Austin Mayor beat me to this in comments, but let me suggest that there is something a might bit hypocritical about the following stance:
I believe that marriage can only be defined as that union between one man and one woman. I am opposed to same-sex marriages, civil unions, and registries.
I believe that we are all equal before God and should be before the law. Homosexuals deserve the same constitutional protections, safeguards, and human dignity as every American, but they should not be entitled to special rights based on their sexual behavior.
The breakdown of the family over the past 35 years is one of the root causes of some of our society?s most intractable social problems-criminal activity, illegitimacy, and the cyclical nature of poverty.
As an elected leader, my interest will be in promoting laws and educating people about the fundamental importance of the traditional family unit as the nucleus of our society.
In the wake of the recent Massachusetts State Supreme Court ruling that has spawned similar lawsuits in other states, it seems likely that defending traditional marriage and codifying that defense will be required at the federal level. As such, as a United States Senator, I would support legislation such as Senator Bill Frist?s Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), provided the language remains clear in the defining of traditional marriage and protecting the traditional family unit.
I’m having trouble with the hypocrisy here.
Man allegedly wanted to have sex with his wife while other adults watched. I suppose to some that would be just part of a rich and varied sex life, and to others total perversion. What does this have to do with gay marriage? Is the family less important because of this?
Please explain it to me using small words, speak slowly, and show all logical connections.
Treating your wife like crap as is pointed out in many ways throughout the file would appear to be a far more serious threat to one’s marriage than two people bearing no relation on you engaging in the same institution. ON WBEZ he mentions visting a place that his wife was uncomfortable in on at least three occasions. I’m not clear how that isn’t risking one’s own marriage.
If you read the smoking gun site, Jeri claims that the problems in the marriage all pre-date the visits to the sex clubs. But that doesn’t bear on your argument.
You’re confusing the institution of marriage with a particular instance. Nobody says the institution stands or falls on the basis of any single marriage. You’re argument seems to be that gays should be allowed to marry because not every straight has a good marriage, to which I have to say “huh?” Personally, I happen to agree with Donald Sensing – the institution of marriage is almost dead and gay marriage is a reflection of this and not a cause in itself.
I think we claim hypocrisy in others to quickly. To be fair I think the person needs to claim they do one thing while doing another. I don’t think it’s hypocritical to proclaim a standard while falling short as long as you don’t claim (or imply) that you yourself continually meet the standard. So I don’t think it would be hypocritical on my part to urge husbands to always put their wives first even though I don’t as long as I don’t try to make you think I do.
I think you are misreading the Jeri’s statement–it was after those trips and specifically the Paris visit that she says the marriage fell apart–due to the visits and his reaction.
I don’t think that bad marriages occur is the reason for gay marriage. I think equal treatment under the law given their choices are consensual and irrelevant their participation is the reason for gay marriage.
But if Jack! is going to claim he is against others marrying because it causes the breakdown of the institution, then him causing the breakdown of his own marriage seems a more proximate cause of the problem than what two other people might do.
The larger problem is that he defines family in some sort of 1950s nuclear family way and not the much more messy institution that has existed for centuries. Marriage has seldom been as clear cut as many people think. They broke up quite frequently in decades past before we had reliable stats or even real ways to divorce. Men just took off, but often we had stronger neighborhoods to make up for that.
Right – you make an argument based on equality before the law – which has nothing to do with the poorness of the Ryan’s marriage and thus I hope you see my head scratching. I think I get your point, but it doesn’t have anything to do with hypocrisy. Just because the failure of his marriage has nothing to do with gay marriage doesn’t address the question of whether gay marriage is bad for the institution of marriage. Just because I had a car accident while sober doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have laws against drunk driving or my advocacy of same makes me a hypocrit.
Maybe you have a better time line, but the excerpts from the smoking gun don’t indicate when those trips occur; but Jeri says she told Jack that the marriage was over before the trips for a lot of other reasons (I get the feeling the trips were in response to the marriage slipping away, rather than vice versa, but again without clear dates (or Jack’s side) it’s hard to tell) including she’d fallen in love with another man.
The institution is based on societal expectations and pressures; individual marriages will vary and typically fall short of what is a high standard. I think people understand the concept that you have an ideal but real people can’t always meet it – you don’t scrap the ideal because in its abscence things would be worse.
Fair enough-and we disagree–as usual. Really meant to be more of a flip point–though Barney Frank made it in relation to many cases of infidelity.
Fair enough-and we disagree–as usual. Really meant to be more of a flip point–though Barney Frank made it in relation to many cases of infidelity.
The timeline thing is confusing because of where it is supposed to be in the file–over at the Leader they have more pages, but it isn’t much clearer on the issue. My understanding is that she is describing why the marriage had fallen apart by a given date so as to explain that any affair started after that was not as serious—whatever–not much of a defense, but none of that was relevant to the actual case as it turns out.
But I could easily be wrong.
Mo’ Linkage
First up, we have a double header from Cronaca: He links to an article about how bad female infanticide is in India, and some of the effects its having. How bad – worse than China! On a lighter note, Cronaca…