Sen. Rand Paul said he doesn’t buy into the concept of gay rights because they are defined by a gay person’s lifestyle.Holden writes:
“I don’t think I’ve ever used the word gay rights, because I don’t really believe in rights based on your behavior,” the Kentucky Republican told reporters in a videotaped interview that has received little attention since it was recorded in 2013....
Eleanor May, a spokesperson for Paul’s 2016 re-election campaign to the U.S. Senate, said the rights that count are those in the country’s founding charter. “What he is saying in this video is that he does not classify rights based on behavior, but rather recognizes rights for all, as our Constitution defines it,” May told BuzzFeed News.
But it’s unclear how far -- and to whom -- Paul extends the argument that rights cannot be defined by behavior.Um ... gun ownership? Is gun ownership not "behavior"?
Practicing religion, for example, is a behavior enshrined as a primary American right. Free speech is behavior protected by the Bill of Rights....
We know that Senator Paul is one of the most uncompromising supporters of gun rights in Washington (which is quite a high bar to clear). We know he's put his name to fundraising appeals from a group that's so pro-gun it's fought to defeat Eric Cantor and other Republicans. We know Paul announced a threat to filibuster all gun control legislation in 2013 (around the same time as the interview quoted above), and we know he blocked confirmation of President Obama's choice for surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, because Murthy thinks gun violence is a public health issue. So, yeah, Paul is pro-gun.
I guess he thinks gun ownership is so fundamental to the makeup of certain human beings, is so hard-wired, that it simply can't be considered "behavior." Ask me to pass a background check at a gun show? That's discrimination! I was born this way!
Gay sex? A choice. Owning an assault rifle? An essential part of who you are.
4 comments:
Rand Paul is playing to the cheap seats.
It's an ethnic group! With their own folk music, traditional costumes, and marriage customs (which as you know involve those shotguns--they're not only born with guns but encouraged with them in utero, as soon as Grandpappy finds out what's been going on).
We should have doctors shape a fetuses hands to facilitate holding a gun.
This way, the fetus is armed before it even develops its arms.
I think John McCain missed out by only calling Ted Cruz "a whacko-bird."
The GOP has more nuts than
a Planters packing facility!
Please-- cognitive dissonance is like oxygen to Right-wingers. I'm sure he, like every other "conservative" in this country, has some ridiculous, internally-inconsistent justification for these positions.
Sadly, this is precisely the kind of inexplicable double-standard that nobody in the mainstream media will ever broach with Paul or the rest of the GOP field.
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