This Week in the Mercury
Friday, October 3, 2008
Politics Biden Corners Palin on Gay Marriage
Posted by Dan Savage on Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 2:10 PM
The highlight of the debate last night for the same-sexers had to be Biden manipulating Palin into endorsing Barack Obama's position on same-sex marriage: opposed to same-sex marriage, marriage-is-between-one-man-and-one-woman, blah blah blah. But Biden got Palin to agree that same-sex couples deserve all the same rights and responsibilities of marriage, even if we're denied those two magic syllables.
BIDEN: "So we do support, we do support making sure that committed couples [of] the same sex marriage are guaranteed the same Constitutional benefits as a -- property rights, the rights of visitation, the rights of insurance, the rights of ownership as heterosexual couples do."....
IFILL: Governor, would you support expanding that beyond Alaska to the rest of the nation? [This question, like so many of Ifill's questions, makes no sense. But Palin got the gist of it.]
SARAH PALIN: Not if it goes closer and closer to redefining the traditional definition of marriage between one man and one woman and unfortunately that's where sometimes those steps lead. If there is any kind of suggestion from my answer that I would be anything but tolerant of adults in America choosing their partners, choosing relationships that they deem best for themselves. You know, I am tolerant and I -- I am tolerant and there are some very dear friends who don't agree with me on this issue, but in that tolerance, no I would propose to do anything to prohibit visitations in a hospital, or contracts being signed, negotiated between parties.
But I will tell Americans straight up, that I don't support defining marriage as anything but between one man and one woman. And I think through nuances we can go around about what that actually means but I am being as straight up with Americans as I can in my nonsupport for anything but a traditional definition of marriage.
IFILL: Let's try to avoid nuance. Do you support gay marriage?
BIDEN: No. Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage.
We do not support that..... The bottom line, I take [Palin] at her word, that she thinks there should be no civil rights distinction, none whatsoever, between a committed gay couple and a committed heterosexual couple. If that is the case.
PALIN: My answer is the same as his and that is I do not.
So Palin does not believe that there should be any distinction, none whatsoever, between committed gay couples and committed straight couples.
Good to know.
But that moment of bipartisan concord couldn't have pleased the gay haters in the "base" so energized by Palin's selection. Conservative fundamentalists oppose any recognition of same-sex relationships; the anti-gay-marriage amendment on the ballot in Florida this November bans same-sex marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships. In Virginia "contracts being signed" is illegal for same-sex couples (no wills or powers of attorney for homos in Virginia); in Florida a lesbian from Washington state was "[prohibited] visitations in a hospital" as her partner lay dying.
It's good to know that Palin is opposed to the kind of discriminatory, mean-spirited, punitive laws aggressively backed her co-religionists. I suggest that the Democrats buy up time on right-wing Christian radio stations and alert the fundies that Palin supports Obama's position on same-sex couples, not McCain's.
Via Slog.
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