Out of the Closet

And into the fire. I personally think that the GOP smear of John Kerry's mentioning of Mary Cheney's sexual orientation is hypocritical and repugnant. John Kerry mentioned the vice president's daughter's sexual orientation in order to score political points, yes, but did so in a way that did not bring shame to the Cheney family nor anyone's integrity, including the Democratic Senator. However, Lynne and Dick(head) were out (no pun intended) screaming for John the Baptist's head on a platter, calling him a man unfit to serve as president and ruthless for his actions. The Cheneys have a point, until one chooses to do the academic thing and check the public record and find that the Cheneys have been name-dropping their daughter in order to skirt the issue of gay marriages. Vice President Cheney has gone on the record stating that the issue of marriages is a states-rights issue, something that flies in the face of the administration's position (which pushes for the first Constitutional amendment limiting civil rights and freedoms since the 18th amendment of 1918). Cheney is taking a strict-interpretationist view of the Constitution, as the federal government does not have the power to dictate personal moral values to its citizens. President Bush, in his disastrous second debate performance echoed the Vice President's position of being a strict interpretationist, yet is the one who is flip-flopping on his stance. How can the man claim to want to strictly intrepret the role of the federal government and yet attempt to ban two people from getting married? If I'm not mistaken, James Madison made sure that the clause giving the chief executive the right to deny happiness and legal status of two loving, consensual adults out of the Constitution in May, 17871. However, Bush only wishes to interpret the constitution as it fits his re-election chances. He's for a ban on stem-cell research; again, nowhere in the Constitution does it grant the president the power to dictate policy based on religious belief. The president has pushed for further involvement of faith based groups to administer aid to private citizens yet only allows the most of these agreements to occur with evangelical fundamentalist Christian organizations. Check your Article II and tell me where that one was written in. The president also believes it is wrong to limit government assistance for the wealthy. Again, he fails his national history as Alexander Hamilton's position, similar to Bush's nearly rent the nation in two in the 1790s as Thomas Jefferson reminded the Secretary of the Treasury that the government was not given the right to do just so. Who seems to be the strict interpretationist? I know that I'm just about the only one in the world who seems to care, but when it comes to educated, academic-minded, wannabe intellectual (which I claim to want to be) understanding of the workings of the U.S. government, the Constitution (which I teach on a daily basis) and the role of the president, I seem to understand the letter of the law better than George W. Bush. However, how can anyone challenge Bush's positions, beliefs, and actions, when he claims that God told him that he would be president. I just wish that God loved me as much as George. Then maybe I wouldn't be held accountable for my positions, beliefs, and actions, something all other two billion Christians on earth are held accountable for.