Ah yes... if we're going to have a discussion about President Obama and his recent announcement that he's "evolved" on the issue of gay marriage, who better to bring on than someone who's had a long history of anti-LGBT bigotry like Pat Buchanan? That's exactly what we got this Monday when Buchanan appeared on Megyn Kelly's show on Fox News, America Live.
Although I can't say some of the other networks are doing much better since I can't seem to get his fellow bigots Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer, Ralph Reed or Bishop Harry Jackson, among others, off of my television screen either. It wouldn't bother me so much to have them on if they were actually being challenged on their views, but as Media Matters noted in their post from Sunday, with the exception of Chris Matthews, that generally has not been the case.
Here's now Fox Insider portrayed the interview above: Pat Buchanan: Joe Biden ‘Dragged Barack Obama Out of the Closet’:
Pat Buchanan, who ran against former President George H. W. Bush in 1992 in the GOP primary, joined Megyn Kelly on America Live to talk about possible backlash the president could face.
Buchanan disagrees that President Obama’s public support will help him, saying, “I think that Joe Biden basically dragged Barack Obama out of the closet.” He continued, “I think the president has put his presidency at risk because this is an emotional, cultural, moral issue. And when folks go to the polls the overwhelmingly majority already in 30 states have imposed a ban on homosexual marriage.”
Megyn Kelly recalled Fox News contributor Sally Kohn saying that the vote in North Carolina to ban gay marriage shouldn’t be taken as an indicator of anything because the number of people who turned up to vote was very small. Buchanan responded, “How does that guest of yours explain how it was for example in California in 2008 where Barack Obama was winning in one of the largest margins in history. 52 percent of Californians voted to ban gay marriage, a majority of Hispanics, and 70 percent of African Americans.” [...]
Buchanan went on to say, “[Obama] is not going to put gay marriage into the Democratic platform. If you believe in it deeply, why not? Mitt Romney says he supports a constitutional amendment upholding traditional marriage. Does Barack Obama support a constitutional amendment which upholds same-sax marriage? No.”
He said, “This is the heart of the cultural war, Megyn, it is the fundamental beliefs … in Christianity, in scripture and tradition, and all those ideas of right and wrong against a new secularist idea which is quite militant, no doubt gaining in strength. That is the root of the culture war. It’s just like abortion. Is it okay, I mean is that a progressive move or is that the killing of an unborn child. These are the things that are really dividing the country and they’re going to continue. I didn’t declare it a culture war, we just admitted it was there.”
If Pat Buchanan wants to know who is dividing the country, all he needs to do is take a look in the mirror.
And I do not know if the Democrats will adopt gay marriage as part of their party's platform, but there a number of leaders in the party who are pushing for it: State Parties Ahead Of The Curve On Same-Sex Marriage Planks:
Voters in North Carolina are poised to ban same-sex marriage Tuesday with a measure that would limit marriage to one man and one woman, and forbid other forms of civil unions — even for straight couples. Democrats don’t just want the bill to fail — some hope their party will make a stand in North Carolina later this summer by unveiling a plank in the national party platform supporting marriage equality.
On Thursday, 11 state Democratic Party chairs signed on to the group Freedom to Marry’s call to include such a plank.
“In the last three years, we’ve made major strides in the fight for equality for LGBT Americans,” John Walsh, chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party and one of the 11 signatories, said in a statement. “Gays and lesbians can now serve openly in the military, a tough hate crimes law protects the LGBT community from violence and the Defense of Marriage Act was declared unconstitutional. In the history of the United States of America, there has been no greater force for progress than the Democratic Party and as we continue down the long arc of the moral universe, the Democratic Party should, and I believe will, embrace marriage equality.”
The needling from the state chairs illustrates how state-level parties have been quicker to embrace gay marriage than the Democratic National Committee. Though the national party is still wrestling with whether to include marriage equality in its 2012 platform — a move its own convention chairman has urged — a number of state-level Democratic Parties have either already endorsed marriage equality outright or alluded to it with party platforms that discourage discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
After having read that article at TPM, the first thing I thought of when I heard the President make his statement affirming his support of gay marriage, is that he wanted to get the issue behind him now, because the Democrats are going to make it part of their party's plank at the convention. Pat Buchanan is the last person I'd listen to as to whether that might happen or not. I hope they do the right thing and adopt it.
We've been hearing rumblings that Republicans really don't even want to discuss the issue because they know it's a loser for them. As TPM also noted, the Evangelicals in their base like Perkins and his fellow bigots, aren't going to make that easy for them to do.
