Perry Signs Controversial Marriage Pledge

Seeking to revive his troubled presidential campaign, Texas Gov. Rick Perry appears to have returned to a tactic he’s often used in the past: pandering to far-right groups that demonize gay families and promote intolerance and discrimination toward other favorite targets.

The Des Moines Register’s political news website reports that Gov. Perry has signed a controversial marriage pledge promoted by the far-right group Family Leader in Iowa. So far U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum are the only other Republican presidential candidates who have signed the pledge, although Newt Gingrich’s campaign has indicated that the former U.S. House speaker will also sign it.

ThinkProgress notes part of what the pledge says about gay people:

“The pledge likens homosexuality to polygamy, adultery, or polyandry and asks candidates to vow that being gay is a choice that poses serious health risks like ‘shorter life expectancy.’

But the pledge is insulting to more than just gay Americans. One Republican presidential candidate, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, has called the measure “offensive,” “unrepublican” and a “promise to discriminate”:

“In one concise document, they manage to condemn gays, single parents, single individuals, divorcees, Muslims, gays in the military, unmarried couples, women who choose to have abortions, and everyone else who doesn’t fit in a Norman Rockwell painting.”

Last summer Family Leader dropped a particularly incendiary part of the pledge suggesting that African-American families were better off when slavery was still legal. The deleted section read:

“Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American president.”

In any case, it’s hardly surprising that Gov. Perry has signed the pledge. His anti-gay record is well-known in Texas. In August, for example, he asked the anti-gay hate group American Family Association to organize his prayer extravaganza in Houston. He has even suggested that gay veterans returning from the war in Iraq should maybe live somewhere other than Texas. So as he falls further behind in the polls, Gov. Perry has once again placed the banner of prejudice and intolerance at the front of his campaign.

9 thoughts on “Perry Signs Controversial Marriage Pledge

  1. “The Lady Doth Protest too much, Methinks.”
    Queen Gertrude

    Wonder if perry is aware that homophobes make the best homosexuals? Just ask Mark Foley, Larry Craig, Ted Haggardm George Rekers,just to name only a handful — is Perry next to be exposed? hmmmmmm

  2. although Newt Gingrich’s campaign has indicated that the former U.S. House speaker will also sign it.

    Dan, that was an industrial-strength irony meter that you just exploded all over my office. I hope it’s covered by our insurance….

  3. So Gingrich will vow to protect “traditional” marriage?
    I suppose all three of his marriages, and his admitted extramarital affairs, were all traditional. It’s all a question which traditions you’re following.

  4. Perry did not oppose the 2005 state Constitutional Amendment that completely abolished legal recognition of monogamous, heterosexual marriages.*
    So now how can he posture as a defender of “traditional” marriage?

    *The 2005 Amendment’s text is:
    “(a) Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman. (b) This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.”
    So, in plain language, it says that neither the state nor any county or city in Texas may recognize a marriage that consists of “the union of one man and one woman.” The Amendment is silent on whether or not the state may recognize a union of two men or two women, or of more than two people (if so, though, it can’t call those unions “marriage”).

  5. I nearly lost my lunch when I read that “pledge.” Republicans are great at pledging NOT to do things. If it is a Republican pledge, you can GUARANTEE that it is either hate filled or anti-American. The Republicans proved that they hate Obama and LGBT people more than they love America and Americans.

    When speaking about fellow Americans who are gay, they said, ““The pledge likens homosexuality to polygamy, adultery, or polyandry and asks candidates to vow that being gay is a choice that poses serious health risks like ‘shorter life expectancy.’

    They should get on their knees and thank God that they were born the way they were, straight. Gays are BORN the way they are. Do the Republicans hate people who are born with, say no legs? How about loathing infants who were born blind? Yeah, they CHOOSE to be blind. Oh, then there are the children who have strokes. Let’s laugh and make fun of them. Better yet, abhor them because their god doesn’t make mistakes, so they’re not “godly.”

    Who the hell do they think they are? They pledge not to ever raise taxes, period. They make me physically ill.
    One intelligent person said this, “But the pledge is insulting to more than just gay Americans. One Republican presidential candidate, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, has called the measure “offensive,” “unrepublican” and a PROMISE TO DISCRIMINATE”: (emphasis mine)

    Does anyone remember the “Contract with America?” I do. If fell flat on its face the way that all Republican contracts fail. Now they have pledges and the former speaker of the house wants to pull the wool over America’s face by coming up with a NEW contract with America. Gingrich, get thee to a mental hospital.

    “In one concise document, they manage to condemn gays, single parents, single individuals, divorcees, Muslims, gays in the military, unmarried couples, women who choose to have abortions, and everyone else who doesn’t fit in a Norman Rockwell painting.”

    In short, the REPUBLICANS want a monolithic America where everyone is the same and where the proper thinking people HATE those who do not fit the REPUBLICAN’S concept of what is America. What is that? White, Christian, heterosexual, men who think they own their wives. I’ve got news for them, the day is coming when the white people will become a minority. I’d have to live to be 110 to see that happen. If the Republicans are still around in 2050, they will cut their bellies open and slash their intestines because they won’t be able to stand ANYTHING that isn’t lily white.

    Beverly Kurtin

  6. Dang it, I forgot to mention this: “Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American president.”

    The ONLY reason that many black families are not headed up by a man is because if the family needs welfare, the man cannot live in the same home with the rest of his family, the ASSumption is that the man is fit to work and is able to bring sufficient income to the family.

    THANK YOU RONALD REAGAN!

    Beverly Kurtin

  7. I can speak somewhat to the things Beverly said about being a true American, which is akin in some ways to being what those same people call a “true” Christian. In my state, nearly 1,000 miles from Texas, I live among vast hordes of the red-stated people who are the “Contract with America” types. I have lived with them my whole life and know them like the “palms of me own hands.”

    First of all, I would like to make one baseline point clear. While there is reverence among the hordes for past founding fathers in Massachusetts and thereabouts, that is really about as far as it goes. Real Americans are by definition “SOUTHERN.” This includes people who live in the American South now—but only those who are descended from a long line of indigenous Southern people. People with Polish ancestors who have moved recently to the American South from Poughkeepsie, Moline, or St. Paul are not true Americans. People who have moved from the American South to states in the north and west are still Southern, but are eyed a little suspiciously if they have lived in those alien realms longer than a couple of generations.. With that baseline set firmly, here is what qualifies you as a true American:

    1. White skin. However, white skin with negroid features disqualifies you because the one-drop rule is still in effect socially if not legally. White skin mixed with “Chinese yellow.” You are walking a tight line.

    2. Scottish, Irish, Welsh, or British lineal ancestry on both sides, preferably going back about 10 generations on American soil.

    3) True American surnames: Roberts, Bruce, Kelly, Jones, Williams, etc. If your surname is Wazitzky, Normstadt, Olszewski, Giannati, Guilermo, or Goldmann, you are not a true American—but will be tolerated as long as you keep your nose clean and understand that you are not a true American.

    4) You are a so-called “Bible-believing” Christian and belong to a church with a name such as First Baptist Church, Separate Fundamental Church in Jesus Name, or New Harvest Church. Everyone else, especially the Catholics and Jews, is on the wrong spiritual road known as the Highway to Hell. Hindus need not apply.

    5) You realize and know that pinto beans cooked in hickory-smoked fatback—and served with chopped onions, and greasy cornbread—is a spiritual experience that grounds your very existence.

    6) Political Worldview: Conservative but not conservationist. It means that you appreciate the items list above and below as righteous and true, and you are dedicated to preserving those great traditions and prejudices of the past so your great grandchildren will have the benefit of growing up just as numb-brained as you are. You also leap to support any new idea put forward by your own kind—no matter how stupid it is.

    7) Values: You give lip service to the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament and the words of the New Testament—but just like Scarlett O’Hara—you know in your mind and heart that money and the physical things of this world are far more important than people and any form of spirituality. Motto: Get as much as you can. Can as much as you can get. Build a bigger barn—or megachurch— to store it in. Whoever dies with the most toys, especially American-made toys, wins.

    8) Republican

  8. Well, Charles, your #5, at least, is about as accurate in a truly global sense as it is possible to be…….