The Pledge Republicans Must Sign
by Dave Bradley
The internet and left wing news sites are abuzz with the bizarre Family Leader Presidential Pledge that Bob Vander Plaats and his crew have worked up for Republican candidates to sign. [for the author's update on this story, “Family Leader Backs Off Pledge, Sort Of..” including links, click on comments below]
The Pledge can be found here: thinkprogress.org/The-Family-Leader-Presidential-Pledge.pdf
The most offensive passage in this Pledge is this one:
Defending marriage with slavery? Wow! Perhaps the best post on this is found here:
baratunde.com/blog/michelle-bachmann-is-running-for-president-on-a-pro-slavery
Here is a money quote from this comment:
To the extent that the black family was even allowed to exist, it was under constant attack by state-supported and sanctioned terrorism. “A child born into slavery was more likely to be raised by his mother and father…” Really? A child born into slavery was the property of its master. The operative word was slavery. Period. Any relationship to its biological parents was far less respected than its commercial relationship to the American economy.”
And immediately out of the chute Michelle Bachmann signed on. No doubt to solidify her hold on the title of gay-hater #1 in the party.
To me this makes the Republican caucuses in Iowa look like a contest to see just who is the most radical, crazy right winger. And it looks more and more to me like the winner of the whole Republican caucus debacle will be the two who have decided to avoid Iowa, Romney and Huntsman.
Funny there is no mentioning of strengthening families with making good paying jobs more available or health care or any of a number of things that are usually cited as the base causes for marriage break down.
Also funny that the Family Leader could care less about any other issues in the campaign, so long as a candidate is married once to the opposite sex.
This group holds major sway in the Iowa Republican Party, so this Pledge will be taken seriously by the candidates, even though it should be laughed out of existence.
E-mail Dave here
Dave Bradley is a self-described
retired observer of American politics “trying to figure out how we got
so screwed up.” An
Iowa City native currently living in West Liberty, Dave and his wife
Carol have two grown children who “sadly had to leave the state to find
decent paying jobs.“
Blog For Iowa 
Family Leader backs off pledge, sort of
Well, after a few days of getting hammered in the press for
the somewhat bizarre pledge that they insist any presidential
candidate must sign to get their endorsement, Family Leader
sort of backed off a bit yesterday and removed the section
that cast a favorable light on slavery:
“Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American
families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more
likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent
household than was an African-American baby born after the
election of the USA’s first African-American President,”
As many are used to in Republican apologies, the statement
claims that it “might be misconstrued.” There was no sense
that what they said was in any way wrong. What was wrong was how some people read it.
Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum had signed the document prior to the removal of the section. A spokesperson for the Bachmann campaign (Alice Stewart) stated she “stands behind the candidate vow – which makes absolutely no reference to slavery.”
Julie Summa, a spokesperson for Family Leader said: “We came up with the pledge and so we had no idea that people would misconstrue that,” she said. “It was not meant to be racist or anything. it was just a fact that back in the days of slavery there was usually a husband and a wife…we were not saying at all that things are better for African-American children in slavery days than today.”
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/58631.html#ixzz1RoZxlupa
What did she say? “it was just a fact that back in the days
of slavery there was usually a husband and a wife.. ?”
The Texas history books must be taking over. Certainly not the
history of slavery I recall. My recollection was that slaves were property – chattel I believe was the word use back then.
Read more here also:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/conservative-marriage-
pledge-group-apologizes-for-slavery-reference/2011/07/09/gIQANT3C6H_story.html
and here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/10/993197/-Family-Leader-tries-to-apologize-for-saying-blacks-were-better-off-under-slaveryand-fails?via=siderec
I hope Iowa’s Republicans react with the outrage due this
whole incident.
– Dave Bradley
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My new bumper sticker for Iowa….”Life in Iowa is better for slaves and gays”
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totally agree…but did you mean zhlob?
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There is no misconstruing the tendency of some to segregate consideration of a group of people based on their race.
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