On May 27, RedState editor and radio talk show host Erick Erickson had a harrowing experience at his Georgia home. Without warning, police surrounded his house in response to a 9-1-1 call which claimed he had shot and killed his wife and was planning on committing more mayhem. Needless to say, Erickson had done no such thing; fortunately he had alerted his local police department to the possibility such a call could occur because Erickson is not the first victim of this dangerous ruse.
What I can’t decide is whether Senator Ben Cardin is pandering to the small base which really, really cares about the issue (maybe 5% think it’s the most important thing out there) or just ignoring the minority vote because it’s not going to cast ballots as a bloc against the referendum and for same-sex marriage.
But thanks to David Moon and Maryland Juice, here are a couple of instances of Ben Cardin speaking on the subject at the recent Netroots Nation conference.
So “our friend Ben” believes that two guys or two girls should be able to call themselves “married” and will talk about it at every campaign stop – unless he forgets, of course. I’ll wager he forgets a lot when he’s on the Eastern Shore or out in western Maryland, not that we anticipate him making trips too far outside the I-95 corridor anyway.
And if he does care to mention this at a nearby campaign stop, someone should ask Ben when he’s going to sponsor the legislation to take same-sex marriage to a national level – after all, it’s supposedly a civil rights issue on par with other areas of discrimination and he’s fighting DOMA tooth and nail even though Cardin originally voted for it. I know, I know…our friend Ben has evolved (read: pandered to the small but vocal militant gay-rights crowd.)
Then maybe the line of questioning should be taken further: shouldn’t Ben step up and demand polyamory and plural marriages between multiple sets of those of opposite genders be legalized? From both a religious and a policy viewpoint, some contend that’s the direction in which the debate will eventually head. While many voters would support the compromise of having civil union and preserving the concept of marriage as that of being between a man and a woman, that’s not good enough for that radical LGBTQ lobby. For them it’s marriage or nothing, even though civil unions would confer onto same-sex couples all the legal rights married couples have.
No, Cardin and his liberal allies believe the solution lies in distilling the institution of marriage to become meaningless and open to anyone who wants to claim it. Imagine the legal ramifications of fifteen people claiming to be married in one big, happy family until one of the fifteen thinks better of it. I’m not saying this will happen tomorrow, or even in the next decade, but that’s the Rubicon we cross once same-sex marriage becomes accepted via an affirmative vote in some state. Give it a generation or so.
While I noted the gay lobby equates this fight with the racially-based civil rights struggle of a half-century ago, I reject that argument out of hand. People don’t choose their ethnicity, but they do choose their relationship partners. If you happen to choose one of the same sex – even if you’re monogamous for decades – it comes with the understanding that you’re not going to naturally create children nor will you naturally be married.
I’m not one to delve into religion a great deal, but over my lifetime I’m starting to think we as a society are well on a path to reaping a whirlwind. To exploit the same-sex marriage issue for electoral gain may be a decision Ben Cardin makes as a political calculation, but it calls into question whether his 45 long years of public service have given him a sense of entitlement rather than the sense of humility he may try to convey.
