Wednesday, March 05, 2014

Jack Conway: The Pope made him do it

Where is the outrage!!! Where are the finger-wagging lectures on the separation between church and state?!!! Where are the indignant looks and upturned noses?!!!

We all know what would have happened if a conservative attorney general had gone before the camera's yesterday in Frankfort and announced that he was going to appeal the ruling striking down part of the state's marriage law and then told a national magazine that he did it partly for religious reasons.

Liberals would have choked on their vegetarian lunches. Volvos on the state's highways would have gone careening out of control. Sensitivity training would have been called for to cleanse him of his ideological sickness.

But for a liberal attorney general to announce that he was not going to appeal and to then say that he did it partly for religious reasons ... well now, that's another thing entirely.

Here's Jack Conway told Time Magazine yesterday:
A Catholic and a Democrat considering running for governor in 2015, Conway said he knew the decision could put him at odds with voters and with church leaders in his hometown. His thinking was shaped partly by statements from Pope Francis that encouraged openness toward gays. “Our new pope recently said on an airplane ‘Who am I to judge.’ The new pope has said a lot of things that Catholics like me really like. I have, as someone who grew up as a Catholic listened to some of the words of the new pope and found them inspirational.”
The liberal reaction? Crickets chirping.

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

So this makes Conway anti-abortion, right?

Martin Cothran said...

Hey, maybe he'll go for a ban on contraceptives. You never know.

KyCobb said...

Martin,

You're losing, and fulminating about Conway not joining your losing cause won't change that.

http://www.langerresearch.com/uploads/1159a2GayMarriage.pdf

Martin Cothran said...

KyCobb,

Just keep cheer-leading for winning team. Shake those pom-poms!

Singring said...

'Just keep cheer-leading for winning team. Shake those pom-poms!'

Oh, now all of a sudden the majority is dismissed as the 'winning team'?

LOL.

Not two days ago you were fulminating that voters were being 'disenfranchised', yet every time someone shows you that a) support for gay marriage is growing at an incredible pace and b) a national majority now support it, you dismiss it as a non-argument.

I'll admit it must suck to be a social conservative right about now.

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

You mean you saw an actually argument in KyCobb's comment? Really? Let's see:

Premise 1: Rah, rah
Premise 2: Sis boom bah
Conclusion: gay marriage, gay marriage, rah, rah, rah!

Is that it?

Oh, and by the way, have you looked that polls in Kentucky on this issue? I mean since you're so enamored of the support for gay marriage and all.

Singring said...

As everywhere else, support for gay marriage in Kentucky is growing. But neither myself nor kycobb are making the argument from popularity. You are, or at least you were up until a few hours ago.

Myself and kycobb are arguing from the constitution. This law was unconstitutional because it violated the 14th amendment. If you want to argue that it is constitutional, it is now your burden of proof - what legitimate government interest is there to deny gaye the right to marry?

If ' tradition, custom, religion and morality' are the best you can muster, get ready for some guffaws and spit takes in the courtroom.

KyCobb said...

Hey, its a lot more fun to be on the side that's winning. I know, because ten years ago we were losing a lot, and that wasn't fun.

Katie Casabella said...

Such a small post packs a big punch, I think you pretty much summed that one up in a nutshell (coincidentally where Conway belongs)

KyCobb said...

But then, Martin, once the Supreme Court strikes down all the same-sex marriage bans next year or early 2016, what will you have lost? Absolutely nothing. It won't effect your marriage in any way. But same-sex couples and their children will be big winners, as they will finally have national access to the benefits of marriage. That is the interesting thing about conservatism; its always losing the current civil rights struggle, then once its lost conservatives just move to another rampart to fight whatever the next dire threat to Western Civilization is coming down the pike.

Anonymous said...

Crickets chirping? That's actually the sound of distant laughter, past whatever hill is in between yourself and louisville. Don't be mad because Conway is playing your religious base against you. Your bigotry is dying, let it go, evolve.

Old Rebel said...

" It won't effect your marriage in any way. "

KyCobb, that's "affect." I can tolerate your leftist bias and unearned 'tude, but poor grammar is inexcusable.

Martin Cothran said...

Anonymous,

Playing my religious base against me? You really think my "religious base" fell for that?

In this new world of yours will they be able to recognize a double standard when they see one?

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

Are you saying that Judge Heyburn found Kentucky's definition of marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman to be in violation of the 14th Amendment?

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

As everywhere else, support for gay marriage in Kentucky is growing. But neither myself nor kycobb are making the argument from popularity. You are, or at least you were up until a few hours ago.

The polls in Kentucky are still heavily in favor of traditional marriage. We're supposed to change our laws because of what you predict they may be in the future?

And how is an argument that voters are disenfranchised an ad populum argument? Its a complaint about the process by which an issue is decided (a constitutional process), not an argument that more people support my position than yours (which yours in fact was, and which was, as a matter of recorded fact, wrong).

Singring said...

'We're supposed to change our laws because of what you predict they may be in the future?'

No. You're not supposed to pass laws that violate the constitution.

For someone who supports the party that is supposedly all about defending the constitution, you pay remarkably little attention to it.

JS said...

@singring. I'm not taking sides in the gay marriage debate but can you clarify your argument for me on logical grounds? I should say that I'm not American and therefore possibly misunderstand the US constitution. I can see that a society is perfectly free to alter the legal definition of marriage because it chooses to but I do not see how you can argue that the very existence of the definition is unconstitutional without more or less preventing the formulation of any law that distinguishes between the different status of individuals (adult/child, teacher/pupil, brother/sister). If I'm misunderstanding what you are saying then I apologise.

Anonymous said...

I don't think too highly of your religious base's ability to figure out much of anything on their own. They'll fall for pretty much whatever their leaders tell them. Like voting for a party that is thirsty for war all over the planet in order to gain profits for their corporate masters while preaching that they are the "christian right"? Voting for the "christian right" that starves poor folks, veterans, children, while preaching about their love of a nation built under god? A double standard, like how one group of people are allowed to get married and another group of people aren't? You should worry more about your own ability to see a double standard and less about some future world that you are trying to prevent.

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

I'm still unclear as to your assumption here as well. You seem to be saying that courts have found Kentucky's definition of marriage unconstitutional and therefore the burden of proof is on anyone who disagrees with that ruling.

I'm I correct on that?

Art said...

I can see that a society is perfectly free to alter the legal definition of marriage because it chooses to but I do not see how you can argue that the very existence of the definition is unconstitutional

I'm not singring, but ...

The issues here is not the evils that the voters of Kentucky wish to inflict on residents of the Commonwealth. Rather, it is the matter or these residents rescinding perfectly legal rights and and arrangements that residents of other states who may find themselves in KY due to employment, family, or whatever circumstances.

Martin and TFF want to make sure that people married in MA who have made perfectly legal arrangements regarding next of kin are deprived of these arrangements, such that their legal spouses can no longer be named. Martin and TFF want to make sure that partners who are legally family members be denied hospital visitation rights in KY. Martin and TFF want to empower the Commonwealth to steal legally-adopted children from happy and comfortable families (and, likely, place them under the care of pedophile clergy).

It is perfectly ( and constitutionally) within the purview of the Federal government to step in and say that rights, contracts, and similar arrangements made in MA hold and remain valid if circumstances bring people to KY. What he is advocating is every bit as odious as the pre-Civil War practice of kidnapping escaped slaves in free states and returning them to human bondage.

Singring said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Singring said...

@JS:

'I should say that I'm not American and therefore possibly misunderstand the US constitution.'

Neither am I - and I am certainly no constitutional scholar, but then neither is Martin. KyCobb is the best person to ask.

This case seems to be fairly clear-cut, however, which is why judge after judge is ruling these sorts of laws unconstitutional.

'I can see that a society is perfectly free to alter the legal definition of marriage because it chooses to but I do not see how you can argue that the very existence of the definition is unconstitutional without more or less preventing the formulation of any law that distinguishes between the different status of individuals (adult/child, teacher/pupil, brother/sister).'

The problem here is that a definition for the purpose of law, for example that of what constitutes a recognized marriage, must be such that it does note deprave some group of people of their civil rights - one of which is equal treatment.

This is what the 14th Amendment says:

'No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.'

If you say that men and women can marry each other, but men and men or women and women can't, the letter are not being treated equally before the law and do not have access to the same protections and benefits.

This is unconstitutional because it violates the 14th Amendment, as the judge ruled in this case in Kentucky.

The only way a law that descriminates in this way can stay on the books is if it's proponents can show that it has a 'rational basis' and that the government has a 'legitimate reason' to have passed this law.

I have yet to hear a single such rational or legitimate reason from conservatives as to why this law must stay in place - and the same goes for the courts, which is why laws like this keep getting overturned.

@ Martin

'You seem to be saying that courts have found Kentucky's definition of marriage unconstitutional and therefore the burden of proof is on anyone who disagrees with that ruling.'

Precisely.

Initially, of course, it is the burden of proof of the plaintiffs to show that the law is unconstitutional. In this instance, it is of course trivial to see taht it is because it obviously and arbitrarily denies rights and protections to some citizens, but not others. The plaintiffs in this case were arguing that the law was unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment and the court found in their favour.

It is now the defendants' burden of proof (if they want to uphold the law) to argue that there is a rational reason and a legitimate government interest in keeping the law on the books.

Whjen this exact same case was made in California about Prop 8, the defendants were - literally - laughed out of court because they had no data, no evidence, no nothing to show how society is adversely affected by gay marriage.

Recently, you announced that 'tradition, custom, religion and morality' should be good enough reasons.

If that were so, Jim Crow laws should still be on the books (tradition & custom), Alabama would be within its rights to have adulterers stoned in the street or force women to wear veils (religion) and when you say 'morality', what morality do you mean? It is an inherently subjective term.

You'll have to do much better than that to convince any court, Martin - even conservative ones like the one in Kentucky.

What rational reason can you list that trumps the protections of the 14th?

I know you're itching to post one of Esolen's rants again.

Go ahead - we could all do with a laugh!