This week's poll from the Lester & Charlie Institute of Forward Thinking:
You Know It When You See It!
We'd like to highlight just one of the many dramatic moments that has come out of the 2012 presidential conventions -- and no, this one doesn't have anything to with the bald lies and distortions told by the Republicans in Tampa. This one took place in Charlotte, N.C. After a haphazard voice vote in which there was no obvious winner, L.A.'s Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa declared, to a loud chorus of boos, that a supposed two-thirds of the Democratic delegates had voted both to declare Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to reinstate the word "God" in the Democratic platform.
"God" had been removed from the platform only days before. This wasn't without precedent. The National Review reports that, as far back as 1988, the Dem platform eschewed the GOP's "faith in God" and advocated instead for a "spiritually stronger" nation. In '92, the Dem platform simply acknowledged Americans' personal responsibility for whatever religious faiths they may or may not care to have. But now, after much controversy (and not a little snark from Mitt Romney), God is back in 2012.
It seems both parties desperately want the God vote. (Can God vote? We thought She was too busy making Pat Robertson say funny things and besieging Florida with wrath-fueled hurricanes.) Nevertheless, the party that has endorsed abortion rights, liberalizing immigration laws and affirming the right of gays to marry has bowed to the religious faithful and embraced the belief that religion has a place in politics. Could someone please cue the ghost of Thomas Jefferson to start poking his eyes out?
But, for all of this hype about the separation of church and state, things are even stranger over where the conservatives hang out. While the Dems are frantically trying to avoid alienating anyone, Republicans are trying something different. The opposite, in fact. In a nation where adult pornography is a 9.4 billion dollar business (most of that money coming from Red States, and Utah being the biggest consumer), the supposed pro-business, pro-base GOP's 2012 platform calls for pornography's criminalization, demanding a crackdown on the sexually explicit material typically found in convenience stores and pay-per-view television in hotels in convention cities like, say, Tampa. (And all of this from the party whose delegates were just famously entertained by a Sarah-Palin-lookalike stripper.)
So, to recap: The Democrats aren't afraid to pander; the GOP isn't afraid to go psycho and threaten to take away one of its base's favorite pastimes. It's as if they had just declared to criminalize the sport of hunting walruses in the Gulf Coast with AK-47s. What could they be thinking? Or, more importantly, what will they think of next?
But maybe that's the wrong question. Since conservatives seem oblivious of their party's stated agenda, they may soon find themselves without access to any reliable means of getting their rocks off. So how will they survive in a porn-free America? What do YOU think?
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MITT'S FAMILY FEUD!