Republicans, The Colbert Bump & Same-Sex Marriage
May 29th, 2008
By JOE WINDISH, Technology Editor
“I’ve read the constitution forwards and backwards,” Colbert continued, “and I see nothing in there that protects gays.
“Why,” he asks Perkins, “do these judges keep seeing gay things in the Constitution?”
“They’re afforded the same rights and privileges as you and I are,” Perkins responded. “They don’t have a right to marry just as you and I don’t have the right to marry anybody we want to. We don’t have a right to marry our first cousin…” […]
“There is a reason,” Perkins continued, “that in public policy, that we work to strengthen and uphold the institution of marriage, because that is…really the building block for society.”
“Do you keep Kosher?” Colbert asks. “I think it would really be better for the anti-gay-marriage side if they obeyed everything in the Bible, not just the anti-gay-marriage part. Don’t you?”
“When did Jesus talk about gay people?” he presses further. “Because I keep on looking for that so I could win some arguments.”
Recently, Henry Farrell caused plenty of blogosophere buzz about research (pdf) demonstrating that The Colbert Bump — the phenomenon whereby those who appear on his show receive a bump up in their support — is realish. Thing is, it only works for Democrats!
PERKINS: We need to address all of the issues that concern people… If you ask your audience the issues that concern them I imagine that all of these issues somewhere would register, and as Christians…
COLBERT (to audience): Do any of these register with you?
AUDIENCE: No… Nah…No… No…
PERKINS: None of them?
AUDIENCE: No… (laughter)
COLBERT: Do you even know what they are?
AUDIENCE: No… (inaudible)
PERKINS: Why don’t you tell them?
COLBERT: It’s my show.
I don’t like Tony Perkins or his argument and I believe we will beat him fair and square in the public sphere. But I admire him for his willingness to put his arguments out there in every forum imaginable. I think he sees the writing on the wall, knows that the tide is turning and he’s going to lose and lose big and lose especially big with young people. So rather than duck that fight he goes on Colbert.
I’m a Democrat and I’d like to see more of us taking our message, taking our arguments, right out into the heart of the other side’s media message machine. And I’d like to see us do that with gay marriage and gays in the military and all of the rest of the social justice issues that I’d like to see at the heart of our message.
RELATED: The joyous news that NY Gov. David A. Paterson has directed all state agencies to begin to revise their policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions, like California and Canada.
Here’s video of the funny and eloquent speech the governor gave at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Leadership Awards dinner on April 7 on the subject.
This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 5:05 am and is filed under Moral Values, Legal Matters, Homosexuality, Humor, Satire, Culture Wars, Stephen Colbert, Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central, Family, Christian Conservatives, Society, Sexuality, Law & Legal Matters, Comedy & Humor, Minorities, GLBT Issues, Religious Right, Videos, Homophobia, As Yet Unassigned. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
