McCain isn’t sure what to think about gay adoption

July 15, 2008

John McCain sat down with the New York Times the other day for a wide-ranging interview that covered quite a bit of ground. The NYT brought up a culture-war subject that we haven’t heard too much about lately.

Q: President Bush believes that gay couples should not be permitted to adopt children. Do you agree with that?

McCain: I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no I don’t believe in gay adoption.

Q: Even if the alternative is the kid staying in an orphanage, or not having parents.

McCain: I encourage adoption and I encourage the opportunities for people to adopt children I encourage the process being less complicated so they can adopt as quickly as possible. And Cindy and I are proud of being adoptive parents.

Q: But your concern would be that the couple should [be] a traditional couple–

McCain: Yes.

Now we’ve known for a while that when it comes to opposition to gay rights, McCain is pretty extreme. He not only campaigned in support of an Arizona anti-gay measure a couple of years ago, McCain is even on record opposing civil unions at the state level. Hell, McCain is so far out there, he’d even remove well-trained U.S. troops from the military — in the midst of two wars, when the Armed Forces are severely stretched — if they’re gay, calling them an “intolerable risk.”

But to say that a child would be better off in an orphanage than a stable household with gay parents is surprisingly callous. It’s not even premised on reality — McCain said “we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family.” It’s not clear who “we” are, but the evidence actually points in the opposite direction.

As Yglesias noted, “[T]he facts are a small price to pay for the sake of discriminating against gay and lesbian couples.”

Today, the McCain campaign reversed course, arguing that McCain didn’t mean what he said.

Jill Hazelbaker, McCain’s director of communications, emailed Andrew Sullivan directly:

“McCain could have been clearer in the interview in stating that his position on gay adoption is that it is a state issue, just as he made it clear in the interview that marriage is a state issue. He was not endorsing any federal legislation.

“McCain’s expressed his personal preference for children to be raised by a mother and a father wherever possible. However, as an adoptive father himself, McCain believes children deserve loving and caring home environments, and he recognizes that there are many abandoned children who have yet to find homes. McCain believes that in those situations that caring parental figures are better for the child than the alternative.”

Well, yes, I suppose McCain “could have been clearer,” given that what he said, and what Hazelbaker described as his policy, are completely different.

In reality, my suspicion is that McCain simply doesn’t know what he thinks. The Times brought up a topic that he doesn’t frequently consider, heard the word “gay,” and reflexively expressed his opposition.

I’m glad McCain’s position on July 15 is better than McCain’s position on July 13, but I’d be even happier if he could get the basics right the first time.

I am sure Senator McCain would not mind if he received contributions form a gay person with children for his war chest. The President of the US is responsible to ALL Americans not the selected few.

  • Jill Hazelbaker, McCain’s director of communications, emailed Andrew Sullivan directly…

    Republicans should eliminate the middleman, and just name McCain’s director of communications as the nominee.

  • The two John McCains are internally consistent. The mavericky independent McCain believes gay adoption is a compassionate alternative for the states to consider according to the culture of the state. The rock-ribbed conservative believes icky gay people shouldn’t have any special legal recognition.

    It is the fault of the national media and the liberal NYT that they did not designate the expected audience for his remarks. It wasn’t clear which John McCain was expected to answer the question. Reporters could make things a lot easier by directing some questions to the maverick McCain and some questions to the staunch conservative McCain. That way, we can avoid some of this confusion.

  • Leave the guy alone, he’s a “straight” talker — the whole gay thing just confuses him.

  • I don’t think McCain actually has an opinion on the subject. It’s hard for me to believe that he cares one way or the other what gay people are allowed to do or not.

    When he’s asked a question, he asks himself “what would James Dobson want me to say?” He then guesses accordingly.

    He does not ask himself “what is the morally right answer?” He does not ask himself “have I ever said anything about this before?” He does not ask “what are the implications of different answers, under principles of federalism?” He certainly does not ask “what is in the best public interest?” He does not ask “what’s in the child’s best interest?”

  • Why are we supposed to believe what the surrogate says McCain’s position is on gay adoption when McCain was quite clear on his position two days ago? It’s that “pay no attention to that crazy old guy, I’m going to give you the campaign’s policy position” attitude. Except that crazy old guy is the candidate.

    And what ever happened to what Carly Fiorina said about the public caring more about what the candidate says rather than the surrogates?

    John McCain — better to let a child be homeless or live in an orphanage than with a loving gay couple. What a creep!

  • he should be asked the next question: if he thinks it’s bad for children to be raised by same-sex couples, does he consider it dangerous and/or abusive.

    then, if adoption by same sex coupls should be made illegal, shouldn’t the next logical step be that a law be passed making it illegal for homosexuals/lesbians to keep and raise children they themselves “create”?

    why is he pussyfooting around here? i expect any minute to find out he’s putting together a bill to put mary cheney’s son up for adoption.

  • It’s that “pay no attention to that crazy old guy, I’m going to give you the campaign’s policy position” attitude. Except that crazy old guy is the candidate.

    There’s an unfortunate precedent for this. For eight years the crazy old guy was the 40th President of the United States of America. You may recall his spokespeople routinely issued corrections to his public utterances.

  • Nice writeup. Makes me wonder what else McCain thinks has been “proven”.

    He’s probably all for gay adoption if the kid can bench press 1,000 lbs. If that confuses you, see his position on the “Dream Act”, which he supports if the borders are certifiably secured.

    He really can’t decide if he wants to waffle or flipflop or just lie about stuff. And of course in the back of his mind he sees boxes of donuts with sprinkles.

  • When he’s asked a question, he asks himself “what would James Dobson want me to say?” He then guesses accordingly.

    I doubt it. I suspect the question he asks himself is more along the lines of “what can I say that will not lose votes?” McCain’s in a weird situation right now, and he has to watch his words carefully – pander too far to the right and he alienates the folks who want him to be an “independent maverick”. Pander too far to the center and he alienates the troglodytes who make up his party’s voting base. A delicate tightrope balance these days.

    I do think that McCain probably couldn’t give a rat’s ass about “social conservative” issues in general – he just doesn’t care about that stuff. I’m not sure what exactly he does care about (from his work in the Senate it’s mostly “John McCain’s Image” from what I’ve been able to tell). He doesn’t seem to have much passion for anything beyond “being President”.

  • “then, if adoption by same sex coupls should be made illegal, shouldn’t the next logical step be that a law be passed making it illegal for homosexuals/lesbians to keep and raise children they themselves “create”?”

    As long as there is a Mary Cheney Clause that exempts the lesbian chidren of prominent Republican crooks, I mean politicians. Because we all know a fag of dyke with, say, “Cheney” taked onto their first name deseerves all the best life has to offer.

  • Roddy, i’ve thought the same thing numerous times, when reading about his constantly changing views on things.

    The ghost of Ronnie the Raygun

  • I wonder if he’s for or against single people adopting. I wonder if anybody in the press will bother to ask him if that follows from his belief that a child should have both a mother and a father.

  • McCain isn’t sure what to think…….

    It depends on the group he’s in front of. Just as Carly “Mouth of McSauron” Fiorino….

  • As a potential gay parent of some adopted individual I have to laugh at the pathetic Judeo-Christian lunacy of denying a child a home environment because of a not so biblically appealing glitch in their perfect little book/world/schema. That should tell even Judeo-Christians a thing or two about their pious priorities, but of course it won’t. Screw you McCain and screw you Judeo-Christians too! The fact is that nobody needs you, not the other way around!

  • I think CB is right: he doesn’t know what he thinks, because he probably doesn’t think anything — he just opens his mouth and moves his lips and out comes what he hope will do, whatever pops up first in a little used brain space. Keep in mind, this is a guy who graduated 894th in a class of 895 (correct me please if I’ve misremembered the exact rankings), who either can remember or doesn’t care what he says one minute to the next.

  • I’ve come to the conclusion that the RNC must have decided this year’s presidential campaign was hopeless and they didn’t want to waste one of their “good” candidates.

  • Over the years whenever sex in any content comes up it appears that the Senator is uncomfortable and has no idea what he really believes in. The fact that he has to have others explain what he believes in tells me that he doesn’t have a clue about what he believes.( I think I confused myself and I am not 71)

  • I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family […] — McCain

    I’ll allow that it’s often easier (though not, necessarily, *better*; I’ve often wished that my own mother told the seed provider to take a hike instead of marrying him) when there are two people raising a family, than when there’s only one. But two homosexuals, of either sex, are *still two people*.

    McCain — probably because of short-term memory problems — seems to have memorised certain words/phrases in groups, so that he can give an answer whether he understands a question or not. Sort of like Pavlov’s dog: bell rings, dog drools. For McCain, the response triggered by the word “gay/s” seems to be “no”, irrespective of context:
    Gay (marriage)? No.
    Gay (adoption)? No.
    Gays (in the military)? No.

    Makes for an easy life, though one hopes that his hearing remains good and that he doesn’t start answering “no” to every question which includes the word “gray”…

  • Stay tuned for the next edition of Straight Talk XPress when this comment unleashes a shit storm of squeals from the fRiechtards:

    McCain believes that in those situations that caring parental figures are better for the child than the alternative.*

    And John McCane indignantly declares that he didn’t mean that at all, he speaks for himself and if you kids don’t get off his lawn he’s going to tell your parents.

    What I don’t get is why they turned on the SpinTronic3000(TM) for this. I’m sure some gays and lesbians will vote for McCrackpot, but his views on their ability to adopt aren’t going to be a deal breaker. I guess some delusional people who haven’t figured out that the GOP is the party of bigotry and think that they’re grand high poobah of PFLAG because they don’t run screaming when the one out guy in their office comes into the bathroom might use it as an excuse to vote for McCain.

    Or maybe Camp McStr8 Talk has no fucking idea what it’s doing.

    I also don’t get why Camp McCain wrote Sullivan. No one likes Sullivan. I’m not sure Sullivan likes Sullivan.

    *After reading her entire statement a second time I’m not sure what the hell she’s trying to say either. Does she mean that only abandoned children in orphanages (v. children whose parents died) should be available for adoption by gay or lesbian couples? Does she mean that a child would have to be in the orphanage for a given amount of time (like 15 years) before this would be an option? What I get from McCrank was a NO. From his spokesperson I get “Maybe, if the stars align properly and … O, just vote for him, wouldya?”

  • The really frightening thing about all his contradictions between what he says now and what he used to say, what he says and what his campaign says he meant, what he says today to one group and what he says tomorrow to a different group, and so on is that you really don’t know what he believes or if he believes anything. There is no way to predict what he will do because his utterances are presently calculated to appeal to the famous Republican base. He really scares me.

  • What scares me the most about McBush,McSame,Mclame,McWar,McSunni,Shia Mchell I’m already confused about McWho is the way this guy parades around the globe campaigning in Mexico, Columbia, Canada and countries that don’t exist anymore and millions of Americans will still vote for this guy. On the topic of who can adopt a child, I think anyone who is willing to provide a stable and loving environment for a child deserves that opportunity until there is evidence to suggest that solution doesn’t work

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