a truly moral and ethical president, I would trust our processes of education and scientific study and encourage responsibility around human sexuality as a national concern and effort rather than a divisive argument based on polarized personal moralities.
10.
I'd sustain and advocate for the sacredness of our marriage institution by educating and protecting our precious national resource of youth.
Rather than prance around sounding pious and sober about gay couples, I'd march around obsessed with doing something about the factors that do greater harm to our families and their young members.
I'd work to encourage the nation to turn on its domestic abusers and family abandoners in a major way.
In short, as president, if I ever started defining marriage as "the sacred institution upon which this country is based," I'd be ready to start encouraging an intervention in all those things that form the framework for failed marriages, failed families and ruined lives.
I'd stop pretending that the American people believe that banning gay marriages is the solution to family crises in this counry.
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