Glenn Beck Says Gay Marriage 'No Threat' To America

[Silcc69]

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08...at-to-america/


"You can argue about abortion or gay marriage or whatever else you want," Beck told O'Reilly, according to the Fox News transcript. "Instead of arguing about these divisive things, let's get back into our churches and our synagogues . . . "

When asked if gay marriage was a threat to America -- a tenet of faith to many conservative Christians -- Beck said, "No."

"I believe that Thomas Jefferson said, 'If it neither breaks my leg or picks my pocket, what difference is it to me?' "

[Transcript is reprinted below]

That's actually a new position for Beck, who in the past has decried gay marriage as leading inevitably to , and other things that would destroy American society.

But the political dynamic has changed. The unexpected rise of the Tea Party movement has stolen some of the thunder from the Religious Right this season, and sparked some dissension within the conservative ranks -- as PoliticsDaily reported -- between Tea Party libertarians and moral conservatives.

Beck's unapologetic abdication on abortion and gay marriage, at least as campaign issues, could well revive those tensions, and at a time when Republicans are hoping to ride both the Tea Party tiger and traditional religious conservatism to a resounding victory in the November midterms.

But Beck is nothing if not savvy, and he may recognize that the economy is going to trump hot-button morality this year, as The Washington Post's Dan Balz reported.

Such calculations aren't going to mollify Christian conservatives, of course.

"He's a libertarian entertainer acting like a libertarian entertainer," Joe Carter, who worked for Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign, wrote at the blog of First Things, the theo-con journal where he is currently Web editor. "But he is a very influential libertarian entertainer, and that worries me."

In the relevant segment of Beck's interview (click here for video), O'Reilly challenges Beck, saying that people won't go back to their houses of worship if they don't have the kind of motivation the gay marriage issue provides. But Beck protests that moral issues like those have nothing to do with the threats to America today:

[bte]

I don't understand whats the big deal about gay marriage. Just because two homosexual people marry, it does not by some divine effect lessen the marriage between a man and a woman. I would get think allowing gay marriage would be good for the economy. Imagine the amount of revenue that would come in all in 50 states if gays were allowed to marry. There will be money spent on dresses, tuxes, flowers, wedding places, limos, food. Hell even just getting a marriage license and getting it performed by the justice of the peace would bring in money as well.

The founding fathers came to America to escape religious intolerances in Great Britian, but yet here we are centuries later denying people the right to marry simply based on the fact that our religion does not allow it.

[Ben]

I don't understand whats the big deal about gay marriage. Just because two homosexual people marry, it does not by some divine effect lessen the marriage between a man and a woman. I would get think allowing gay marriage would be good for the economy. Imagine the amount of revenue that would come in all in 50 states if gays were allowed to marry. There will be money spent on dresses, tuxes, flowers, wedding places, limos, food. Hell even just getting a marriage license and getting it performed by the justice of the peace would bring in money as well.

The founding fathers came to America to escape religious intolerances in Great Britian, but yet here we are centuries later denying people the right to marry simply based on the fact that our religion does not allow it.