Ed Morrissey:
This news hit yesterday, just before the start of CPAC 2014, but it seems to have attracted a little more attention today — perhaps in part because the CPAC conference has a controversy of its own over the pro-life issue. A new CNN poll shows a wide majority of Americans think abortion should be illegal in most or all circumstances, although it’s the circumstances that might be the issue:
About one in four Americans say that abortion should be legal in all circumstances, one in five say abortion should always be illegal, and slightly over half the public thinks abortion should be legal in some, but not all, circumstances, according to a national poll released Thursday.
A CNN/ORC International survey also indicates that a majority opposes taxpayer money being used to pay for abortions for women who can’t afford the procedure, with Americans split on whether women who receive government subsidies for health insurance should be able to get a plan that covers abortions. …
According to the poll, 27% say that abortion should be legal in all circumstances, 13% say it should be legal in most circumstances, 38% say that it should be legal in few circumstances, and 20% say abortion should always be illegal.
The intro gives the impression that pro-abortion forces are stronger, but the opposite is the case. What is telling here, though, isn’t so much the numbers in the majority but the composition of the minority. It’s easy to explain the absolutists on this side, who will offer bogus “clump of cells” science along with the “my [body] my choice” slogan with the ironically hypocritical attempt to silence the pro-life movement. However, those who want abortion as an option in most cases only number half as many as the absolutists, which means that the arguments about life beginning at conception may be having an impact.
I wonder what the poll numbers would be if people were asked if they would have wanted their mothers to abort them.
This conclusion:
DOES NOT LOGICALLY FOLLOW from this statement:
…even though Ed Morrissey is telling you that it does. Nor does it what he wants you to believe the poll means follow from these results:
If I were using Ed Morrissey logic, I could just as easily interpret that paragraph as follows:
78% believe abortion should remain legal in all, most, or at least some cases.
HotAir is accurately named.
@Greg:
Remove the circumstances of the life of the mother, rape and incest (the total of all of those reasons accounting for less than 1% of all abortions), and you have your 58% who would make illegal all other abortions.
But hey, we know that Margaret Sanger is the heroine of the left. She figured out a way to legally kill off the minorities.
Nice try, but as I told you before, you don’t do clever.
@retire05, #3:
So you claim. Show me the pertinent survey questions and response counts. I’m not finding the usual list of questions asked and the raw data summary anywhere. It’s not on the ORC website. They haven’t posted any CNN/ORC Poll particulars since last October. There’s no link from the CNN article that I’ve been able to find, either.
My position is that only one woman’s opinion matters—the one who is making the decision and who is directly affected by the decision. Let’s poll her for an opinion in each individual case and let that be the deciding factor.
Disagree? Please, do make it a central campaign issue in as many elections as possible. We’ll see what the results of that poll turn out to be.
@Greg #2:
Your assessment of the pole numbers is correct. Oftentimes, pollsters are left scratching their heads over contradictory responses, and usually write them off as indications of question-wording bias.
What I find objectionable is the suggestion that if a majority of people polled believe something, that “something” should be enshrined into law. Retire05 would have it so, but only in cases where the majority opinion coincides with hers. When the majority turns against her – as it has in the gay marriage debate – she either disputes the polls or dredges up a millennium-old argument for why the current majority’s will should NOT be followed.
I offer that the will of the majority is a valid reason to legislate neither for nor against in either case, as both are questions of individual liberty. The Constitution is the better guide for legislating our freedoms, not the fickle opinions of the public. And as Retire05 and redteam have so often reminded us, this is NOT a democracy.
@George Wells:
If the majority opinion has changed such that there is such a majority in favor of gay marriage, then why have the majority of plebescites on the question resulted in defeat for gay marriage, and the majority of states that have gay marriage been forced to do so by judicial ruling? Even deep blue California voted a state amendment against gay marriage, but had it imposed by a very liberal court’s ruling.
@George Wells:
And no where in the U.S. Constitution is matrimony ever mentioned. Instead, laws governing matrimony have always been left up to the states, not the federal government. And no, we are not a democracy, but a representative republic. And when our representatives don’t represent the will of the people, we have the option to vote them out of office and banish them to the same laws they saddle us with.
And why is that? Are you so foolish as to think it is due to some massive enlightenment on the part of Americans? No, it is simply that the gay lobby has been forceful, infiltrating our public schools and indoctrinating our children. And then there is always the straw man of “bigotry” that you queers are so quick to lob at another who disagrees with your political agenda.
@retire05 #7:
Be that as it may, my side is winning this debate. Of that you cannot dispute.
@Pete #6:
Why didn’t you bother to reference the call to stone homosexuals found in Deuteronomy or the persecution of homosexuals by the Nazis as examples of things going badly for gays? Because those things were far in the past.
The poll I referenced was taken earlier this month, while the plebiscites you reference were largely held a number of years ago. The most recent plebiscites were ALL resolved in favor of gay marriage, a telling indication of the rapid evolution of opinion on the subject of gay marriage. Even the polls taken by conservative groups reveal a progressive increase in the support for gay marriage across the country, INCLUDING the support for it among evangelical Christians. Just where do you think that this trend is headed?
@George Wells:
Where have I ever called for the persecution of people afflicted with homosexual urges? I have not brought up religious based reasons for opposing tbe non sequitor of “gay marriage”. Equating my opposition with what the nazis did, blatantly trying to tar me as a nazi sympathizer is disingenuous as well.
Scientifically, following homosexual urges is an evolutionary dead end, by definition, as it is impossible for homosexual activity to result in passing one’s genetic material on to progeny, notwithstanding the fact that homosexuality has never been proven to have a genetic basis.
The point I was making is that if your assumption is correct that a majority of Americans support the idea of “gay marriage”, then allow the separate states to hold a plebescite on the issue, rather than relying on the courts to force the concept onto a potential unwilling majority. If your position is correct, that a majority of Americans think gay couples should be allowed to marry as heterosexuals do, then your side should easily win, and you won’t have to rely on judges to legislate from the bench against the will of the majority.
The hypocrisy of the gay rights movement on tbis is blatant. Small business owners who due to religious beliefs feel they cannot condone via their business practices that which they believe to be unnatural and sinful is propagandized as bigotry, yet the gay hairdresser in New Mexico is lauded as a principled hero for refusing to cut the hair of the Governor of the state because she opposes “gay marriage”.
I really don’t care what people afflicted with homosexual urges do in the privacy of their bedrooms, anymore than I care what shoe fetishists, bondage enthusiasts, or bland heterosexuals who only know the missionary position do in their bedrooms. But demanding that I heap praise upon someone because of their sexual proclivities is demonstrative of a totalitarianism that is unamerican to the core.
@retire95 #7:
“And no where in the U.S. Constitution is matrimony ever mentioned. Instead, laws governing matrimony have always been left up to the states, not the federal government.”
No, not always. In the SCOTUS case of “Loving v Virginia, the laws of the state of Virginia that forbid interracial marriages were overturned by THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. States may enact legislation so long as that legislation does not infringe upon constitutionally protected liberty. The SCOTUS decided that the Virginia law did just that.
When you put as much effort as you do into constructing insults, your logic and the facts that you present suffer.
@Pete #10:
“Equating my opposition with what the nazis did, blatantly trying to tar me as a nazi sympathizer is disingenuous as well.”
If you read my comment AGAIN, you will notice that I said that: you did NOT “reference” Nazi persecution (etc.) BECAUSE THOSE THINGS HAPPENED IN THE PAST! How in the Hell did you infer from that that I was “tarring” you were a Nazi sympathizer???? (You seem articulate, yet irrational.)
“The point I was making is that if your assumption is correct that a majority of Americans support the idea of “gay marriage”, then allow the separate states to hold a plebescite on the issue, rather than relying on the courts to force the concept onto a potential unwilling majority. If your position is correct, that a majority of Americans think gay couples should be allowed to marry as heterosexuals do, then your side should easily win, and you won’t have to rely on judges to legislate from the bench against the will of the majority.”
We ARE allowing it. In fact, we are PUSHING in many states for that as we speak. But in some of the states in which such issues MUST be referred to the voters by direct action of the legislature, the legislatures are maneuvering to delay such votes, and in other states the scheduling of such plebiscites is constitutionally mandated, and the required timing of such plebiscites are far enough into the future that some folks become impatient enough to resort to the courts for relief. But there are also those among us who argue convincingly that equal rights should NOT be subject to either the approval or disapproval of the public, but rather should be derived directly from constitutional guarantees, and the courts play a necessary role in determining exactly what those guarantees mean. That’s just how it works.
“the gay hairdresser in New Mexico is lauded as a principled hero for refusing to cut the hair of the Governor of the state because she opposes “gay marriage”.
Not by me. The refusal to provide a service to ALL members of the public when one is willing to provide the same service to SOME, is discrimination that I do NOT condone.
“But demanding that I heap praise upon someone because of their sexual proclivities is demonstrative of a totalitarianism that is unamerican to the core.”
Where is this “demanding that you heap praise” thing coming from? Tell me, as I missed it. I certainly am not looking for your praise, much less your approval. You read WAY too much into the effort to achieve equal treatment under the law.
WHY IS THERE SO MANY GAYS IN AMERICA?
WHY SO MANY PEOPLE REJECT THE GAYS?
they are multiplying in AMERICA, AND HISTORY TELL ,
WHEN THEY WILL REACH THE UNKNOWN NUMBER,
WHICH TILT THE BALANCE
THAT WILL MAKE ALL OF THEM PERISH,
@George Wells:
Again, you present a vague comparison between the homosexual lobby’s march for “equality” and the Civil Rights movement. I doubt you will find much support for that comparison from the African American population who suffered slavery and other indignities that gays have never experienced.
The parties involved in Loving had no problem proving they were of different races. The judges involved only had to look at the defendants to see that they were of different races. And the 14th Amendment simply does not provide for same sex marriage no matter how you want to misconstrue it. The Court was very specific. Loving dealt with the issue of race, not gender, just a the Court has dealt with other specific issues.
The fact that you want to avoid, and continue to avoid, is that gays are allowed to marry in every state in the Union under the same guidelines that heterosexuals are. Whether you want to marry under those guidelines is not the issue. The fact is, you are allowed the same rights as straights as the law is not designed to suit one based on their sexual preferences.
The rallying cry was once for “gay” marriage. But that posed a problem for the gay movement. How do you prove you are actually gay? Unlike someone who can easily prove they are black, or Asian, or Hispanic, how do you prove gayness? So the movement changed the rallying cry to “same-sex” marriage, not “gay” marriage. Again, the goal posts were moved.
You suggested Redteam, if he did not like the same sex marriage laws, move to Uganda. Perhaps you should talk your own advise and move to a nation that does permit same-sex marriage. I’m sure that after 5 years, or so, of living in a nation other than the United States, you will be more than happy that you made the move. Just be sure that what ever nation you move to does not have a strong Muslim community that you will be exposed to. Gays don’t seem to fair to well with Islamists.
So, if same-sex marriage is legalized by the SCOTUS, how do you prove you are gay and not just scamming the system for (you claim of) benefits you are not currently allowed (and refuse to list)? And once same-sex marriage is legalized, how then can we maintain laws against polygamy?
@retire05#14 :
“I doubt you will find much support for that comparison from the African American population who suffered slavery and other indignities that gays have never experienced.”
I don’t care a lick if I get support from them or not. The validity of my argument does not rest on their support. Why waste your time making irrelevant points? Because you have no relevant ones. Pity
“The parties involved in Loving had no problem proving they were of different races.” “How do you prove you are actually gay?”
You keep putting your hand on this same, hot stove, repeating yourself over and over like a parrot. “Parties” do not have to “prove” that they are gay. In states where the definition of hate crimes includes sexual orientation, people who report such hate crimes are not required to present proof of their sexual orientation. When heterosexuals apply for marriage licenses, they don’t have to “prove” that they love one another, or that they are really heterosexual. The state doesn’t care. They are taken at their word.
Back during the draft, when you got called, you had to come. But you got a pass if you simply declared that you were gay. You didn’t have to “look” gay, and you certainly didn’t have to prove it. Neither would you have to “prove” that you were Jewish in order to prevail in a religious discrimination case involving anti-Semitic activity directed against you. Your self-identifying word is good enough for the draft, for the courts, and in plenty of other places.
“So, if same-sex marriage is legalized by the SCOTUS, how do you prove you are gay and not just scamming the system?”
Are you currently required to prove that you are heterosexual and not just a lesbian married to a gay guy for the purpose of scamming the system? No. So why should anyone else need to “prove” their sexual orientation FOR ANY REASON?
“And once same-sex marriage is legalized, how then can we maintain laws against polygamy?”
I honestly don’t know. I suspect that your best bet would be to use “equality” as the backbone of such prevention, on the grounds that polygamists would otherwise be eligible for multiples of marital benefits while monogamous couples would reap such benefits only once, and that would represent an inequitable distribution of benefits.
@George Wells:
And you call my arguments salacious? Really, George. If you keep grasping at those straws, you’re gonna drown.
A system used by a lot of cowardly bastards who wanted all the freedom this nation provides but none of the responsibility to back it up.
And many times those cases have proven to be false. Just like the recent case of the kid who claims to be a trannsexual and was using the boy’s bathroom in a California school. She claimed she was beaten up by other boys but the police learned it was all a fairy tale.
As to taking your word that you’re queer, sorry, I am not that trusting. Prove you’re queer, beyond a shadow of doubt.
@retire05 #16:
And how does a Jew prove he’s Jewish? He has no more of an obligation to provide such proof than I have an obligation to prove to ANYONE that I am gay.
@George Wells:
Your side once made them drop their pants. And then tattooed them.
@retire05 #18:
The point being? I don’t care what ridiculous crap from the past you keep dredging up. I’m talking about gay rights TODAY. If you want to live in the past, go ahead and fight long forgotten battles over and over again. I’ll spend my time on the issues of today, and they don’t include tattoos.
@George Wells:
Okay. So how do you feel about Muslim treatment of homosexuals? Today?
http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/friend-said-gay-club-arson-suspect-may-be-planning/ndPpr/
http://www.nation.co.ke/News/regional/Clerics+seek+harsher+laws+for+gays+/-/1070/1180544/-/r4rm13/-/
http://nypost.com/2014/03/02/state-dept-lets-anti-gay-muslim-leader-into-u-s/
http://news.yahoo.com/gambia-39-jammeh-calls-gays-39-vermin-39-185834391.html
http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/throw-gays-mountain-imams-speak-london-conference031013
http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/muslim-channel-punished-saying-%E2%80%98gays-should-be-tortured%E2%80%99120213
http://www.timeslive.co.za/africa/2011/06/14/kenyan-muslim-leaders-call-for-death-penalty-for-gays
http://nypost.com/2011/01/30/outrageous-teachings-by-new-gz-mosque-big/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/nigeria/10571788/Nigeria-begins-arrests-after-anti-gay-law-passed.html
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/canada/archives/2013/08/20130828-084745.html
@George Wells:
Really, Georgie? Seems to me it was YOU that was harping on what you perceived as PAST injustices against gays. Now you say it doesn’t matter what happened in the past?
Well, that leaves us with the question; what perceived injustices to you think gays now suffer from?
Have they been moved out of the Castro district and relocated to an area that no one else wants? Are they being denied the right to vote; the right to apply for jobs they are qualified to do; the right to purchase a home within their means; the right to purchase a Government Motors vehicle; the right to have 401(K) plans; the right to shop at their local grocery store; the right to sit where they want at the movie or are they being forced to use separate water fountains?
Just what the hell do you think gays are being denied beside the right to destroy the institute of marriage that was created millenniums ago?
@Kraken:
Kraken, George only pushes his gay agenda in a nation where his physical safety is guaranteed.
@Kraken #20:
Retire05 is right that I only work for gay rights in the United States. I am but one man, and she would have me dilute my effort over the whole planet, but to what effect? As it is, I am but a tiny number, to count as one vote in state and national elections, and to write to my congressmen, for example, and to send modest contributions to a few organizations that work on my behalf. As I said before, a wise man picks his battles carefully to maximize the desired effect. And as you, retire05 and I know, I would have no chance of accomplishing anything in a Muslim country other than effecting my own death. Perhaps that is what you are hoping for, or else you are making a ridiculous suggestion in mirth. I really don’t know…