Here’s what Howard Dean said, while speaking to a religious-right audience on the 700 Club:
The Democratic Party platform from 2004 says that marriage is between a man and a woman. That’s what it says. I think where we may take exception with some religious leaders is that we believe in inclusion, that everybody deserves to live with dignity and respect, and that equal rights under the law are important.
Here’s what the 2004 Democratic Party Platform actually says:
We support full inclusion of gay and lesbian families in the life of our nation and seek equal responsibilities, benefits, and protections for these families. In our country, marriage has been defined at the state level for 200 years, and we believe it should continue to be defined there. We repudiate President Bush’s divisive effort to politicize the Constitution by pursuing a “Federal Marriage Amendment.” Our goal is to bring Americans together, not drive them apart.
Under pressure from lesbian and gay groups, Dean admitted his error earlier today – but as far as I can tell, reading the few news stories I found on this, he didn’t apologize.
Wow – supporting the 700 Club’s position on same-sex marriage. Just what I want from the leader of the Democratic Party. And by the way, Howard: Either you support full marriage equality for those who want it, or you don’t support equality under the law. You can’t have it both ways.
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Domocrat, Republican… I can barely tell the difference sometimes. When people stop seeing themselves represented within a system, they start seeing themselves in opposition to the system. I don’t know if that’s going to be such a great thing.
So a left-wing politician lied to a bunch of godbags and told them what they wanted to hear. How slow a news day does it have to be for that to be worthy of comment?
I read it as typical politician weasel words (and I’m sure they did too), but it doesn’t make it any less annoying. why in fuck is he going on the 700 Club in the first place? i get the desire to reach across classic red-blue dividers–by all means, speak to religious organizations–but *that* one? shit, why not just sign yourself up a gig at Bob Jones U and have done with it?
If Dean qualifies as Left-Wing, I qualify for a Fullbright. :p
That’s really disappointing.
Hardly surprising.
If Dean is a left-wing politician I shudder at the thought of how far to the right Rex Little must be.
O.K. Dean rah-rah’s up the troops one day during the campaign and it’s front page news for a week for some reason I have even now yet to figure out. But when he tells a blatant lie like this, you hardly hear about it. I can’t make sense of this.
OK, I should clarify. When I refer to Dean as “left wing” I’m comparing him to others who hold or have recently held high office (senators, governors, maybe Congresscritters) in the U.S. Is there anyone in that category who folks here would describe as being significantly further left than Dean? That’s not a rhetorical question; I’m genuinely curious.
9: Being quite unfamiliar with politics, I would volunteer Russ Feingold as a possibility.
Rex,
Can you define “recently” so that we don’t go ’round & ’round? How about Kucinich, Cuomo, Kennedy as the overly obvious ones? Wellstone, Feingold, Blumenauer, DeFazio? That doesn’t even include prominent non-office holders, who you are excluding from the definition of the left/right spectrum of politics.
But I don’t believe that you can describe the range of political positions based only on those who hold “high office.” Because we don’t have anything even hinting at proportional representation, those who hold “high office” don’t represent the range of political views in the US. Why not define left & right only by Presidents, then? Or why not by School Board positions? “High office” is arbitrary.
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