Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Florida wingnuts want to control your marriage

[Image of christianist wingnut, John Stemberger]

We have, in the state of Florida, a christianist wingnut group connected with James Dobson's Focus on the Family that wants to tell you if and when you have the right to get a divorce.

Not content to rest on their success in conning the voters to approve a horrendous anti-gay marriage amendment to the state constitution, these wingnuts, feeling their oats, now want to legislate standards of marriage.

John Stemberger, the chief wingnut of this outfit, has announced a program called "Strong Marriages Florida" which is supposed to lead to a 10% drop in the divorce rate in the state.

Why does this asshat care? He says this is being done to "serve the children, families, communities of Florida. ... The breakdown of families in our state brings not only high social costs to children whose lives are often devastated, but there is an enormous economic cost to taxpayers and to businesses."

Oh, right. Wingnuts care a lot of "enormous" economis costs!


The Palm Beach Post editorialized this way:

"Mr. Stemberger's group and its allies promoted the gay marriage ban that voters put in Florida's Constitution in November. Success in that campaign, which featured misinformation and religious intolerance, doesn't qualify the Florida Family Policy Council to be the state's marriage counselor."

You think?

Here's what these religious con artists think is the cat's meow:

* Waiting periods of up to two years before a divorce can be obtained. (Florida has no waiting period now)

* According to the Palm Beach Post, "An article on the Web site says that married couples with children should have to stay married unless both agree to the divorce of there has been a 'major fault,' such as abuse, adultery or desertion.'"


We agree that divorce is serious business and can be hurtful to all those involved. So why make it more hurtful? Why require a couple to wait two years, especially if they are seething with mutual hatred? Why require a couple with children to stay married when the marriage is broken?

I think these christianist fruitcakes really like to see people suffer. That's probably the reason the love the notion of hell; they can consign all of us who disagree with them to eternal torture! And won't that be grand?


This moronic bunch, like Dobson's outfit, are clearly and openly fundamentalist christianist organizations promoting fundamentalist christianist notions of morality; indeed their entire operation is geared to imposing that morality on the rest of us. I sure as hell hope they're not tax-exempt!

They are theocrats! The should be laughed at, derided, run out of town! They've already done too much damage by their intolerant promotion of hatred for gays. They must have no further say in legislating morality in the state of Florida or anywhere else.


Their website is here. More here. The Palm Beach Post editorial here. The best article on Stemberger is here.

h/t to Pensito Review

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe there should be new laws making everyone stick to all the rules and laws stated in the Bible. They were good enough for Jesus and should be good enough for everyone. I am still trying to find out how much a daughter should bring when sold into slavery and a host of other questions arise when reading Leviticus. Who decided to ignore such rules?

Why not forbid divorce altogether for members of their religion first? If that works, forbid divorce for everyone. Next insist on closing down all business, sports etc on the Sabbath as defined in the good book. We could also go back to stoning for many offences. I think it is less expensive than most ways of executing evil doers. I would not like to go back to the dietary laws but if we are to be consistent, we should not make exceptions. Maybe doing without pork products is healthier anyway.

Anonymous said...

Yes...what a fabulous proposal. Let's make people who have made the painful decision to end a marriage wait two years -- that is just long enough to turn all of their children into drug addicts and runaways -- but I am SURE this will be for the betterment of society!

I also LOVE the clause about having a "good enough" reason to divorce -- then let's watch what happens to domestic violence and spousal murder rates.

Wow -- this man is a genius.

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