Santorum blames gay marriage for bad economy

[ajb]

Guess it wasn't gas prices after all.

[ajb]

It really says something about Mitt Romney's weakness that this guy is consistently running neck in neck with him, instead of being destroyed in a landslide as he would be against any half-competent politician.

As far as I can tell, the policies that Romney is running on are in no meaningful way to the left of those of Santorum. And for every time that Santorum mentions sex, Romney obnoxiously reminds us of his wealth.

Has Mittens said that gay unions/marriage leads to economic sub-performance over time?  Is so, I would be interested in seeing that in text. Because that would suggest disingenuousness  - or idiocy.

Not directly - but then again, what does Mittens say directly when he's campaigning? There is this, though, from the Saint Anselm debate:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Obviously not the same thing - but that wasn't really my point. What I'm getting at is that Romney, while less likely to put his foot in his mouth over the issue, isn't campaigning based on a position any different from Santorum's. We could choose not to take his remarks at face value - but is there any good reason to do that?

Not the same at all actually. It has nothing to do with gay marriage. It might have something to do with gay adoption.  And I am not sure Mittens would oppose gay adoption, if the alternative, is leaving some kid without any parents at all.  Obviously I disagree with the concept that gays make inferior parents. I know gay parents who have adopted, and all of them have been fantastic, and doting, parents, and don't think they should be at the back of the line to adopt (and in CA they are not thankfully). It is total bullsh**t really.

You know what would be an interesting question to ask Mittens?  If the choice were a single parent family (which Mittens abhors), or a two gay parent family, which on balance would in general be preferable?  I wonder what his answer would be. I think I might make "arrangements" to ask him. I have my little channels.

Mitt Romney on same-sex marriage:
"I believe marriage is between a man and a woman and, as president, I will protect traditional marriage and appoint judges who interpret the Constitution as it is written and not according to their own politics and prejudices.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/on-gay-marriage-mitt-romney-veers-hard-to-the-right/2012/02/07/gIQALE48wQ_blog.html

Look, I find it comical when Rick Santorum tries to draw a link between gay marriage and recession. But Mitt Romney's opposition to gay marriage is just as unequivocal as Rick Santorum's.

[ajb]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Look at marriage percentages and out of wedlock births among white people over most recent years.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

If they are not interested in it, then there is no need to grant them that which they do not want.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

If they want gay marriage to stick around, then they should actually make use of it.

I've always thought that the general relaxing of divorce laws forty-some years ago was more likely to be responsible for the "broken windows" side of things. So would you support making it harder for couples to get divorced?

[ajb]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Absolutely. I think it's in the interest of society to discourage divorce.

In that case, given that changes in divorce law have been around for a long time, and have demonstrably contributed to the failure of millions of marriages, while same-sex marriage is still illegal and constitutionally prohibited in most states, shouldn't conservatives who care about preserving the traditional family place a higher priority on changing divorce laws, rather than on fighting gay marriage? Aren't conservatives in fact endangering the family themselves, by not pushing back against divorce laws?

[ajb]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Is divorce an issue more or less likely to be tackled before or after gay marriage is legalized?

Well, same-sex marriage has only been an active issue since the very late 1990's, and divorce rates haven't actually gone up since then, the big shift having happened in the 1970's or so. And yet conservative Republicans in office at the state and federal level during that time seem to have done awfully little about it.
If you're saying that gay marriage is a higher priority now, then why wasn't divorce a higher priority for conservatives then? Dare I suggest that it's because lots of conservatives are divorced?

[ajb]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You haven't offended me Torie, it's just you've made erroneous assumptions.

Wrong.

The first thing you do, is check and see if the situation is safe. If you get taken out by the same thing that took them out, there's two people who need rescuing.

This is the problem with gay marriage. In order to fix divorce as one of the bigger problems, we've got this log sitting on divorce. That log has to be removed first in order to fix divorce.

This is why I made the point, quite some time ago, is divorce more or less likely to be fixed with gay marriage in place?

All of you to a man ignored the question.

So I rest my case.

Mind you, why then has the divorce rate been falling for at least the past 20 years, from 4.7 per thousand in 1990, to 3.4 per thousand now? And why does Massachusetts have the lowest divorce rate of all (2.2), far below Arkansas (5.7), West Virginia (5.2), and Oklahoma (4.9)?
The answer, of course, is that the average age at marriage has been going up across the country, and has gone up faster in MA than it has in AR/WV/OK.
But is the increase in average age at marriage actually such a bad thing, especially if it leads to fewer divorces? Couldn't we argue that sometimes in the past people got married too soon and too lightly, and that waiting to get married is a sign that people now respect the institution of marriage more than they used to?

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0133.pdf