Consistency and Small Minds

Michele Bachmann's run for president promises to be both an adventure in inconsistency and a chronicle of small minded America.

In March of this year, she introduced the Light Blub Freedom of Choice Act, saying that "[T]he American people want less government intrusion into their lives, not more[.]" On July 7, she signed “The Marriage Vow – A Declaration of Dependence upon Marriage and Family”, promulgated by The Family Leader, an Iowa group dedicated to "Christian conservative social values." Among many other things, the pledge calls upon candidates seeking the Leader's endorsement to commit to the "humane protection of women and the innocent fruit of conjugal intimacy" from "all forms of pornography and prostitution, * * * abortion and other types of stolen innocence." It further calls for opposition to the recognition of marriage as anything other "faithful monogamy between one man and one woman" and the prohibition of "intrusively intimate commingling of attracteds" in military "restrooms, showers, barracks, tents, etc."

In Rep. Bachmann's view, apparently, Americans don't want government intrusion in their own lives but greatly desire it in the lives of others. Not this American, thank you. I'd as soon ban the sale and distribution of the Bible as I would adult pornography. Fortunately for us all, the First Amendment demands that government keep its hands off of both.

The American people quickly are coming to the realization that gay men and women are not demons but human beings, with the same hopes, dreams, desires and failings as the rest of us, and that they are entitled to the same legal protections and privileges afforded heterosexuals who choose to marry. Some day our legislative bodies and courts will recognize what most of us already know. The pledge taken by Michele Bachmann is simply a reaction to this inevitability, the result of a frantic desire to hold on to an image of America that has never reflected its reality.

You can (and should) read the pledge in its entirety here: http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/The-Family-Leader-Presidential-Pledge.pdf