Vice President Candidates Agree On Gay Rights

International News, By Tim D, 3rd October, 2008

The Vice Presidential debate has just wrapped up in the US, and despite the heated contradictions between the candidates, there was one topic that both potential Vice Presidents agreed on: gay marriage is not going to get a federal endorsement in America any time soon .

Host Gwen Ifill asked Democratic VP Joe Biden is he supporting granting same-sex benefits to couples? “Absolutely positively,” he said. “In an Obama-Biden administration, there will be absolutely no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint between a same-sex and a heterosexual couple. The fact of the matter is that under the Constitution we should be granted—same-sex couples should be able to have visitation rights in the hospitals, joint ownership of property, life insurance policies, et cetera. That’s only fair.”

Governor Sarah Palin was asked is she would extend same-sex entitlements beyond Alaska to the rest of the nation? “Well, not if it goes closer and closer towards redefining the traditional definition of marriage between one man and one woman, and unfortunately that’s sometimes where those steps lead,” she said. “But I also want to clarify, if there’s any kind of suggestion at all from my answer that I would be anything but tolerant of adults in America choosing their partners, choosing relationships that they deem best for themselves, you know, I am tolerant and I have a very diverse family and group of friends and even within that group you would see some who may not agree with me on this issue, some very dear friends who don’t agree with me on this issue.”

Reassuring her conservative based, Palin had to reiterate. “I will tell Americans straight up that I don’t support defining marriage as anything but between one man and one woman, and I think through nuances we can go round and round about what that actually means. But I’m being as straight up with Americans as I can in my non- support for anything but a traditional definition of marriage.”

Biden said that whilst he supported same-sex entitlements, he drew the line at supporting gay marriage. “Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage. We do not support that. That is basically the decision to be able to be able to be left to faiths and people who practice their faiths the determination what you call it. The bottom line though is, and I’m glad to hear the governor, I take her at her word, obviously, that she think there should be no civil rights distinction, none whatsoever, between a committed gay couple and a committed heterosexual couple. If that’s the case, we really don’t have a difference.”

It’s a shame that this was one of the only topics both candidates could agree upon.

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