Stewart asks Mike Huckabee all the right questions about gay marriage…
The Daily Show With Jon StewartM – Th 11p / 10c
…but when is someone going to ask Huckabee about his weight? The man rose to national prominence for losing weight. But it sure looks like Mike has returned to digging his grave with a knife and a fork. Huckabee is the white, male, socially conservative Oprah.
#6
Liar. Dan you have made more shitty comments about over weight people than the rest of America combined.
Own it, it is YOUR hang up. Why, who knows, but, I have long hoped your glands go astray and you go to 340 in a year and stay there into old age.
Karma.
I’m glad he didn’t play the weight card (to turn a phrase) because it kept the argument civil. That’s the only way to convince people. Taking O’Reily’s shrill attacking methods puts us down with him and preaches to the choir. To get the people who need to listen to listen you really have to take the high road.
Also, Stewart needs to sell “Religion is more of a lifestyle choice than being gay” bumper stickers.
I dunno. As a straight, bleeding heart liberal, I don’t think either side “won” this “debate”.
Huckabee got in all his major talking points, and was calm and confident in doing so. Stewart did exactly the same thing. The fact that we all happen to agree with Stewart’s opinion doesn’t mean he won anything. If anything I could see people feeling sympathetic towards Huckabee because Stewart kept coming at him. Not saying I feel that way, but it’s certainly possible.
One of the main things I take away from this discussion is that Huckabee hasn’t given up on a political career. There are A LOT of people out there who think Huckabee is a good, old fashioned guy with reasonable values. I don’t think he said or did anything to go against that image. I can see him being one of the top-tier candidates in 2012.
I for one am just happy that we had a chance to see an honest-to-goodness discussion of a major issue with no screaming, and for the most part no whooping it up from the audience. We need more of this, on a variety of topics, if we’re going to get past the cesspool that passes for dialog today.
The fact that Stewart got in a fair number of cogent arguments without being shrill will (hopefully) open up some minds on this issue, and anything that makes future Prop 8s less possible is ok in my book.
Sigh!
IMO one just can’t seem to argue with people like Huckabee. they are right and nothing/no one can change their minds.
@40 I couldn’t agree with you more.
As a straight person I have no interest in ever getting married until the day the right is available to all. Should I ever chose to mate for life I plan to have a civil union myself. Many heterosexual couples chose civil ceremonies. Not EVERY straight couple opts for a religious ceremony (just like not every straight couple procreates).
Why don’t peple talk about this more? Perhaps I am overly naive, but if more heterosexual couples begin to use civil unions as an alternative to marriage, perhaps the whole concept of two types of unions would become more readily accepted – one as secular and one as religious. And like any other right, it would be equally granted to all without bias.
Influencing religious institutions to extend their blessing to same sex partnerships is likely a longer, more difficult battle. I believe that these are two seperate (though equally important) issues. Perhaps addressing them seperately will prove to be a more effective tactic than attempting both simultaneously – let’s face it, there are some people who will not budge on the morality of homosexuality.
So instead of going over that hurdle, go around it. American citizens regardless of ANY defining characteristic deserve fair and equal treatment under the law. PERIOD. The courts of this country have recognized that fact before…I put myself to bed at night with the hopes that they can do it once more.
I enjoy how Huck wouldn’t “defend” britney and kevin. Um, dude – they were two straight people that got married, had heterosexual sex and created two children. All of that was within the sanctity of marriage. So why won’t you defend that? because they didn’t have the kind of straight marriage you wanted them to? because they got divorced? because they probably did it once or twice where britney wasn’t flat on her back missionary style and silent?
I think the issue here isn’t just limited to gays getting married- I think these conservatives would love to limit marriage for straight people too. They only want marriage for people that are going to fit into their personal definition of marriage.
LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!
The civil unions of straight couples is called “marriage”. If the religious folks want to keep being special, they should change what THEY call it!
@55 (straight, asks why more straight folks don’t do civil unions)
You can’t have a civil union. It’s a “special right” available only for us gay people, and only in VT, NJ, CT, and NH.
You can have a civil marriage, which is the same thing as …. a marriage. Just have it officiated by a Justice of the Peace, county clerk, or other officiant who is not also performing a church marriage service, and after everyone signs the paperwork, you’re married — civilly.
The way it works most of the time is that most priests / rabbis / pastors are dual-authorized for weddings: once by their faith / church, and once by the state. When they “pronounce” you “married,” they’re killing two birds with one stone and performing both rites at the same time. If they were NOT state-authorized, you would not be LEGALLY married, and would have to find someone else to do that for you. They need to double-check before they officiate that their faith authorizes you to marry (eg, not divorced if Catholic), and that the state does too (eg, not too closely related). They can choose to do one or the other for people: lots of UU ministers will marry same-sex couples in their churches, but they can’t perform the state function (except in Mass and CT).
It’s confusing, and while people are getting better educated about the topic, there’s still a lot of misinformation out there.
He’s still a hater and homophobe of the worst stripe, but Huckster let us in on the logic of the other side: No one’s going to help us. But if we help ourselves to win, then we’ll have won.
I (deeply, truly) hate to admit it, but Huckster has a very good point: late in the interview he says that when gay folks focus, get it together and get the country on our side, then we’ll have a shot at wining our marriage rights. Implied was: waiting for permission or for help is not going to get us anywhere.
Kudos to Jon Stewart, though I wish he would’ve asked one additional question, following up on Huckabee’s assertion in the first segment (and apparently in his book as well) that the world would be a better, less government-regulated place if we all followed the Golden Rule. I’d have loved for him to ask Huckabee how he would want to be treated if his rights to marry the person he loves were being denied.
Stewart was awesome, but he missed a potential follow-up. Huck is all hung up on the semantics of marriage, but admits that people should be able to live as they choose. So why not civil unions? Equal protection under the law, but keep the “m” word for the straights? I would have liked to have seen Huck’s response to that.
I know that settling for civil unions is anathema to many gays — second class citizenship and all — but I really think it’s the way forward. And it needs to happen on a national level. This “you’re married in one state but not in another” approach is pretty lame. Gay people are not going to be legally married in Arkansas anytime soon.
Terrific job by Jon; it is always a delight to see him patiently dismember a ridiculous viewpoint with incredible intelligence and insight. The one thing I would have liked to see him cover that he didn’t touch on would have been the very easy counter to the “marriage is for baaaybeees” argument: should “barren” marriages be annulled?
Did anyone else catch Huckabee’s reference to “male” and “female” chromosomes? That made me want to throw something. I have a great line to toss at my associate who gripes about the “anti-science” label placed on religionists to show that it has been fully earned.
Great catch by Jon about the framing of the gay marriage issue too.
Little by little, they’re losing any ground to stand on. Kudos to Jon for pulling out another rug from under them.
As a women who has been in a relationship with another women for two years, I have to say that at one point in this interview (when Jon Stewart said that humanity should trump semantics) I actually had tears in my eyes.
With that said, I have to say that a small part of me was impressed by Mike Huckabee. Not his politics, of course, but with how he actually engaged in a conversation with Jon. I find that so many of us, liberals and conservatives both, just stop listening. And I think Huckabee made two important points. 1. His mind is not going to be changed. So we should really stop wasting our message on him. 2. We have some work to do. We should be getting our message out as much as possible to those who just don’t realize what’s at stake. Who only hear one side of the argument and could potentially be surprised by how logical gay marriage is.
Drew @62 – the problem with seperate but equal is that “marriage” as understood by state and federal laws has a whole slew of rights associated with it.
if you want to set up civil unions you’d have to try to completely copy all the laws associated with “marriage” into civil unions.
that’s a legislative nightmare of epic proportions.
even if you can set it up — THEN you basically have two seperate sets of laws that you need to try to keep completely equivalent?
why bother.
What they SHOULD do is rename all the “marriage” laws on all the books to “civil union” laws and then relegate “marriage” to be only a religious concept.
religious nuts get to have “marriage” all to themselves and the rest of the world gets “civil unions” with all the associated rights — which is really what rational people care about anyway.
ok – I need to ask the liberal panel. If I think homosexuality is a choice/preference, but I also think they should be allowed to part-take in the marriage (full on marriage, same as straights)- am I a bigot? I’ve been wrestling with this all day.
@66, I’d say you were uninformed, but not bigotted. It is your choice to believe what you will about gay people, whether it has any basis in biology, neuro-chemistry, genetics, evolution,society, or religious belief. All that aside, thanks for the support of us as a group, regardless of your personal beliefs!! Rock ON!!
jf@66: You can =think= homosexuality is a choice, but that doesn’t make it so. As when Jon asked Huckabee, “When did you decide to not be gay?” Your sexual orientation is no more a choice than the color of your skin.
My new slogan is “RIGHTS not RITES.”
The big question that I didn’t see Stewart ask is, “if marriage sanctifies procreation between a man and a woman, how can it be offered to heterosexuals who are unwilling to procreate or simply don’t procreate at the same rate as others?” Shouldn’t there be a standard level of procreation necessary to get the marriage license if it’s all that precious? And if you don’t fulfill it, then the marriage gets annulled.
Those unwilling or unable to make babies could be trumped by gay couples willing to carry on the tradition, albeit with the necessary sperm or egg assistance, as happens now in unions both gay and straight.
#65 I tend to think that “marriage” might be relegated to a religious issue only and that, in a true separation of church and state, all non-religious marriages might be framed otherwise. Let change in religious marriage come from within the church but let the rest of us have the rights and privileges equally with straights. I’ve been with my mate for 25 years. Let no one put our relationship asunder.
I also wonder whether the simple word “marriage” is all that necessary. Similarly I wonder if the Equal Rights Amendment would have passed if the word “gender” had replaced the word “sex?”
“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of gender” might have been an easier idea for some to sort out.
Ok so what I liked about this interview, in addition to Jon’s performance, is that in 2012, when Huckabee makes a second go at Prez, and he tries to pass himself off as more moderate than he really is (to get more votes, because the Evangelical base is NOT enough), we’ll have yet another record to recall up out of the archives that reminds us, no, he’s not ever gonna be moderate, he’s a bigoted asshole, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
And yes, Jon rocks, and yes, I also agree that Huckabee probably looked pretty good to his base, and that in 2012, when he tries to run for Prez again, the Republican base will dig up this video to remind themselves that he is a perfectly qualified bigoted asshole.
In addition to others’ comments, one of the other things I liked about this interview was how it wasn’t really a debate that anybody tried to “win”, like by persuading each other or the viewers to change their minds. (We’re already firmly on Jon’s side, that’s why we read Dan Savage and watch the Daily Show, just like there was no way to convince Huckabee that gay people should have human rights, right then and there.)
Instead, they actually seemed to be *listening* to each other. Nobody expected or saw the other backing down, but they both seemed to have decided that disagreeing with each other doesn’t necessitate a shouting match, like it’s good to actually find out what different people think… how refreshing.
And as a result, I felt more informed about Huckabee’s ideas, which are so alien to me, and that is a much better prize than seeing Jon being awesome again (although yeah he sure was, and yeah that was really fun too).
Word. I <3 Jon Stewart.
The best thing about seeing interviews on TDS is that they really do talk to each other, rather than talk at each other or mindlessly blather on as other shows do… I really enjoyed McCain’s time presient enough to compromise his own standards. with Jon over the years and it because clear how he was going to run for president just form watching Jon’s last two interviews with him… Jon pinged McCain over his flipflop on evangelical politics and I could see the writing on the wall…
He wanted to be president so much that he compromised his own standards… and is an example of why that eventually just doesnt work.
While many of the ideas of Jesus’ followers change through the millennium, atleast a few things remain consistent” they continue to re-interpret the Bible as their needs see fit, they still feel persecuted when other’s don’t want to take on their beliefs as lifestyle and they still want to burn all others at the stake. Did anyone notice what Mike Huckabee said?
‘Religious people don’t have the right to burn others at the stake, they don’t have the right to do anything that they WISH to do” Mike Huckabee. (and thank goodness for that)
Wait- he mentioned polygamy but forgot bestiality? How could Huckabee forget to equate gays with dog-fuckers as well as Mormons? He must have been too busy thinking about that cheeseburger being dangled just outside of camera range.
@75: Wait- he mentioned polygamy but forgot bestiality?
Governor, I’ve been insulted by Rick Santorum; I loathe Rick Santorum; Rick Santorum is a nemesis of mine. Governor, you’re no Rick Santorum.
What impresses me most about Jon Stewart’s persistence on this subject is that he’s a straight guy, and this doesn’t have to be his fight, but he’s in there battling anyway. From my point of view, this is an immense show of heart. I admire him unreservedly.
@69, Greg K, yes, the word marriage is all that necessary. Listen, acquiring doesn’t mean everybody has to DO it. But separate but equal, is still separate. Marriage: SAME rights, same tax breaks, Sam license that you pick up @ City Hall, same understood relationship..a second set of forms at the clerk’s office, for partner 1 & partner 2, maybe. It has to be the same thing or it’s not fair, IMO. Dancing around what to call it – civil union, domestic partnership – has wasted time. Not to preach to the choir, huh? 😉
But yeah. Full on marriage.
Oh gods..the dirty horrible things I want to do to John Stewart. Purrrrrrrrr. He’s my ultimate nebbish crush.