The mind boggles, but here it is:
“Of course I’m not saying that Mark is gay,” Sanford said, “but he may as well be. The moral decay in this country has claimed another victim and this time it was my family. Our marriage was perfect until these laws started passing around the country. Clearly the slow dissolution of the sanctity of marriage in America seeped into Mark’s psyche until he no longer felt compelled to abide by our vows.”
Social conservatives were quick to show their support for the first lady’s statement.
“It’s finally happened,” said Rush Limbaugh, conservative radio personality. “America, I’ve been warning you for years that gay marriage would destroy the American family and look… there they are, a husband, wife, and four children – destroyed. When is this going to stop America? When will the liberals be satisfied? When all the marriages break up? This wasn’t Mark Sanford’s fault, this was Ted Kennedy’s fault. Sanford didn’t cheapen the value of marriage, he was victimized by the cheapening of marriage.”
NB: this is satire…
Who can tell the difference?
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p>It’s a rather pleasant fantasy to contemplate our Masschusetts equal marriages having the power to cause preachy right-wing politicians to implode in scandal and hypocrisy, though.
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p>Can we take credit for Sarah Palin’s resignation, too?
It may be that it is far easier for Mrs. Sanford to blame gay marriage than it is for her to look in the mirror and wonder “Am I a shrew?” or wonder, “Was I too controlling, did I drive my husband away?”
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p>Blaming someone else is a typical response to rejection and shame.
It seems to me that Mark Sanford is the one who committed the betrayal, shouldn’t he be the starting point?
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p>No doubt the self-critical fears that you describe may be lurking — and I suggest they are misplaced. Surely she is the victim, not the perpetrator.
From the outside, that appears so. However, neither you nor I knows what goes on in their personal lives. While I am also apt to blame Mark, and be confident in that blame, I wouldn’t so quickly rule out that she may have been behaving in a manner to cause him to seek love and affection elsewhere. Stranger things certainly have happened in marriages.
Joe, I don’t argue that she was a saint.
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p>I think virtually every one of us behaves, from time to time, in a “manner to cause [our spouse] to seek love and affection elsewhere”. In my view, this isn’t a “strange” thing, it’s a nearly universal thing. I think it’s my job, as a spouse, to manage those desires.
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p>I’m not even suggesting that a dalliance here or there is the end of the world. A great many strong, successful and long-lasting marriages — especially in other cultures — involve one spouse or the other discreetly and intentionally staying unaware of certain “friendships” of the other. As you say, stranger things have certainly happened.
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p>On the other hand, a week (and counting) of high-profile press conferences filled with tearful, “prayerful”, and intimate confessions — all with far too much personal detail — is something else again. The very fact that we sit here and speculate about what she might have done to “provoke” such behavior is precisely why his betrayal is so offensive. No victim is required to be pure and blameless, and neither should Mrs. Sanford.
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p>This is his problem, not hers. The shame is his to bear, not hers. The guilt is his to bear, not hers. She is the victim, he is the perpetrator.
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p>News Not Entirely Real…mixed with actual news. Please tell me how this is different from the interminable emails I get about the photos of Obama worshipping in a mosque…
It pillories the type of mindless claims social conservatives actually do make about same-sex marriage. Obama in the mosque isn’t funny. It plays to people’s fears and prejudices rather than using humor to put prejudice and fear in perspective.
I’ve never quite seen the humor or the point in “Ha ha! It’s like this person said this, although actually they didn’t!” So often, there will be basic distortion going on that removes attention from the actual point. Just quote the person and get on with it.
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p>And, of course, as we can see in some responses above, it can lead people to actually believe it is true.