Box Turtle Bulletin
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News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyFebruary 28th, 2012
Marriage opponents in New Hampshire are pushing to repeal that state’s law providing marriage equality. The only question is whether Republicans, which control veto-proof majorities in both houses, can actually muster enough votes to override a promised veto from Gov. John Lynch (D). The New York Times tells us what marriage opponents are up to:
A House vote would need to take place by March 29, the deadline for the House to send its legislation to the Senate. Mr. Bates said Monday that he was working on ways to broaden the bill’s support in both chambers, like changing or removing a sentence that states, “Children can only be conceived naturally through copulation by heterosexual couples.”
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Jim Hlavac
February 28th, 2012
Seriously, this sentence: “Children can only be conceived naturally through copulation by heterosexual couples.†was in the law? Egad, are those folks clueless about gay sex, eh? Will they ban a gay couple from naturally from having babies? One would have thought we were nature’s ultimate birth control already.
And they are pretty clueless too about all sorts of helpful medical procedures for the infertile. Were they to ban all fertility clinics now too?
MaskedBandit
February 28th, 2012
Obviously, children conceived through IVF and sperm donation must either not be children, or must not be human. I suppose that would make them geeks, goblinoids, or furries?
Whatever the official designation, I foresee a grand new reality TV show series in New Hampshire, starring such sub-humanoids, modeled on either the Most Dangerous Game or even the Hunger Games. If they aren’t human children, then the fines for hunting them should be small enough to make it very profitable!
Sarcasm and silliness aside, I find it gob-smacking when politicians seek to redefine reality out of existence: If the law says its can’t happen, then it must not be able to happen. If I lived in New Hampshire and my representative wasn’t deeply uncomfortable with the language in that bill, much less the deprivation of civil marriage for couples, I would be extremely concerned and vocal about it.
I sincerely hope that, should this horrible bill pass and override the governor’s veto, that the path blazed by the Prop 8 trials is used to rectify the matter. I also hope that the supporters of this absolute twaddle are held accountable by the electorate that overwhelmingly supports same-sex marriage.
Karen
February 28th, 2012
And what pray tell do they plan to do about children who are not “conceived naturally through copulation by heterosexual couples”? abortion? deny citizenship? prevent them from enrolling in school? put them up for adoption out of state? Of all the crazy things I have heard from the far right this takes the cake.
Snowman
February 28th, 2012
Aren’t legislatures usually composed of lawyers?? It seems like the only law that particular sentence upholds is the “law of unintended consequences.”
Either that, or somebody’s TRYING to ban fertility clinics…
Timothy Kincaid
February 28th, 2012
Ummm y’all do know that the Pope has been on an anti-fertility procedure bent lately? Would someone like to ban fertility clinics? Yeah, some dude in a fancy gown and red Prada slippers.
Snowman
February 28th, 2012
True,however, why someone would slip this into a completely unrelated law, I have no idea, unless the actual motive for doing so is deception.
That, and there’s a lot of hipocrisy in an old man who’s a virgin trying to control how people have children, period.
Not that there’s anything wrong with being an atheist but I sometimes wonder if the religious right (often especially the Catholic branch) is deliberately seeking to cause people to abandon religion by use of all these despicable tactics.
Blake
February 28th, 2012
They’re trying to preempt arguments for gay marriage. They=Marriage is about children. Us=We have children. They=Your children aren’t legitimate children & the state has a legitimate interest in promoting legitimate children’s well-being… and so on.
Of course the whole argument is flawed for various & sundry reasons, but this kind of silliness is typical in drafts of reactionary laws.
msrowena
February 28th, 2012
In good writing, the “only” would have been placed in front of the word “through.” But what can you expect from the Neanderthals? Not that there’s anything wrong with being a Neanderthal, of course!
Timothy Kincaid
February 28th, 2012
Snowman, you made me laugh out loud.
I could see South Park doing an episode in which the kids discover that the Catholic Church is secretly run by atheists trying to do whatever they could to make religion seem evil. “I know, we could have the priests all molest the children of the parishioners and the church could cover it up! Yeah, surely if we rape their kids they will hate us! And we could say that if people who love each other get married that we’ll … wait for it … we’ll abandon orphans. No one would like a group who throws orphans out into the cold!”
Hmmmm, it kinda does almost make sense.
Timothy Kincaid
February 28th, 2012
I had to laugh at this:
Well, okay, it’s probably true that Democrats would love to have the Republicans vote for repeal – but with not enough margin to overturn a veto. Who wouldn’t want their opponents to take a stupid highly unpopular move and do so unsuccessfully?
Obviously, Democrats are not in any way behind the repeal effort. But you have to admire Cohn’s chutzpahb for finding a way to blame the other party for his own party’s stupid move.
GDad
February 29th, 2012
If I were able to conceive of someone this dense having an actual strategy, I would figure that they’d present a bill with horrible consequences as one line item, then when everyone reacts negatively to that one item, remove it to make the rest of the bill seem more reasonable.
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