Next President

[Zappo]

I think Pakistan is the most interesting one, followed by China.

[flyfishing3]

i just can't accept YOUR OPINION A. when i read things like this, i just think you are way off about WR position.:

Dushku also

brought to light the story

of her friend Carrel Hilton Sheldon, a Mormon woman who discovered she had a blood clot while pregnant. With her life potentially at risk, this mother of four children decided to have an abortion, and she even got permission from the proper authorities in the church. But Romney tried to talk her out of it, shaming her with comments like, "Well, why do you get off so easy when other women have their babies?" He told her that "as your bishop, my concern is with the child.

and all the people here who say that all these aborted fetuses, would be adopted: here is some support for that:

And it wasn't just one incident. According to

The New York Times, Janna and Randy Sorensen approached Romney in the early 1990s seeking his help in adopting a child. The church did not facilitate adoptions for mothers who worked outside the home, and the couple told Romney they thought the rule was unfair. But Romney would not proceed with helping the couple until he had convinced Janna to quit her job

^^^^^^what kind of modern mind set is that?

i've sited similar things but:

In October 2011, Romney told

Mike Huckabee on FOX News that when he was governor of Massachusetts he "absolutely" would have supported a state constitutional amendment establishing that life begins at conception. Like the measure defeated in Mississippi earlier this year, such "fetal personhood" laws not only criminalize abortion, but would also outlaw popular forms of contraception, fertility treatment and stem cell research. Romney added, "My view is that the Supreme Court should reverse Roe v. Wade," and promised that he would send justices to the high court who would be inclined to do just that -- take us back to the days when abortion was criminalized in much of the country.

But somehow we're supposed to believe that a President Romney wouldn't pose any threat to reproductive choice? With a candidate this dishonest, voters have to decide for themselves which version would preside over the nation. Right-wing supporters of Romney are standing by the socially conservative incarnation of their guy.

source:

huff post

http://www.huffingto..._b_1956143.html

[Fishey]

I'll be honest, I couldn't care less what the rest of the world thinks. They don't get a vote.

Who validated that survey anyway?

Texas don't give a fuck.

http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/un-treaties/264121-texas-sparks-international-row-with-election-observers

[Burn-E]

Mike, you're getting one side of the story in a personal conversation between a Bishop and a member of his congregation. And the Bishop is upholding his promise to not discuss those matters so he can't defend himself on these questions. Believe me, sometimes people hear and remember what they want to hear even though you were all in the same room.

Church policies and approaches have evolved in the last 40 years and you're looking back at incidents that happened in a point in time.

I don't know what was said in the true context and neither do you.

As for the Huffington Post piece in what he said as a Governor? I'll have to go read it. I'm just going to reiterate that the Church's stance is incompatible with a decision that eliminates abortion as an option. I have a very hard time seeing him step beyond that philosophy and perceive there must be more context to the statements. Sources matter and Huff Po is hardly neutral.

Can you fix that font please? Hard on the eyes. :blink:

[Fudge_Brownie]

Church policies and approaches have evolved in the last 40 years and you're looking back at incidents that happened in a point in time.

1993-ish is still pretty behind the curve....

[Burn-E]

And Mike, on the two parents working vs. one I'm not going to apologize for him - because my wife and I fully endorse that attitude. There is no success outside the home that can compensate for failure within. If you're both working out of the home in order to support a certain lifestyle rather than one of you staying home to take care of the kids - then you're making a choice. I do believe that one parent needs to be home to care for the children rather than handing them off to daycare if at all possible.

And you left out the final part of the quote from that article from the parents who were looking to adopt:

Their children are now grown, and Mr. Sorensen said they were so grateful that they had considered naming a child Mitt. (The church has since relaxed its prohibition on adoption for women who work outside the home.)

When we got married my wife was on her way in her opera career and faced the opportunity to go study at La Scala in Italy - this would open a door to her that few could access and would launch her career. We looked at each other and I said, I will support you fully if that's the path you want to take. Her response was, we need to agree that one us needs to be home with the children when they start coming. She considered it all and together we came to the conclusion that she really wanted to be home with the children and wanted to be a full time Mom to them. She still sings and performs but nothing at the level she would have achieved and doesn't regret that choice, but I often find myself wishing she had taken that step because I would have preferred to be the one home caring for the children.

I have a friend who lives in larger, newer home, buys new cars every 3 years and even has a nanny. She and I started at the same point in our careers and have followed similar trajectories. I've gone on to earn an MBA at Kellogg but that is the primary difference between us. She and her husband both work. One day she looked at me and asked, "I don't understand how you do it Alain, how can your family (at the time we had 2 girls just like her) afford for you to be the only wage earner. My reply was, "It's easy if you decide at the outset that this is the approach you will take." She just shook her head and said, "We couldn't possible afford to do that - there's no way." But when I started describing the differences in our lifestyles it suddenly became clear to her why it was possible for us.

I'm not saying our approach is superior and I empathize with those parents who both have to work in order to support their family. But sometimes, you need to pull the calculator out and ask yourself, is the trade-off worth it? Do we both really need to work while the children are young? What are we spending that extra money on? If you both need to work, then fine, that's your situation and the Church has no place telling you otherwise. Many people cannot afford to not work and I would never tell them as a Bishop that they should feel they're not living up to God's expectations for doing so. But that doesn't cause me to believe any less that there is an ideal approach and that ideal should be recognized.

Call it 1950's style parenting. I don't care. The children greatly appreciate it and we feel like we're doing what is most important: investing in them and spending time with them. Because there's nothing more valuable than that.

[Burn-E]

1993-ish is still pretty behind the curve....

And you know what Alden, I expect and hope we always will be in some ways. Because not everything the modern world calls progress really is. When marriage becomes about two individuals looking for their own self-fulfillment rather than coming together as a couple to build a family and finding fulfillment within that dynamic, then the nature of the relationship has completely changed and there's no question why 50% of marriages fail and a higher percentage of 2nd and 3rd marriages fail.

[flyfishing3]

Can you fix that font please? Hard on the eyes.

yeah, its crazy, it's one way on my home computer and then some crazy script on my cell :wacko:

fixed, does it look better?

Mike, you're getting one side of the story in a personal conversation between a Bishop and a member of his congregation. And the Bishop is upholding his promise to not discuss those matters so he can't defend himself on these questions. Believe me, sometimes people hear and remember what they want to hear even though you were all in the same room.

Church policies and approaches have evolved in the last 40 years and you're looking back at incidents that happened in a point in time.

I don't know what was said in the true context and neither do you.

As for the Huffington Post piece in what he said as a Governor? I'll have to go read it. I'm just going to reiterate that the Church's stance is incompatible with a decision that eliminates abortion as an option. I have a very hard time seeing him step beyond that philosophy and perceive there must be more context to the statements. Sources matter and Huff Po is hardly neutral.

Can you fix that font please? Hard on the eyes.

do you believe they are making this up to hurt WR? i doubt it.

do you believe he may have said something similar? i'm sure something close.?.

i agree, we made a choice for my wife to work, but it wasn't for financial gain.

she's a teacher, her dad was a teacher. She had a calling and wanted to help form, educate, all our children. it could be argued this is greater than staying home concerned solely about your children. ;)

[Burn-E]

do you believe they are making this up to hurt WR? i doubt it.

do you believe he may have said something similar? i'm sure something close.?.

I believe Mitt Romney rubbed Judy Dushku the wrong way (she's the mother of Eliza Dushku by the way) and yes, she did cast her friend's story in a certain light because she didn't agree with him. But you'll note her own statement that she's now ambivalent about further interviews - one has to step back and wonder why.

I also believe it's impossible to know exactly what was said. Look, as a Bishop, sometimes you have to tell people the facts, sometimes they don't react well to what you have to say and then sometimes you just get it wrong. You're dealing with very human scenarios fraught with emotion and sometimes you say the wrong thing. Mitt strikes me as a by the rules kind of guy which means he might have lacked flexibility when dealing with her friend Carrell Sheldon and he might have not been as tactful in the discussion. But the point is, it's second hand and you have no idea what was really said and in what context.

Additionally, you have to consider that other women who were in the same feminist organization as Dushku have come to very different conclusions on Mitt:

At least two Mormon women who had been involved in feminist causes, Elisabeth Calvert-Smith and Barbara Taylor, went on to work for Romney’s campaign or join his administration. Calvert-Smith declined to be interviewed, and Taylor did not respond to a request. But Taylor, who later worked as an executive assistant to Romney, told the Washington Post in November that though Romney initially “thought we were just a bunch of bored, unhappy housewives trying to stir up trouble,” he had “evolved.” Romney, she said, is “an entirely different person now.”

Which brings us back to the question - do you believe anyone can evolve over time? That who they were at one point of time might shift and adjust based on their experiences?

[flyfishing3]

Which brings us back to the question -

absolutely, i was a staunch republican before the BUSH years. i despise that man, and what he's done between wars, deficit spending, letting the banks run wild, wall street run amuck. regulations being eased on everything that has a lobbyist.

i''m mad at him for letting religion get involved with politics the way it is.

so yeah, i've evolved like crazy.

[S8ET6]

i agree, we made a choice for my wife to work, but it wasn't for financial gain.

she's a teacher, her dad was a teacher. She had a calling and wanted to help form, educate, all our children. it could be argued this is greater than staying home concerned solely about your children.

I'm not a Mormon but I believe that kids are better off with a full time at home parent as opposed to two full time working parents.

And I agree that you could argue the above point, however, having worked in dozens of schools - both public and private - over the past ten plus years, I think that a greater argument can be made that her job would be much EASIER if more parents decided to forgo the two income lifestyle. At least during the formative years.

[Burn-E]

I don't want to start a culture war here. Each couple, family, makes their own decisions based on what they feel is best for them. Like I said, I do believe there is an ideal and I do believe there are ramifications for the decisions made, but ultimately that's in the hands of each family to decide. My only question is do they recognize the implications of their decisions.

I'll add another anecdote - again coming from the perspective of upper middle class privilege. One of my closest friends is a mother of two girls, ages 8 and 5. Again we have very similar career paths and she and her husband both work. They're both consultants so not only are they both out of the house but they also travel frequently - it's an insane schedule and just looking at their calendar makes me tired.

When she was pregnant with her second child the question came up as to how long she would stay away from work after delivery. Her response, "I'm out for two months and then right back to work." I asked her, is that because you need to financially? No, she said, it's because I think I would go crazy if I had to be home all day with the girls. I asked, what about your husband, would he stay home with them. To this she just laughed. She smiled and said, "Look Alain, I know your position well on this, but I'm a practical person, I've not been trained in child development. The people who are caring for my girls in daycare have been extensively trained and really enjoy the work they do." Note, this is not your average daycare obviously.

I was flabbergasted and I told her I though the attitude was a little shocking as if she was offloading her responsibilities as a parent and missing out many of those important steps that would happen in her daughters' early lives.

She has since struck out on her own as a consultant and works from home and doesn't travel quite as much. And her attitude has softened some as she has come to a realization that she does want to be there more often for them. It sounds like evolution to me. Her girls seem like bright and talented kids, I just wonder what they both missed out on as a result of Mom or Dad not being the ones who helped shaped many of their early experiences.

[Zappo]

Which brings us back to the question - do you believe anyone can evolve over time? That who they were at one point of time might shift and adjust based on their experiences?

Romney is now saying the opposite on what he said in January. Has he evolved again?

What I see from him is he is changing his "view" depending on who he is talking to. He simply changes it to help get elected.

I don't know if anyone knows what he will really do.

[Fudge_Brownie]

And you know what Alden, I expect and hope we always will be in some ways. Because not everything the modern world calls progress really is. When marriage becomes about two individuals looking for their own self-fulfillment rather than coming together as a couple to build a family and finding fulfillment within that dynamic, then the nature of the relationship has completely changed and there's no question why 50% of marriages fail and a higher percentage of 2nd and 3rd marriages fail.

I'm not against the traditional family, I even feel many women are better suited as primary caregivers for young children; though that may be influenced by my own emotionally dark and desensitized personality. My issue is that it is voluntary, and not an expectation. The absolute refusal to let an otherwise suitable couple adopt because the woman needs to stay home is repulsive. Hell, there's plenty of part time jobs that cater well to a parent. And while this is purely speculative, do you really think he would have ever requested the man quit his job instead?

While it is coincidental that you share the same religion with the presidential candidate, and you might feel this is an attack on your religion to some degree, I think Mike and I are both worried about those kind of views being the president of our country, not that they exist in a religiously tolerant society. Well, at least one that claims to be. I still fear that his own personal social views will influence his law making/policy, though I think we've already covered that. "Each couple, family, makes their own decisions based on what they feel is best for them." Excellent. But I don't want a president who can't allow that.

Oh, and your story about the family friend, doubleyouteeeff? Why the shit did she want to have kids? Because everyone else was doing it? I would not call that an 'otherwise suitable' couple. The interest and involvement did not initially seem to be there. But to deny them for lack of perceived devotion is a far stronger argument than strictly based on who is working.

Mike, Alain's point about memory shifting is fairly valid. The memory can slowly warp itself due to bias. Difficult to prove, but there's been some studies coming out about it. It's loosely related to PTSD and the new-ish belief that the memory re-remembers and re-stores events in the mind over time, but dropping useless information and tieing it to your own current emotion. If you re-remember stuff while feeling horrible in a bad moment, it progressively gets more negative. Especially over 20 years.

[flyfishing3]

how about this:

talk about keeping your faith out of making/influencing policy.

Romney: 'Some Gays Are Actually Having Children. It's Not Right on Paper. It's Not Right in Fact.'

We've witnessed many Mitt Romneys, but the one

unearthed by the Boston Globe's Murray Waas yesterday is perhaps the most vicious and cruel: a zealot who, as Massachusetts governor, became hellbent on stigmatizing the children of gay and lesbian parents, labeling these kids as outcasts and causing them to suffer hardship throughout their lives.

Waas reveals how, after gays and lesbians in Massachusetts won the right to marry in 2003, Governor Romney wouldn't allow the Registry of Vital Records and Statistics to revise birth certificate forms for babies born to same-sex couples. The plan was to have the box for "father," for example, relabeled "father or second parent." But according to documents obtained by Waas, Romney rejected the plan, demanding the agency continue using old forms. Romney then demanded hospitals get permission from his office each time a child was born to a same sex-couple in order to cross out, with a pen, the label "father" or "mother," and write-in, with a pen, "second parent." (Romney also required gay male parents to get a court order before any birth certificate was issued.)

^^^^what kind of fucked up shit is that??????

Those children would then go through life with birth certificates that marked them as strange, abnormal, less than everyone else, punished because Romney didn't approve of their parents. As a Department of Health attorney warned Romney, the children would be disadvantaged and would have trouble applying to school or getting drivers licenses as adults, particularly in a post-9/11 world where they might be considered security risks, having birth certificates that appeared altered. It was a "violation of existing statutes," the attorney warned Romney. But Romney waved off the warnings, not caring about the the legal, psychological or personal ramifications.

Romney hadn't even previously fathomed that gay people had children. Boston Spirit magazine

reportedlast month that when gay activists met with him in his office in 2004, as Romney was backing a failed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in the state, Romney remarked, "I didn't know you had families." Julie Goodridge, lead plaintiff in the landmark case that won marriage rights for gays and lesbians before the Supreme Judicial Court, asked what she should tell her 8-year-old daughter about why the governor would block the marriage of her parents. According to Goodridge, Romney responded,"I don't really care what you tell your adopted daughter. Why don't you just tell her the same thing you've been telling her the last eight years."

Romney's retort enraged a speechless Goodridge; he didn't care, and by referring to her biological daughter as "adopted," it was clear he hadn't even been listening. By the time she was back in the hallway, she was reduced to tears. "I really kind of lost it," says Goodridge. "I've never stood before someone who had no capacity for empathy."

Months after his battle with the Registry of Vital Records began, as Waas

reportsin the Globe, Romney spoke before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington:

He outlined his misgivings about the request from the Registry of Vital Records. "The children of America have the right to have a father and a mother,'' Romney said in his prepared remarks. "What should be the ideal for raising a child? Not a village, not 'parent A' and 'parent B,' but a mother and a father.'' Romney also warned about the societal impact of gay parents raising children. "Scientific studies of children raised by same-sex couples are almost nonexistent,'' he said. "It may affect the development of children and thereby future society as a whole.''

The following year, 2005, Romney spoke to conservative voters in South Carolina, as he trained his eye on the presidency. "Some gays are actually having children born to them,'' he

said. "It's not right on paper. It's not right in fact. Every child has a right to a mother and father.''

Does it really matter whether his actions and statements were motivated by Romney's authoritarian Mormon faith or were a pander to evangelicals as he sought the presidency, or both? That he could be so zealous, cold-hearted and cruel should alarm everyone about the prospect of Mitt Romney becoming president.

http://www.huffingto..._b_2022314.html

sorry for being so difficult to read, i just copy/pasted it.

so how has he evolved from this A? is this the mormon response to Homosexual unions/weddings or just Mitts.