January 2012 - Moral Issues

In the January 7, 2012 debate Ron Paul was asked to address the newsletters that went out in the 80s or 90s that were racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Gay (these came out when Gingrich attacked him on December 24, 2011) – Paul said he doesn’t feel a focus should be on something done over 20 years ago that he did not write; he said one of his heroes is Martin Luther King because he practiced peaceful resistance and disobedience as did Rosa Parks. It’s too bad that Paul didn’t point out that he hadn’t signed the Family Leader Marriage Vow document or the National Organization for Marriage pledge (see December 18 blog) as all the others had.

Romney was asked about states providing contraceptives, after saying a question was asked that related to something no one intended to do, it was pointed out that Romney went to Harvard Law School and the Supreme Court ruled in 1965 in Griswold v Connecticut that they couldn’t, so we got back on track. By the way, Griswold v. Connecticut was considered a landmark case; it involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives. With a vote of 7–2 the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the "right to marital privacy" (as privacy is protected by the Constitution). Romney said then that’s the law of the land and if we don’t like it we have the amendment process; in his view we should have an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman; he believes that the decision along with Roe v Wade (1973) was decided incorrectly, both were based on privacy; he did say leave contraception alone it’s working fine. Paul jumped in and said the 4^th amendment does address privacy and that’s why he feels the Patriot Act is wrong and as far as contraceptives go he said the Interstate Commerce Clause covers it. Santorum said the Court created a new conundrum of rights with the decisions and thinks the decisions should be overturned; doesn’t think the Patriot Act violates the 4^th Amendment.

The debate went to Gay marriage and to Gingrich – he said we need to correct the situations that are prohibited without changing the sanctum of marriage. Huntsman said he’s in favor of civil unions with the rights of marriage and he too thinks the sanctum of marriage should be protected. Santorum said adoption by Gays is a state issue and he too wants to protect marriage and it should be federally mandated. When asked about the 1800 Gay couples already married Santorum shrugged his shoulders and said they wouldn’t be married. Romney weighed in saying they can have long term relationships without the approval of the state, or domestic partnership or contractual relationships can be addressed state by state, the nation will presumably be better off if children are raised where there is a male and a female and there’s many cases where that’s not possible (divorce, single parent) but he doesn’t think we should encourage situations other than the ideal setting of a man and a woman. Gingrich then brought up the reverse situation asking - should a Catholic adoption agency be required to close its doors because they won’t accept a Gay couple (he said Massachusetts has done this), should the DC Catholic church quit giving charitable services because it won’t give in to secular bigotry, bigotry goes both ways and there’s a lot more Christian bias and none of it gets covered by the news media. Perry said the war on religion would stop with his administration.

The issue of foreign policy came up next and is too long to address in this blog.