Sunday, June 21, 2009

Pennsylvania Senator Says He is "Allowing Gays To Exist"

In language all too typical of the far right and Christianist wingnuts, Pennsylvania State Senator John Eichelberger (pictured at left) recently made comments that demonstrate that these whacked out people think the nation belongs to them and that LGBT Americans exist at their sufferance. Sue at Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents - another LGBT Blogger Summit participant - has details on Eichelberger's obnoxious comments that were made during a debate over his introduction of legislation to amend the Pennsylvania constitution to bar same sex marriage. Here are some highlights:
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Leach: How would he [Eichelberger] want to encourage stability in gay couples?
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Eichelberger: I wouldn’t. I mean they can practice whatever sexual activity they like to practice, but there’s no reason to give them special consideration. We don’t give them special consideration in Pennsylvania for any reason. Why in the world would we allow them to marry?
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Leach: How would he want to encourage stability in gay couples?
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Eichelberger: There is no reason to encourage that type of behavior in Pennsylvania. . . . That comes back to the definition of family and that’s where we differ. We can call all kinds of things families. I mean, we can say a 3 party marriage is a family, or 7 or 8 people or marrying younger and younger children these days .
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Host: Are you saying that by their very nature homosexual relationships are dysfunctional?
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Eichelberger: [Pause] Ummmm. I guess I would say that. I would say that
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Leach: Should our only policy towards [same-sex] couples be one of punishment, to somehow prove that they’ve done something wrong?
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Eichelberger: They’re not being punished. We’re allowing them to exist, and do what every American can do. We’re just not rewarding them with any special designation.
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As I have said before, people like Eichelberger are a threat to freedom for all citizens and constitutional government. Of course, if Eichelberger is like so many of the nastiest homophobes, it may be just a matter of time before we find out he's into toe tapping like Larry Craig or Mega Phone ads like Ed Schrock.

2 comments:

ZIRGAR said...

What a tool! Special considerations? Allowing them to exist? By getting out of the way and simply allowing gay people to marry like everyone else can, is giving them special consideration? The stupidity and myopia of these people is stunning and incredible.

Sarah said...

Fascist. He's only 'allowing' it because he has to. Ugh.