I wrote yesterday about the scrambled logic employed by former state Rep. Cynthia Davis to defend Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refuses to allow her office to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. I found it hard to believe that anyone could be as obtuse as Cynthia Davis seems to be. However, as Michael Bersin pointed out earlier, current State Rep. Vicky “Running God’s Way” Hartzler is also an admirer of the Kentucky county clerk.

Hartzler not only speaks up for Kentucky’s premier religious bigot, she is, as Steve Kraske of the Kansas City Star notes, the only one of Missouri’s congressional delegation to publicly defend Davis. I suspect that the only reason that she doesn’t go as far over the top as Missouri’s Cynthia Davis does is because her pronouncements so far have been brief (and if she decides to say more, she’ll have her staff to keep her coherent – something that Missouri Davis lacks). Hartzler nevertheless, misfires just as badly when she focuses on freedom of religion without acknowledging the civil rights of those in Davis’ religious cross-hairs, declaring that:

I stand with Kim Davis. It’s a sad day when we imprison someone in America because of their beliefs. Freedom of religion is our first right.

However, both Hartzler and Missouri Davis have even more distinguished company in their desire to defend Kentucky Davis: GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. And unlike Hartzler, Huckabee doesn’t hold back. He’s as over the top and poorly informed as Davis (although a bit more fluent in English). He attempts to draw parallels with the 19th century Dred Scott decision, claiming that it is still the law of the land – even after being informed that it was overturned by the 14th amendment:

“I’ve been just drilled by TV hosts over the past week, ‘How dare you say that, uh, it’s not the law of the land?'” Huckabee said. “Because that’s their phrase, ‘it’s the law of the land.’ Michael, the Dred Scott decision of 1857 still remains to this day the law of the land which says that black people aren’t fully human. Does anybody still follow the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision?”

After correcting Huckabee, Medved then asked the candidate if he would attempt to overturn the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling with a constitutional amendment.

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Huckabee replied. “Because, in the case of this decision, it goes back to what Jefferson said that if a decision is rendered that is not borne out by the will of the people either through their elected people and gone through the process, if you just say it’s the law of the land because the court decided, then Jefferson said, ‘You now have surrendered to judicial tyranny.'”

“The Supreme Court in the same-sex marriage decision made a law and they made it up out of thin air. Therefore, until Congress decides to codify that and give it a statute it’s really not an operative law and that’s why what Kim Davis did was operate under not only the Kentucky Constitution which was the law under which she was elected but she’s operating under the fact that there’s no statute in her state nor at the federal level that authorizes her,” Huckabee said before Medved cut him off for a break.

That, I believe, is similar to the wannabe constitutional argument that our own Cynthia Davis is trying in her labored fashion to promulgate. So what does this mean about Huckabee – and by extension folks like Hartzler and Davis? As Steve Benen remarks:

… I don’t expect Huckabee to be a legal scholar. He’s not an attorney; he has no background in legal scholarship; he’s never even been an elected lawmaker.

But Huckabee is falling short of a junior-high-school level of understanding of the American constitutional system – which is generally not an appealing trait for someone seeking the nation’s highest office.

[…]

Huckabee’s bizarre mistake would be easier to dismiss if similar mistakes weren’t so common. The former governor and Fox News host has somehow convinced himself, for example, that federal “enabling legislation” is necessary in response to court rulings, or they don’t count. He’s also endorsed pre-Civil War nullification schemes and suggested he might deploy federal troops on U.S. soil to prevent women from exercising their reproductive rights.

It’s one thing to have a right-wing governing agenda, but it’s something else when a candidate invents his own brand of crackpot civics and pretends it’s real.

Cynthia Davis is a small time political has-been who has to resort to her own Internet talk show to try to peddle her silliness and Vicky Hartzler is basically just another lack-luster GOP hack. But Mike Huckabee is running for president – president of all of us, not just evangelical Christian fanatics.

Of course, on the other hand, why am I surprised that a GOP presidential candidate sounds a lot like a dim-witted local ex-politician? These individuals are members of a party in which Donald Trump is a viable presidential candidate, and which tried to make Sarah Palin Vice-President. They’re members of a party that has turned its back on science, that denies the reality of climate change, that would subjugate foreign policy to partisan political considerations, that endorses discredited Voodoo economics, that would enable tax-cuts for the rich and impose greater tax-burdens on the poor, that is willing to suppress voting rights in the name of non-existent “voter fraud,” that denies that contraception is a health issue, that tries to rewrite history books to support present day ideological druthers, and that has no compunction about trying to impose a myriad fantastical theories and beliefs on the rest of us. Davis, Hartzler and Huckabee are maybe just a little less subtle than some of their other colleagues.

Poor Cynthia Davis. She’s no longer in elected office so perhaps it’s not fair to take potshots, but she’s still opinionating in public … and besides she’s such a fun target. It’s hard to believe anyone is as confused by logic as Davis (and bear in mind that, unless I remember incorrectly, this woman homeschools her children – which really underlines the fact that homeschooling in Missouri needs some serious regulating)

On the topic of Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis who won’t issue marriage licenses to folks she disapproves of on religious grounds, Missouri Davis is predictable in an oddly entertaining way. She thinks Kentucky Davis is being persecuted – defined by Missouri Davis as ” the infliction of pain, punishment or death upon others unjustly, particularly for adhering to a religious creed or mode of worship, either by way of penalty or for compelling them to renounce their principles” – for her religious beliefs.

So far as I know they didn’t waterboard Kentucky Davis or otherwise inflict pain on her, and last I heard she’s alive and kicking. She did go to jail, but it was because she wants to collect a $80,000 yearly salary while doing her job selectively. She wants to decide all by herself, based on her intuitions about the druthers of her personal Jesus, who deserves to get a civil marriage license. Note, a civil marriage license does not entitle anyone to a religious marriage ceremony. Nor, Missouri Davis, is Kentucky Davis being asked to renounce her religious beliefs. Kentucky Davis went to jail because she defied a court order that she carry out her duties to issue civil marriage licenses to those entitled legally entitled to receive them.

According to Davis, demands that Kim Davis perform the duties she swore to do, means that “the radical Left is trying to create a new country—one where the Christians are banished from all public offices.” Radical left? The loudest demand that Kentucky Davis do her job seems to have come from a ridiculously conservative Supreme Court and has the approval of many conservative legal authorities.

Oh, and while she’s at it, Missouri Davis should talk to all the Christian office holders who don’t have any problem exercising tolerance of those who are different, along with the few objectors who realize that they bear the onus to resign from government jobs they can’t see their way clear to perform. Didn’t Jesus, after all, say something to about not judging lest you be judged? Something for the thrice married Kentucky Davis to keep in mind – along with Missouri Davis who is so sure that Kentucky Davis is a deserving martyr.

Of course, Missouri Davis has to try get all constitutional on us – she became a member of the Constitutional Party, if I remember correctly, when the Republicans proved to squishy for her sensibilities, so talking about the constitution is probably understood to be mandatory. Unfortunately, she’s definitely not clear on the Supremacy Clause and what it means for state vs. federal law in case of conflict nor about the reach of Supreme Court rulings:

The US Supreme Court rendered an OPINION related to the facts of a different case in another state. While this Court has the power to declare a law unconstitutional, it does not have the power to make new laws. The OPINION states it is not illegal for homosexuals to put on the facade of marriage, but it doesn’t create new laws. Nowhere in the US Constitution does it say that the Supreme Court OPINIONS are to replace the laws of our land. We cannot substitute litigation for legislation. It is up to each individual state to create. To do anything less is equivalent to abandoning our Republic to a dictatorial oligarchy.

Apart from the logical word salad, does the fact that Missouri Davis capitalizes the word “opinion” when referring to the Supreme Court ruling imply that while the Court may have its opinion, it has no more meaning than any other opinion? You know, you have your opinion and I have mine and the Supreme Court has another?  If so, poor Missouri Davis is in for a rude awakening when she gets to the point where she schools her kids on civics and American government.

The Supreme Court doesn’t, as Missouri Davis affirms, create new law, but their decisions can invalidate unconstitutional laws and when they found prohibitions on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional, their ruling (a.k.a. opinion) rendered all such laws, including Kentucky’s little exercise in bigotry, invalid. And no, Missouri Davis, it’s not necessary for “marriage” to be explicitly mentioned in the Constitution for justices to rule against unequal application of laws, even laws that affect marriage. In the wake of Obergefell v. Hodges a state law that denies equal treatment in regard to marriage is unconstitutional no matter how hard you try to parse it to mean something else.

The best part of Missouri Davis’ efforts to take down those whom she perceives to be the persecutors of Kentucky Davis comes when she asks those pesky homosexuals just why they want to get married in the first place and make problems for good fanatics like Kentucky Davis. After all:

In case you weren’t aware of this. YOU DON’T NEED A LICENSE TO FORNICATE. So why would someone already living a perverted lifestyle need a license? Can a piece of paper take care of their consciences or alleviate the guilt that comes from being physically self-destructive? Is it possible for a man-made law to alter the reality of a natural law?

Quick, somebody tell this fool that the desire to marry rarely has much to do with fornication, or guilty consciences – except maybe in the imaginations of sexually repressed fundies – but about the advantages conferred on committed couples by a “man-made” marriage law. You know, all those things that we heterosexual couples can take for granted once we get married. Oh, and while you’re at it, explain to her that lots of us take exception to her conception of “natural law.”

 

Remember former state representative Cynthia Davis? Slightly nutty and seriously dim denizen of the lands on the far right shores of dominionist Christian extremism? Now that she no longer has a legislative outlet, she shares her very special political views by means of an internet talk show. Via the Turner Report, we  now have her considered opinion about why same-sex couples want to get married, and, trust me, it has nothing to do with any rationale for same-sex marriage that we’ve ever heard before.

No, same-sex marriage is, according to Davis, a ruse to “drain” the Social Security fund. Seems she “was doing research” on the Social Security Administration Website and found that now that same-sex marriage is legal, gay and lesbian partners are eligible for Social Security and Social Security Disability benefits in the same way that married heterosexual couples are. And, goosed by mental incoherence, revelation suddenly blazed forth:

So there you have it. The purpose of changing the definition of marriage was intended to drain the Social Security fund more quickly. When we allow people who are not actually married to receive marital benefits, the end result is that people will “get married” based upon what kind of monetary bonus is available.

It works the other way as well. When people discover they can extract more money from being in a divorced status, they divorce.

This is fraud. Yet, you can’t blame the people for being smart. The blame lies squarely at the feet of the Congress who are charged with the duty of controlling their own created bureaucracies.

How could anyone ever think fornication is promotable or merits financial reward? If the Supreme Court jurists, who are supposed to be legally brilliant, are that blind, what can we expect out of our normal citizens?

The part about folks who are “not actually married” must, I think, refer to a statement on the Webpage that indicates benefits may be available to a surviving partner in a non-marital, legal same sex relationship. This refers to state-recognized civil unions and domestic partnerships. These categories of relationship were devised precisely in order to make the legal system fairer for committed same-sex couples without offending folks like Davis who wanted to keep “marriage” exclusively for heterosexuals. At any rate, the provision now makes even more sense since these are folks who would have been married if they had not been denied their constitutional rights.

The provision for divorced spouses is of fairly long standing and is designed to take care of women or men who stayed at  home and provided support for their spouses during their marriages, only to be left with no or minimal Social Security earnings after their divorces. They may, if they wish, calculate their social security income based on their spouses’ work record and receive the equivalent of 50% of what their spouses would receive. Seems only fair to me.

Although Davis might not like extending benefits to same-sex couples – or to anyone – it’s hard to figure where the “fraud”  that has her all riled up can be found. Perhaps she should have done a little more research or asked someone capable of parsing English – and following links on the Social Security Webpages – to explain how these benefits work.

It is a mystery how she  managed to construe anything in the text she cites as promoting “fornication.” There have been people who fornicate for money since the beginning of recorded history, but I don’t think that fact has anything to do with same-sex marriage or the rules for paying out Social Security benefits. Perhaps it’s Davis whose mind is just a little too much “dans la boue,” as one of my French teachers used to say when she heard ideas or language that struck her as crude.

As for draining social security, don’t you think it might have occurred to Davis that these same-sex partners have been paying into the Social Security fund just like the rest of us, but haven’t been able to tap into the same range of benefits? Is it possible that Davis likes having a class of individuals denied the same rights as others for strictly financial reasons?  

Just for funsies, Davis might also think about what would happen if all same-sex marriage partners were magically to become straight overnight. After she yelled “hallelujah,” would she start worrying about the Social Security fund? Wouldn’t these new heterosexuals likely “drain” just as much from the fund through the opposite-sex marriages they might contract?

Perhaps Davis thinks that marriage itself is designed to drain the Social Security fund? Which would explain why she has claimed in the past that marriage is the cure for poverty. It must be all that Social Security fraud that is enriching married heterosexuals.

A bill, pre-filed by Representative Mike Colona (D) on December 17th:

FIRST REGULAR SESSION

HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 21 [pdf]

98TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVE COLONA.

0814L.01I D. ADAM CRUMBLISS, Chief Clerk

JOINT RESOLUTION

Submitting to the qualified voters of Missouri an amendment repealing section 33 of article I of the Constitution of Missouri, and adopting one new section in lieu thereof relating to marriage.

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring therein:

That at the next general election to be held in the state of Missouri, on Tuesday next following the first Monday in November, 2016, or at a special election to be called by the governor for that purpose, there is hereby submitted to the qualified voters of this state, for adoption or rejection, the following amendment to article I of the Constitution of the state of Missouri:

Section A. Section 33, article I, Constitution of Missouri, is repealed and one new section adopted in lieu thereof, to be known as section 33, to read as follows:

Section 33. That to be valid and recognized in this state, a marriage [shall] may exist [only] between a man and a woman as well as between a same-sex couple.

[emphasis in original]

This is so gonna upset Representative Vicky Hartzler (r).

Yesterday, via Twitter, Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) can’t help herself:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler ‏@RepHartzler

Disappointed by judge’s ruling in KC today throwing out the will of 71% of Missourians re: marriage. There’s no ‘right’ to marry in Const. 4:40 PM – 7 Nov 2014

And your point is?:

…Is it possible that public opinion has changed in the ensuing ten years? Just asking. But go ahead, and cling to whatever you wish…

Meanwhile, the Twitter responses are priceless:

Diana ‏@kccatdr

@RepHartzler Nor is there a provision for who can & can’t marry. If 71% of people approved public beheadings, would that stand as law? 4:43 PM – 7 Nov 2014

Blue DuPage ‏@BlueDuPage

There is a right to equal protection in the Constitution. Bigots like yourself can’t just vote our rights away. @RepHartzler 4:44 PM – 7 Nov 2014

Phoenix Blue ‏@Phoenix_Blue

@RepHartzler So if my faith considers your marriage invalid, you have to get an annulment, right? 4:53 PM – 7 Nov 2014

Louise Perry ‏@louise__lep

@KrisKetzKMBC @RepHartzler Other replies so far seem bent on arguing with you. I won’t. You’re an idiot. No arguing that. 5:11 PM – 7 Nov 2014

Ouch.

Doug Boucher ‏@duglas911

@RepHartzler remember Loving v. Virginia? Marriage is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution for EVERYONE. 6:51 PM – 7 Nov 2014

Tony Wyche ‏@tonywyche

@RepHartzler @KrisKetzKMBC How do you feel about #MOLEG throwing out the will of voters on camp. finance, conceal & carry and clean energy? 11:36 AM – 8 Nov 2014

Tony Wyche ‏@tonywyche

@RepHartzler @KrisKetzKMBC Also, if you feel there’s no “right” to marry in the Const., then why are opposite sex couples allowed to do so? 11:37 AM – 8 Nov 2014

You’ve just got to love social media.

We so look forward to future open town hall meetings in the district. Wait…

Previously:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): on court rulings – Missouri’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional (November 7, 2014)

A while back:

Is Vicky Hartzler the Most Anti-Gay Candidate in America?

She’s hitting her Dem opponent-an architect of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell-for caving to the “extreme agenda” of the “gay movement.”

-By Nick Baumann

| Wed Oct. 20, 2010 4:30 PM EDT

….In 2004, Hartzler drew national and international attention for her work in the campaign for a constitutional amendment in Missouri to ban gay marriage. The amendment was the first of its kind and passed-by a huge margin-in August of that year. The Human Rights Campaign and other national gay rights groups had poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the state to campaign against the amendment. Hartzler was quoted in national and international media celebrating her victory for “traditional marriage….”

[….]

“….Since the Missouri amendment’s passage, Hartzler’s been a go-to quote machine whenever there is national news about gay marriage rights….”

[….]

Representative Vicky Hartzler’s comment on the issue via Twitter:

Nope, nothing there.

Representative Hartzler’s (r) comment on the issue via Facebook:

Nope, nothing there, either.

“….Since the Missouri amendment’s passage, Hartzler’s been a go-to quote machine whenever there is national news about gay marriage rights….”

Strange silence. Times have changed.

Update:

Well, there was a release from Representative Hartzler’s (r) congressional office the day before:

Congresswoman Hartzler comments on judge’s ruling regarding Missouri’s natural marriage Constitutional amendment

Nov 6, 2014

Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler (MO-4) has issued the following statement regarding a St. Louis Circuit Judge’s ruling that Missouri’s natural marriage amendment is unconstitutional:

“I am disappointed that a judge has overturned the will of the Missouri people by striking down the state’s natural marriage Constitutional amendment recognizing marriage as a union of one man and one woman. Missouri citizens overwhelmingly approved this amendment with 71 percent of our citizens supporting it. Now it is up to the Missouri Supreme Court to uphold the will of the people. I am hopeful the Court will respect the people’s Constitutional right to determine their public policy.”

[….]

Is it possible that public opinion has changed in the ensuing ten years? Just asking. But go ahead, and cling to whatever you wish.

It would be interesting to read comments in response. Oh, wait…

Meanwhile, there’s the dissent this week in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals (14a0275p.06 14-1341 2014/11/06 April DeBoer v. Richard Snyder [pdf] Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit):

MARTHA CRAIG DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judge, dissenting.

“The great tides and currents which engulf the rest of men do not turn aside in their course to pass the judges by.”

Benjamin Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921)

The author of the majority opinion has drafted what would make an engrossing TED Talk or, possibly, an introductory lecture in Political Philosophy. But as an appellate court decision, it wholly fails to grapple with the relevant constitutional question in this appeal: whether a state’s constitutional prohibition of same-sex marriage violates equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead, the majority sets up a false premise-that the question before us is “who should decide?”-and leads us through a largely irrelevant discourse on democracy and federalism. In point of fact, the real issue before us concerns what is at stake in these six cases for the individual plaintiffs and their children, and what should be done about it. Because I reject the majority’s resolution of these questions based on its invocation of vox populi and its reverence for “proceeding with caution” (otherwise known as the “wait and see” approach), I dissent.

[….]

Today, my colleagues seem to have fallen prey to the misguided notion that the intent of the framers of the United States Constitution can be effectuated only by cleaving to the legislative will and ignoring and demonizing an independent judiciary. Of course, the framers presciently recognized that two of the three co-equal branches of government were representative in nature and necessarily would be guided by self-interest and the pull of popular opinion. To restrain those natural, human impulses, the framers crafted Article III to ensure that rights, liberties, and duties need not be held hostage by popular whims.

More than 20 years ago, when I took my oath of office to serve as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, I solemnly swore to “administer justice without respect to persons,” to “do equal right to the poor and to the rich,” and to “faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me . . . under the Constitution and laws of the United States.” See 28 U.S.C. § 453. If we in the judiciary do not have the authority, and indeed the responsibility, to right fundamental wrongs left excused by a majority of the electorate, our whole intricate, constitutional system of checks and balances, as well as the oaths to which we swore, prove to be nothing but shams.

“…I am hopeful the Court will respect the people’s Constitutional right to determine their public policy…”

“…If we in the judiciary do not have the authority, and indeed the responsibility, to right fundamental wrongs left excused by a majority of the electorate, our whole intricate, constitutional system of checks and balances, as well as the oaths to which we swore, prove to be nothing but shams.”

The vox populi in a low turnout August primary election ten years ago is not supposed to trump the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. At least not at this moment.

Remember former state representative Cynthia Davis? Remember her special blend of naive, petit-bourgeois self-righteousness, triumphalist religiosity and general dimwittedness? Although the term-limited Davis seems to have been too much of a good thing for otherwise crazy-loving Missouri Republicans – she lost her state senate primary race to the more traditionally respectable Scott Rupp – those of us who have been paying attention to the GOP primaries may feel a bit of Davis-tinged deja vu right about now. This feeling is especially acute when we consider primary contender Rick Santorum who shares Davis’ political DNA in spades.

Despite Davis’ failure in Missouri, Santorum’s current popularity in Iowa offers clear evidence that the GOP is far from forswearing his and Davis’ special brand of looney-tunes. While the Missouri GOP realized that Davis lacked the qualities essential to successfully represent the party, and while nobody really thinks Santorum is presidential material, they both equally embody the authoritarian and exclusivist social and religious strains that serve to rev up a sizable segment of the GOP base.  

An excellent example of this GOP cultural model is provided by the particular approach to the problem of resurgent poverty that both Santorum and Davis promote. They seem to think that if you could just force folks (men and women, that is, none of that gay stuff) to get married and stay married, no matter what, poverty would magically go away.  

During her tenure as Chair of the Missouri House Interim Committee on Poverty, Davis’ authored a report (pdf) that is full of gems gleaned from the testimony of exactly two witnesses, both from right-wing religious organizations, one of which, the Ruth Institute, touts marriage between “one man, one woman for life” as its raison d’etre, and from a tour of Sunshine Ministries, an evangelical, faith-based, anti-poverty organization. Not surprisingly, six of the nine conclusions offered in the report seemed to be based on the belief that to cure poverty we only need to promote marriage.

Santorum, for his part, is sure that a simple two-step process will end all poverty for all time:

Number one, graduate from high school. Number two, get married. Before you have children, […] If you do those two things, you will be successful economically. What does that mean to a society if everybody did that? What that would mean is that poverty would be no more. If you want to have a strong economy, there are two basic things we can do.

There’s nothing wrong with encouraging folks to get an education, nor can the importance of a strong family structure be underestimated; it only stands to reason that people working in tandem usually have twice the resources as those who try to go it alone. But conservatives like Santorum and Davis manage to  get it all backwards. A recent report (pdf) from the Economic Policy Institute analyzes  the available data on the relation between marriage and poverty in the African-American and Latino communities and concludes:

Continually high poverty rates among blacks and Latinos are the result of high unemployment and incarceration rates and declining shares of good jobs in the American economy. The decline of marriage in these groups is a collateral consequence of these negative economic conditions. We can address these problems with full-employment in good jobs and comprehensive criminal justice reform. These policies would not only lift large numbers of Latinos and blacks out of poverty, they would also provide significant benefits to all other racial groups. Additionally, these policies would provide more white, Latino, and black men with the economic security they need to get married.

In other words, instead of broken marriages and out-of-wedlock births leading to poverty, poverty leads to broken marriages and out-of-wedlock births which, in turn, reinforces the whole cycle. Forcing people to get married and stay married won’t provide employment when all the jobs have been shipped off to foreign countries. But blaming the evils of poverty exclusively on individual marital choices does let the rest of us off the hook when it comes to addressing the conditions that make stable family relationships difficult to maintain. Plus, it’s always so gratifying to tell other people what they should do – which is, of course, to be more like us.

It’s probably worthwhile to note that Santorum and Davis are selective in their embrace of the miracle powers of marriage. They don’t agree at all with the Huffington Post‘s Amanda Terkel, who notes that by the Santorum/Davis logic, allowing same-sex partners to marry would “increase the number of marriages in the country and theoretically lower the nation’s poverty rate.” Marriage champion Davis is now the executive director of by an anti-gay marriage group – and Santorum’s position on the issue is notorious. They both argue that by increasing the scope of marriage and permitting even more people to share in its benefits, we will undermine the institution for those who are currently permitted to enter it. In their view of the world, there just doesn’t seem to be enough marriage to go around and heterosexuals have dibs on what there is.

Such observations, however, presuppose that the proponents of the miracle marriage cure actually care about logical consistency, which certainly, given their shared tendency to cast their arguments in terms of caricature, doesn’t seem to be the case. However, the rest of us ought to care – one of these clowns is actually being taken seriously – more or less – as a possible candidate for President of the United States, and the more absurd his utterances, the more the the entire political theater will shift into the realm of the ridiculous. We managed to get rid of Davis, what will it take to exile the Santorums of the right from the political sphere?