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WTF Moment of the century...GOP = totally braindead

Posted 20 months ago|17 comments|553 views
Written by
Perfect Horizon
Chicago, IL
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gays_in_montana

The above article demonstrates truly how ridiculous the GOP has become. Truly evil in every way, I hope they all get booted out of office and charged with hate crimes...
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COMMENTS
Out Of The Box
Out Of The Box
 Moderator
20 months ago: Did you read the article, PH?

Or did you you scan it for what you wanted it to say, and just disregard the rest?

Here is an excerpt from the article you listed. And by the way, you have to put some text before a link, or it won't hyper.

The fact that it's still the official party policy more than 12 years later, despite a tidal shift in public attitudes since then and the party's own pledge of support for individual freedoms, has exasperated some GOP members.

"I looked at that and said, 'You've got to be kidding me,'" state Sen. John Brueggeman, R-Polson, said last week. "Should it get taken out? Absolutely. Does anybody think we should be arresting homosexual people? If you take that stand, you really probably shouldn't be in the Republican Party."
Out Of The Box
Out Of The Box
 Moderator
20 months ago: And more quotes from your article.

"...even a conservative tea party group in Montana ousted its president over an anti-gay exchange in Facebook."

"Brueggeman suspects that the vast majority of the party believes, as he does, that the Republican party should remove statement. It's against every conservative principle for limited government and issues like this exemplify how a political party can interfere with the relationship between lawmakers and their constituents."

So what exactly is your beef?
markbyrn
markbyrn
 Moderator
20 months ago: The beef would be that the Montana Republican party adopted an official platform in June of this year that keeps a long-held position in support of making homosexual acts illegal. That's not like an old forgotten law that's still on the books, and the fact that one elected member of the party is State Senator is posturing about it as though gosh golly gee, it shouldn't be in there is laughable.

To quote the article, "Nobody has ever taken the initiative to change it and so it's remained in the party platform, Greenwood said. The matter has never even come up for discussion, he said."

So do you think this "you've got to be kidding me" State Senator will take the initiative to make the change? If he really believed that the vast majority of Republicans in Montana believed as he did, why didn't the initiative to make the change happen last June? I'll make a guess at it. Because a large number of Republicans in Montana are conservative believers of the Bible and the Bible condemns homosexuality.
Out Of The Box
Out Of The Box
 Moderator
20 months ago: Good guess. We'll have to wait and see for the real facts of the matter.
20 months ago: PH, I won't argue against the contention that the GOP is out of touch and braindead, but I'll say the same about the Dems too.

Here is the problem I see in the article, state laws or the perception that there are laws against something that is NOT illegal according to the federal stance on it either by the Supreme Court having ruled that it is not illegal or that there is a federal law that says that it is not illegal. This perception allows people to discriminate or shun those they think are participating in what they think is an illegal activity, and they do it publically and even do news articles about this supposed illegal activity. This publicity can hurt those that are felt to be participating, both emotionally and financially; they are singled out by law enforcement as suspects and persons of "ill repute".

It doesn't matter how wrong it is, it still happens, and there are laws on the books everywhere that are unconstitutional, race based, religion based, even political party based. It will take a lot of work to get them off the books and many will fight to keep them there because they favor their personal view of how the world should be.
markbyrn
markbyrn
 Moderator
20 months ago: ...Here is the problem I see in the article, state laws or the perception that there are laws against something that is NOT illegal according to the federal stance on it either by the Supreme Court having ruled that it is not illegal or that there is a federal law that says that it is not illegal...

Not sure that's the problem here. It was the Montana State Supreme court that ruled the law illegal so it's not a feds vs state issue and nor can the GOP in Montana harp about it being a state's right issue (i.e. 10th Amendment). So even their own state court invalidated the law, the Montana GOP won't budge because they have to curry favor with the religious right element of their state party.
Out Of The Box
Out Of The Box
 Moderator
20 months ago: Yep, sounds like you have an opinion too.
markbyrn
markbyrn
 Moderator
20 months ago: Yeah, here's the 'opinion' right on the official Montana Republican Party platform webpage, adopted June 19th, 2010.

http://www.mtgop.org/platform.aspx

"Homosexual Acts

We support the clear will of the people of Montana expressed by legislation to keep homosexual acts illegal."

There's the opinion in black and white.
20 months ago: Sorry, scope to broad, must narrow the field of view, thanks.
Out Of The Box
Out Of The Box
 Moderator
20 months ago: No, the opinion I was referring to was your issue about State's rights, which I have not heard come up in this case, until you mentioned it.
Perfect Horizon
Perfect Horizon
Chicago, IL
20 months ago: Well, to me it is sort of an issue of State's Rights. State's have the right to pass laws (providing they meet certain criteria). That being said I have the right to think that those State's that pass laws, support laws, support positions that include systematic discrimination are wrong.
markbyrn
markbyrn
 Moderator
20 months ago: I agree and if the law had been struck down by a federal court, the issue might have been in the realm of state's rights with respect to the 10th Amendment or at least the Montana GOP could try to make that case. What happened in 1997 was a state matter; it was not a federal court that invalidated the law, it was the Montana State Court and it was ruled unconstitutional based on the Montana State Constitution.

From an archive at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11364...

"The Montana Supreme Court struck down the State's sodomy law and ruled that the law violates the State constitutional right to privacy. Until this ruling, all homosexual relations were labeled deviate sexual conduct, punishable by a $50,000 fine and 10 years in prison. No one had been prosecuted under the law since it was enacted in 1973, but its existence placed gay men and lesbians at risk of prosecution. The high court was not persuaded by the State's argument that the sodomy law was permissible because it prevented HIV infection and preserved public morality, largely because the law was enacted a decade before the first case of AIDS was reported in Montana."

And here's the ruling:

http://tinyurl.com/2cfcwf6

So the state of Montana exercised it's rights by using their supreme court to make a ruling per their state constitution and the law was found to be in violation of their state constitution. So if the Montana GOP really wants this law against homosexuality, they'll need to work on changing the Montana State Constitution to read as follows:

Section 10. Right of privacy. The right of individual privacy is essential to the well-being of a free society and shall not be infringed without the showing of a compelling state interest. SUGGESTED GOP ADD: and that compelling interest includes enforcing the Levitical morality provisions of the King James Bible.

I'm sure that would satisfy the religious right base of the Montana GOP but I doubt that's the will of the majority of Montanans.
Out Of The Box
Out Of The Box
 Moderator
20 months ago: Where the line in the sand gets blurred between doing the "will of the people" and "infringing on someone's rights" varies greatly. My right to enjoy M-80s in isolated areas and purchase ingredients to make fireworks has been legislated away. My right to drive without a seat-belt, and my right to remain health insurance free (without a penalty) have also been taken away. The right to smoke marijuana, snort coke, and bed willing 16 year old girls has also been criminalized.

So don't think the gays have a corner on the being-discriminated-against market. And don't single out a particular group for doing the exact same thing that your group is doing. Isn't that the catch-phrase of the day?
markbyrn
markbyrn
 Moderator
20 months ago: ...So don't think the gays have a corner on the being-discriminated-against market...

You bring up some 'interesting' comparisons and if we turned the clock back 50 years, you could have just as well made the above statement except to change gays to blacks. However in this particular case, the rights of homosexuals to have sex has been restored by the state court and they now have the same right to have sex as do heterosexuals. Yet here we have the Grand 'Ole Party that proclaims itself to be for small fiscally responsible government clamoring to expend a state treasury to enforce a religious fueled law against homosexuals.

Now who made the following quotes?

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.

I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary.
20 months ago: Ronnie
20 months ago: A law can not invalidate a personal relationship. We can legislate against sex acts in public. We can legislate for common decency. But we can not legislate what people do in their own homes, where no one is harmed.

Foolishly, various legislation has been law that attempted to control what people do in a relationship. No oral sex, no anal, and other legislation has been on various state books at various times. These sorts of laws are mostly unenforceable. And you wonder what sort of beanbrain would think them up!
Altruist
Altruist
Eugene, OR
20 months ago: It does seem that the Republicans have cornered the market on every type of behavior that demonstrates the basest side of our natures.

Their homophobia was just reinforced by their defeating the attempt to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell.

Their Islamaphobia is still evident with the Civic Center in New York and opposition to mosques all over the country, and the insistence on staying in two wars that are not in our best interest.

Their Latino racism is evident with their hysteria about illegal immigrants even though Obama has done more to curb illegal immigration than most other presidents. The enforcement is up, the number of border officers doubled, the number crossing the border way down and for the first time in twenty years the number of illegals in the country has actually decreased.

Their racism against blacks is evident because of the hysteria about Acorn, the new Black Panthers and opposition to anything Obama does.

Anytime there is hatred hysteria and fear involved it was probably instigated by the Right Wing that is controlling the Republicans.

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