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Originally posted by MuadDib
Dean is hardly a liberal. His environmental policies in Vermont stunk. He had no choice but to allow for homosexual civil unions due to a Vermont Supreme Court decision and the legislature being likely to apss a much broader law to allow homosexual marriage. In fact, he explicitly stated he would never sign a bill into law that allowed for homosexual marriage and would only allow for civil unions. He is against medicinal marijuana, for the death penalty, and his health care reform platform will not even help the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society.
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Thanks for the links. I still disagree that Dean is not a liberal, however. He describes himself as "fiscally conservative, socially liberal." However, with regards to the conservative part, "He supports state-funded universal health care, generous state subsidies for child care, a higher minimum wage, liberal family leave legislation, and taxpayer-financed campaigns....After 12 years of Dean's so-called 'fiscal conservatism,' Vermont remains one of the highest taxing and spending states." (Cato Institute)
As for socially liberal, even allowing for civil unions is typically a liberal position, more so as the majority of Americans oppose it. You also mention his health care reform platform, but you criticize him only on the details. Like civil unions, it's a typically liberal position to begin with. And it's difficult to be less than a radical and earn a good rating from environmentalists in Vermont.
However, that's not to say that liberals aren't right about civil unions. Sometimes you have to stake out a position against the mainstream. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm a straight man.) But I'm not too concerned about gay marriage/civil unions. It's perfectly fine by me. In any case, I have a feeling that, like in Canada, initially few gay/lesbian couples will actually go through with it. But if we're going to establish federal marriage/civil union laws, we should take the opportunity to strengthen the divorce laws and make it harder to divorce. My hunch is that at first only the truly committed gay couples will go establish a civl union and not be likely to divorce. But in time, relationships are relationships, people are people, and the gay divorce rate will approach and eventually be the same as the straight divorce rate, which right now is disastrous. So we should take the opportunity to replace our hodge-podge of marriage laws and replace it with a strong federal marriage laws.
Sorry for the tangent. In all the talk about civil unions, everyone ignores one of the important issues: the divorce rate. Gays are no different from straights, and a relationship is a relationship. There's no reason to believe the gay divorce rate will be any different from the straight divorce rate. It's a fantastic opportunity to strengthen marriage/civil unions, and we should take full advantage of it.
-- Alvin