Chris Healy, Chair of the Connecticut Republican Party, threw himself into the lion’s den this week. He participated in a forum in New Haven, pitting him against Democratic Party Chair Nancy DiNardo, entitled “Election 2008: What’s at stake for Connecticut’s GLBT Community?”. He took a tremendous amount of heat, which of course comes as no surprise.
He gets props for showing up and attempting to engage a group so predictably hostile. What was surprising to me was that he initially put forth a rather lame economic argument in defense of his position. I’d want to hear the details of his position further but, at least as reported by Melissa Bailey in the New Haven Independent, it wasn’t especially conservative and maybe self-contradictory in libertarian terms. But that’s another thread.
Anyhow, Bailey reports that when questioned about his position by phone after the event, Healy pretty much agreed with the Democratic position on civil unions (as articulated by Joe Biden in last night’s debate)!
And get this – so does Sarah Palin.
You read that right. The savior diva from the hinterlands, darling of the Republican base, she of the culture warring, eschatological right, endorsed equal rights under the law for gay couples:
IFILL: The next round of — pardon me, the next round of questions starts with you, Sen. Biden. Do you support, as they do in Alaska, granting same-sex benefits to couples?
BIDEN: Absolutely. Do I support granting same-sex benefits? Absolutely positively. Look, in an Obama-Biden administration, there will be absolutely no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint between a same-sex and a heterosexual couple.
The fact of the matter is that under the Constitution we should be granted — same-sex couples should be able to have visitation rights in the hospitals, joint ownership of property, life insurance policies, et cetera. That’s only fair.
It’s what the Constitution calls for. And so we do support it. We do support making sure that committed couples in a same-sex marriage are guaranteed the same constitutional benefits as it relates to their property rights, their rights of visitation, their rights to insurance, their rights of ownership as heterosexual couples do.IFILL: Governor, would you support expanding that beyond Alaska to the rest of the nation?
PALIN: Well, not if it goes closer and closer towards redefining the traditional definition of marriage between one man and one woman. And unfortunately that’s sometimes where those steps lead.
But I also want to clarify, if there’s any kind of suggestion at all 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 have a very diverse family and group of friends and even within that group you would see some who may not agree with me on this issue, some very dear friends who don’t agree with me on this issue.
But in that tolerance also, no one would ever propose, not in a McCain-Palin administration, to do anything to prohibit, say, visitations in a hospital or contracts being signed, negotiated between parties. [emphasis added]
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 round and round about what that actually means.
But I’m being as straight up with Americans as I can in my non- support for anything but a traditional definition of marriage.IFILL: Let’s try to avoid nuance, Senator. 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. That is basically the decision to be able to be able to be left to faiths and people who practice their faiths the determination what you call it.
The bottom line though is, and I’m glad to hear the governor, I take her at her word, obviously, that she think there should be no civil rights distinction, none whatsoever, between a committed gay couple and a committed heterosexual couple. If that’s the case, we really don’t have a difference.IFILL: Is that what your said?
PALIN: Your question to him was whether he supported gay marriage and my answer is the same as his and it is that I do not.
IFILL: Wonderful. You agree. …
OK, she is dancing around the issue, trying to have it both ways. Funny how quickly she’s making the transition from holier-than-thou maverick to Washington hack, eh? No dope, this one. Surprise again!
Let’s see whether the MSM jumps on this. If the press does its job and calls her and her running mate out on this, McCain/Palin is going to have to choose between pleasing the base voters who are so energized over her selection and playing defense on the substance and the tactic of the answer she gave during the debate.
[Source: CNN.com]
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