VP Biden’s unnatural-marriage gaffe is mess for the White House

What more can one say about catholic pro-abortion Joe Biden, now VPOTUS?  He makes any effort at mocking him redundant.

From WaPo Opinion:

Vice President Biden’s gay-marriage gaffe is mess for White House

By Dana Milbank, Published: May 7

If Vice President Biden continues to make public appearances during this campaign, White House press secretary Jay Carney should be offered a membership in the janitors’ union.

As things stand, the spokesman does not have the supplies necessary to clean up the mess Biden made in his appearance Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Biden gave his full support to same-sex marriage — a position conspicuously at odds with the public stance of his boss, President Obama, who is widely assumed to share Biden’s views but who says that his own thinking is “evolving.”

The vice president said he is “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex marriage, committing the classic Washington gaffe of accidentally speaking the truth. This bit of straight talk made Obama’s position — neither for nor against such unions but in an evolutionary state, not unlike the Galapagos finch — all the more untenable. On Monday, Biden took off for a campaign event in Tennessee, leaving Carney on cleanup duty. But the more Carney swabbed the mess, the more it spread.

[…]

I am so glad he is still on the ticket!

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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40 Comments

  1. robtbrown says:

    I’m not so sure it was a gaffe but rather the White House wanting to be on both sides of the issue.

    It seems to be backfiring.

  2. Bryan Boyle says:

    Well…considering the plagiarist-in-chief (which is why he had to drop out of the presidential primaries a long time ago…) is pretty much an empty suit…he’s well-suited as the stalking horse for the current occupier in the White House (since he’s never had an original thought of his own…).

    I’m thinking that, given the dynamics of the current administration, when talking about this cabal currently in office, there’s what would be, in a normal situation, the most logical answer as to why this fool shoots his mouth off (he’s pretty much an empty suit?) is not the real reason. What would be considered off-reservation (he floats test statements that his boss can later get behind or refute without any damage to himself…) may be the actual reason he’s put out there to say outrageous things…with the result that The Wun can have insulation if it all goes south.

    Remember, to the Bamster, it’s all about him. This backfired? Well, then BHO can still ‘evolve’ his position without any loss to his prestige, Old Joe still collects his salary and enjoy the perks, and Carney is left, as the lightning rod, to take the hits. Clean, neat, and well-played.

  3. Dr. K says:

    If he wishes to receive Communion, Card. Wuerl will not stop him.

  4. wmeyer says:

    Bryan Boyle: “…considering the plagiarist-in-chief”. Shows your age, my friend. We are among the few around here old enough to remember such things.

    I do agree that he’s being used to float trial balloons. And yeah, Biden remains a buffoon. But to O, he’s probably considered a useful idiot.

  5. Tantum Ergo says:

    Methinks that minnow may have been deliberately dangled.

  6. PA mom says:

    Wasn’t there a time when every king had his own Holy Fool?

  7. Scott W. says:

    The “evolution” of his views reminds me of what Laurence Auster said: When people say they are not in favor of same-sex marriage, but in favor of same-sex unions, it means that they are in favor of same-sex marriage, but not ready to say so yet.

  8. Biden is living proof that Obama thought a head to his own survival. Who would assassinate him knowing the knave who would succeed him. Clever, I must say.

  9. wmeyer says:

    Hieromonk Gregory: “Biden is living proof that Obama thought a head to his own survival.”

    Bush 41 beat him to it with that strategy, in selecting Quayle.

  10. Dan says:

    There’s nothing contradictory between Biden’s recent remarks and the President’s own position.

    Does anyone honestly believe that there’s a difference between an “evolving” stance on homosexual “marriage” and actually accepting it? After all, “evolution” implies a trajectory, and in this case, that trajectory leads to full acceptance of unnatural marriage. The “evolution” language is just an attempt to mollify African American and Latino voters who POTUS does not want to alienate. Remember, the African American vote was key in passing Prop 8 in California. Obama dosen’t want them to desert him because of these social issues. Hence the equivocation.

  11. PostCatholic says:

    Those of us who are actively engaged in the battle for marriage equality are just as glad Vice President Biden is on the ticket. I’m not convinced this was a gaffe rather than a trial balloon. Mr Biden framed the question and answered nearly pitch-perfect in the rhetoric we who are Standing on the Side of Love also employ. It’s very heartening to hear our messaging spoken by the highest public official yet.

  12. Baylor_convert says:

    I do not envy Carney his job. If anyone wants to have a 45 minute chuckle, here’s the link to yesterday’s press briefing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1d6hKZIdDQ I would say a good 90% of the time is spent either grilling Carney on the discordance between Biden and Obama’s statements and Carney trying to toe the line. Quite funny.

  13. Fr_Sotelo says:

    It’s bizarre, the attempts to paint Obama as having a different position than Biden, after Obama told the Justice Department not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act.

  14. wmeyer says:

    PostCatholic: “Those of us who are actively engaged in the battle for marriage equality…”

    Marriage equality? Is that a euphemism for gravely disordered? Or are you referring to some aspect of traditional marriage which is not apparent to me?

  15. tealady24 says:

    Yes, let the Holy Spirit just keep working through this so-called catholic.

    He’s also someone we’ve been warned about. Go Joe!

  16. Banjo pickin girl says:

    wmeyer, notice also the language “we who are Standing on the Side of Love” and what it implies about people of normal moral values. Though in this case “Love” is a euphemism for something else.

  17. wmeyer says:

    Banjo pickin girl:
    Yes, I noticed all of it. I’ve had decades in which to adjust to Joe’s new lows, and yet it remains a challenge. I keep wondering what part of CCC 2271-2273 these CINOs do not understand, and whether they have any idea what is meant by latae sententiae.

  18. Banjo pickin girl says:

    they don’t care about that because they think the Church is wrong, that God is “doing a new thing,” etc. and the Church hasn’t gotten around to dealing with this pervasive mentality that the Church is somehow all of a sudden a democracy.

  19. Johnno says:

    Postcatholic –

    “Those of us who are actively engaged in the battle for marriage equality”

    More like the eradication of marriage by making it completely meaningless by broadening its definition to include just about anything under the sun, the inevitable result being why marry at all? This isn’t about marriage. It’s about wanting to force acceptance for immoral sexuality through definition changes and exercise of force of law to punish all dissenters.

    “we who are Standing on the Side of Love”

    Make love into a god, and it turns into a demon. It’s nice how you practice idolatry. That is, your worship of eros. ROughly you support placing emotion over reason and natural law. By invoking this false god of ‘Love’ you can, in its name, justofy all kinds of immorality and butchery. From the man who cheats on his wife because he now loves another, to those who will kill many and cause division and war for the sake of ‘love’ (best emphasized in the story of Paris of Troy and the Trojan Horse), and also now ‘love’ is the rallying cry of those who want incestuous relationships and pedarestic relationships recognized. After all, who are you to judge them and their love for each other? Don’t you know how they feel?

    ‘Love’ is an emotion, just like ‘anger’ and ‘hatred.’ God, who is all good, loves, gets angry, and hates certain things; and He created us with these emotions as we are made in God’s image. It is not the emotions in themselves that are right or wrong. It’s how they are directed. There are things you can rightly love, things you should rightly be angry at, and things you should rightly hate.

    Furthermore, the way we are created, to be heterosexual, provides great insight into who God is and our relationship with Him. Through sexual union, we are joined together in harmony and capable of creating life, the husband, the wife and God together produce a child in mirror image of the Trinity and of creation. And marriage invokes the relationship of the Church as Christ’s bride. Furthermore the joys of sexual unity foreshadow a much greater experience in Heaven when we are with God that we will no longer have any such need for marriage and sex as we know them, because we will enter into a transcendent reality of marriage and experience of joyful ecstasy.

    The further we remove ourselves from this reality (by promoting and encouraging homosexuality), the more we endanger ourselves of missing out the facts of what we are created to be, and how what we and sexuality and marriage are is an insight into what heaven and union with God will be. Homosexual and those who accept their behavior as normal distort reality nd the creation which is intended to teach us about God and know Him. By distorting the creation and sex, we distort God’s image and thus put ourselves at risk of rejecting God and Heaven, because we condition ourselves to desire something else. And when we reject Him, we then desire in our souls the alternative, which is hell. Furthermore, if we condition ourselves to just desire sex and place it as a sacred object above everything else, we become slaves and addicts to it, and this also becomes hell itself, as we will not grow, and we will always be chained to it. And this will especially be so when we die and enter the afterlife.

    What you are doing PostCatholic endangers yourself and other homosexuals and even other heterosexuals through your ideology to condition yourselves to reject God for who He is, and He is eternal and does not change, and to desire a false god or your own wants. When you die your soul, which is immortal will reject God as the source of all joy that you are seeking and experiencing in small doses on Earth, and setting yourselves up to desire anything but Him, thus denying all that is good, and choose hell over heaven. You will place your own pride above God, and you will prefer to suffer the consequences of your pride rather than humble yourselves to the Truth.

    Think very carefully about what you are doing. EVERYTHING is at risk!

  20. Dan says:

    Post Catholic,

    The problem I have is that you assert that you are fighting for marriage equality, but marriage does not include, nor has it ever included, the concept of same-sex relationships. Excuse the dumb metaphor, but it is like mustard demanding to be recognized as ketchup. Quite simply, mustard is not ketchup. The only way to make it so is to redefine mustard and/or ketchup. And that is exactly what is happening in the “fight for marriage equality.”

    Words have an objective meaning. They are determinate. They frame our understanding of everything in this universe, and if we begin to say that words, and the realities they convey can simply evolve over time, no right or institution is safe. Everything we hold dear and sacred in this life rests upon language…you fool with that, and you alter not only the dictionary, but reality itself. You may think that this linguistic “evolution” will always lead to greater freedom, but keep in mind that all we need to do in order to take rights away in the future is simply “redefine” them. It goes both ways.

    This is not about civil rights or equality; this is about redefining language in order to create “rights” that no society (except the present one) has ever acknowledged. It scares me because, as George Orwell made clear in his writings, the key to oppression often lies in the manipulation of language.

    If the government can redefine a bedrock institution like marriage, what else can it redefine? If President Obama can have an “evolving” view of marriage, can he also have an “evolving” view of free speech? Or of religious freedom? Recent news would suggest that he does!

    Consider this 1965 quote from Justice Black, in his dissent to the Girswold decision, which created an amorphous (and undefined) right to privacy:

    “One of the most effective ways of diluting or expanding a constitutionally guaranteed right is to substitute for the crucial word or words of a constitutional guarantee another word or words, more or less flexible and more or less restricted in meaning.”

    Every social evil (slavery, abortion, genocide, euthenasia, etc.) has been predicated by an attempt to control people’s ideas by redefining the language that preserves, protects, and safeguards our fundamental ideas about humanity. For example,

    Want to justify slavery? Then redefine “person.”

    Want to justify abortion? Ditto.

    Want to engineer the halocaust? Then start telling children in elementary school that Jews don’t fall within the definition of “human being.”

    If you ask me, every time we’ve tried to engineer society by fundamentally transforming langauge, bad things happen. I don’t think the present case is any exception.

    Bottome line: Marriage has an objective meaning. It does not include same-sex relationships. Trying to twist that into a “right to marriage equality” strikes at the very core of our objective understanding of langauge, and accordingly, of truth itself. Linguistic, and thus moral, subjectivism is not the way to guarantee inalienable rights.

  21. SKAY says:

    Obviously Biden thinks that he is so much smarter than the Pope. After all, he’s a liberal Democrat.
    Unbelieveable.
    Obama will “fully evolve” AFTER the election and suddenly realize that he is for gay marriage. It is so obvious and has been from the beginning. He IS transparent–but not in the way his teleprompter says.
    There was a reason he put Kevin Jennings(founder of GLISTEN) in the Education Department.

  22. wmeyer says:

    Whoa… Biden thinks? I’ve seen little evidence of that.

  23. PA mom says:

    Had this discussion with my sister. Knowing that all suggestions of listening to Church authority were out of the question, I dared her to genuinely compare the stress and risk that my husband and I (and most hetero couples) experience through the pregnancy, childbirth and child raising process with those of a same sex couple. Unexpected pregnancy, a child with birth defects, born early, multiples, stroke or other disability during pregnancy, death during delivery and still children to be cared for… The list could go on, and yes it all has to do with the plain cold facts of the birds and the bees. And yes, it is to protect people during just these very dangerous and challenging situations, and there is NO REAL comparison between the two situation. And yes, these are all probably points that are lost on those who will never have the opportunity for any of those outcomes, but they are still relevant.
    In other articles Biden referred to the TV show Will and Grace as responsible for the change in national morals. I am glad that he has such an authoritative source. It is hard to know whether anyone really takes him seriously or if he is just more of the smoke and mirrors for the real actors to hide behind.

  24. The Sicilian Woman says:

    Words have objective meaning.

    Which is the reason why change starts with manipulation of words and language.

    Diversity = Only liberal views accepted and promoted; your company’s or educational institution’s chief diversity officer will see to that.
    Tolerance = Acceptance and hearty approval, enforced by the law as necessary
    Hate = Any point of view which with the left disagrees

    The list is growing.

  25. Martial Artist says:

    Father Zuhlsdorf,

    Rather than “a membership in the janitors’ union,” I think a more appropriate title might be “Official Mucker of the Vice Presidential Stables.”

    And I think the reason that the {{{WARNING: OXYMORON ALERT!}}}”gay-marriage”{{{END ALERT}}} activists are so insistent is very well described by what the inimitable lay Canonist Edward Peters, JD, JCD, Ref. Sig. Ap., wrote with respect to Planned Parenthood’s reaction to the Susan G. Komen Foundation defunding, namely:

    Wrong craves reassurance that it’s right. … it also helps them sleep at night.

    After all, given that God’s law, the natural law is written on each of our hearts, whenever we engage in sinful behavior there is that niggling little voice of conscience that must be shouted down if we are successfully to ignore it.

    Not to mention that wmeyer, above, pretty much hits the nail on the head with respect to the current spare executive.

    Pax et bonum,
    Keith Töpfer

  26. Facta Non Verba says:

    Just like with the Russians, President Obama will have “more flexibility” after the election on same sex marriage.

  27. ContraMundum says:

    @Facta Non Verba

    Exactly.

    My guess is that Obama will start with executive orders for federal agencies to recognize “same-sex marriages” and push to make them available through military chapels. If he manages to contain the reaction to these steps and the contraceptive mandate has sailed through, the next step would probably be to make recognition of “gay marriage” a part of federal employment law. If any sizable fraction of these make it through, it could set off a domino effect of states shifting their laws to align with the new federal direction in fear of either “looking like hicks” (so much evil is done by small government officials in reaction to a misplaced inferiority complex to the east and west coasts!) or losing federal money for highways, education, etc.

  28. aviva meriam says:

    Actually, I’m surprised he hasn’t moved to to change the IRC, thereby granting same-sex couples the marital exemption/filing status.

    Wonder if he thinks he can do that without congressional action/ by executive order?

  29. frjim4321 says:

    Dan, I think there is a fault in your argument because “marriage” is not nor has it ever been a univocal term.

    For example, the church itself recognizes a least three substantially different uses of the term marriage:

    Natural Marriage: The consent of two non-baptized (m+f, no previous bonds) is a natural marriage, and considered valid.

    Canonical Marriage: The consent of a baptized and a non-baptized (m+f, no previous bonds) in the presence of a priest and two witnesses.

    Sacramental Marriage: Canonical Marriage of two baptized.

    Each of these entities is substantially different from one another, yet the church applies the term “marriage” to all of them. Further, as an institution, historically, modern marriage is a relatively recent phenomenon.

    So I’m not sure that arguments against marriage equality that say “marriage can’t be redefined, it only means one thing,” and “it’s always been this way” are insufficient.

    The formulation “marriage equality” is not intended to redefine a univocal term, rather simply to provide equal protection under the law for persons of a homosexual orientation.

  30. frjim4321 says:

    whoa, “insufficient” = “sufficient”

    to many wakes this evening . . .

    I guess while I’m at it I will conclude my thought:

    I really don’t have a problem with the church denying any of the aforementioned terms, e.g., “natural marriage,” “canonical marriage,” and “sacramental marriage” to gay and lesbian couples. It’s well within our competency to limit those terms which we use to describe essentially different relationships.

    That having been said, I can’t say that I support efforts of the hierarchs to limit the term “civil marriage;” since that term exists solely to protect the civil rights of those who chose to enter into such a legally protected relationship.

  31. JohnRoss says:

    Biden’s bishop should have a talk with him and waive excommunication in his face.

  32. robtbrown says:

    frjim4321 says:

    Dan, I think there is a fault in your argument because “marriage” is not nor has it ever been a univocal term.

    For example, the church itself recognizes a least three substantially different uses of the term marriage:

    Natural Marriage: The consent of two non-baptized (m+f, no previous bonds) is a natural marriage, and considered valid.

    Canonical Marriage: The consent of a baptized and a non-baptized (m+f, no previous bonds) in the presence of a priest and two witnesses.

    Sacramental Marriage: Canonical Marriage of two baptized.

    Each of these entities is substantially different from one another, yet the church applies the term “marriage” to all of them. Further, as an institution, historically, modern marriage is a relatively recent phenomenon.

    You make a common mistake by assuming that the choice is merely between univocal and equivocal (which you consider the three to be). In fact, the three are analogical.

    Marriage is a natural institution. Thus, Sacramental marriage (two Baptized) presumes natural marriage–they can be thought of as concentric circles. There is no Sacramental marriage without the natural marital bonds. That’s why natural impediments, e.g., lack of consent, impotence, and consanguinity, usually are the basis for annulment. Some considered the unitive aspect of marriage to be a violation of the Divine but not the Natural Law. Obviously, JPII disagreed–so do I.

    The phrase canonical marriage refers to a natural marriage that is recorded by the Church. There are some who think that the Baptized receives the Sacrament of Matrimony while the unBaptized does not. IMHO, this makes no sense. In the natural order, a living person cannot marry someone not alive. The same is true in the supernatural order.

    Civil marriage should reflect that marriage (nb: the word refers to motherhood) is a natural institution. The rights which follow from its civil legal status are mostly a function of having children. The vulnerability of the woman, who in having and raising children, has often renounced her ability to generate income. And in cases of separation both spouses have rights to see the children unless circumstances dictate otherwise.

    If homosexuals want some agreement to share goods, that’s their business. It’s a farce, however, to call it marriage.

  33. robtbrown says:

    wmeyer says:

    Bryan Boyle: “…considering the plagiarist-in-chief”. Shows your age, my friend. We are among the few around here old enough to remember such things.

    It was more than just plagiarizing a speech. He also lied about his performance as an undergrad and in Law School.

    Soon after, someone published a satire of the Biden CV. It included, among other things, an Olympic Gold Medal, a Nobel Prize, an Academy Award, an MLB Batting title, and a Super Bowl MVP, and few World Records in Track and Field.

  34. ContraMundum says:

    Soon after, someone published a satire of the Biden CV. It included, among other things, an Olympic Gold Medal, a Nobel Prize….

    With the Nobel Prize winner currently occupying the White House, it’s hard to satire that prize now.

  35. BaedaBenedictus says:

    ” “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.”

    Barack Obama, in a letter to a Chicago gay newspaper, 1996

    http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=29656

    Obama’s views haven’t just been “evolving”, they’ve been devolving too.

    Incidentally, what was Joe Biden up to in 1996? Voting for the Defense of Marriage Act.

    Obama and Biden 2012: the Panderer and the Prostitute

  36. PostCatholic says:

    Just to clarify: Standing On the Side of Love is the name of social action campaign out on the forefront of this issue. I had attempted to provide a link but it was removed with the post.

    FrJim4321, thank you for points.

  37. Supertradmum says:

    Johnno, look at my eight part series on the Pope’s first encyclical on love. Just click on my name and follow the last several days back. Eros is not necessarily bad, as God Himself wants that type of love to develop into the great sacrificial love of a mature marriage. That is the opinion of the Pope and myself and many Catholic psychologists, who know that love grows and matures and doesn’t all of a sudden come out of the head of Zeus, fully mature, like Athena.

    In addition, thank you robtbrown, for explaining things, which should be obvious if one is rational and in touch with natural law….

    As to Biden, he is not a Holy Fool, who were in the court to remind the King of his humility as a flawed human being–aka Lear. Biden is just a Catholic, or rather excommunicated Catholic, used by the great abuser of power who is potus.

  38. Supertradmum says:

    PS and let us be clear, Biden appeals to the 51% of Catholics who would vote for Obama again as of the poll last week. He speaks what the so-called American schismatic Catholics want to hear and gives them power in the public sphere.

  39. Let’s face it folks: the liberal agenda has been promoted by Catholics on the left for generations, often with the blessing of the bishops, and certainly with the liberal women religious espousing it in their schools. Is it small wonder that the credibility of authentic Catholic teaching is so patently rejected by so many Catholics. May God have mercy on us all.

  40. Frank_Bearer says:

    “I appreciate very much the Vice President. He has been helpful and I– I– I have benefitted from his counsel and I look forward to talking to him again. ”

    – Cardinal Timothy Dolan

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