Things Cindy McCain Likes

'71 Mustangs.

The Ick Hick

Long piece on Mike Huckabee from The New Yorker:

One afternoon in Jerusalem, while Huckabee was eating a chocolate croissant in the lounge of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, I asked him to explain his rationale for opposing gay rights. “I do believe that God created male and female and intended for marriage to be the relationship of the two opposite sexes,” he said. “Male and female are biologically compatible to have a relationship. We can get into the ick factor, but the fact is two men in a relationship, two women in a relationship, biologically, that doesn’t work the same.”

I asked him if he had any arguments that didn’t have to do with God or ickiness. “There are some pretty startling studies that show if you want to end poverty it’s not education and race, it’s monogamous marriage,” he said. “Many studies show that children who grow up in a healthy environment where they have both a mother and a father figure have both a healthier outlook and a different perspective from kids who don’t have the presence of both.”

In fact, a twenty-five-year study recently published by the American Academy of Pediatrics concluded that children brought up by lesbians were better adjusted than their peers. And, of course, nobody has been able to study how kids fare with married gay parents. “You know why?” Huckabee said. “Because no culture in the history of mankind has ever tried to redefine marriage.”

But in the Old Testament polygamy was commonplace. The early Christians considered marriage an arrangement for those without the self-discipline to live in chastity, as Christ did. Marriage was not deemed a sacrament by the Church until the twelfth century. And, before 1967, marriage was defined in much of the United States as a relationship between a man and a woman of the same race.

Regardless of the past, wouldn’t Huckabee be curious to know whether allowing gay people to marry had a positive or negative effect on children and society?

“No, not really. Why would I be?” he said, and laughed.

Because saying that something ought to be a certain way simply because that’s the way it supposedly has always been is an awful lot like saying “because we said so.” And Huckabee is supposed to be the guy who questions everything.

Huckabee's responses are a tidy summary of the right's opposition to same-sex marriage. And unlike other analyses, Huckabee's acknowledgement of the "ick factor" is a pretty bald comment on the psyche of same-sex marriage opponents.

Prop 8 and The Mormons

From CNN:
A new documentary, directed by Reed Cowan, explores this divisive proposition, and the one religious group he says made the biggest impact. The film “8: The Mormon Proposition” explores the connection between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Prop 8.

Cindy McCain All A-Twitter

At the urging of her daughter Meghan, Cindy McCain is back on Twitter. Cindy follows about 140 other people on Twitter. Among them? Chris Daughtry, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ryan Seacrest, Laura Bush, Starbuck's, Tyra Banks, Joe Lieberman, Levar Burton, Fox and Friends, Log Cabin GOP, Sarah Palin, and my personal favorite - Shit My Dad Says.

Mamet on Colbert

Referring to current conditions on Broadway Mr. Mamet said, “Except for my play, they’re showing nothing but revivals of plays that weren’t very good 40 years ago...”
David Mamet

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Bush at The Hague

The liberal fantasy of George W. Bush on trial at The Hague for international war crimes is being played out in a new play by Lee Blessing called When We Go Up Upon The Sea. The verdict (review) from the New York Times.