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Jeffe Fecke of Alas, a blog is as weirded out by J.D. Hayworth’s haste to leap into man-horse sex as I was earlier today.

So here’s something I don’t get: why is it that whenever people start talking about same-sex relations, members of the right instantly leap to bestiality? We all remember former Sen. Rick “Man On Dog” Santorum, R-Penn. Then there was Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and his box turtle lovin’.

He said it here.

I can’t find a link at the moment but I’m pretty sure conservatives have also brought up the creepy prospect of NAMBLA members marrying juvenile boys variation as well. I can’t possibly, on the planet, be the only person to see it this way but…

The really, giant, big, distinguishing difference between grown men or women marrying each other, vs. Arizona Senate aspirants marrying their horses, is that the law already allows men and women to marry. Whereas, at least as far as I know, there are no provisions in law for horses to marry each other. Same with dogs. Same with box turtles. And for good reason. In civic if not celestial terms marriage is an establishment of fairly complex set of legal, contractual, tax, and property rights, including the establishment of legal inheritance and even powers of attorney. None of which, again to the best of my knowledge, are recognized in the case of animals.

Note: As for the NAMBLA scenario, Hayworth’s native Arizona already wisely prohibits marriage of children under the age of 18 without parental consent. Even with parental consent children can’t marry under age 16. Although, disturbingly, Arizona does permit children under age 16 to be married with the consent of the parents and approval of a superior court judge. (That last bit may be a nod to the state’s large child-marrying FLDS population.) To the extent a state wished to forestall the NAMBLA scenario they could simply update their child-marriage laws to 21st 20th Century standards. But I digress…

Point being that whereas legal marriage can (and should!) be easily extended to adults of the same sex with very trivial modifications of civic laws governing marriage adults who currently are allowed to marry each other, before people could marry animals it would first be necessary to establish all the other legal rights and responsibilities for animals that are now the domain only of humans.

Paul Waldman of TAPPED wrote such a wonderful indictment of the IJNNWACDI tendency towards conservative perversion that I’m reproducing the whole thing here.

Via Steve Benen, we see that former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, who is challenging John McCain in the Republican Senate primary in Arizona, has some interesting ideas about what gay marriage will lead to:

“You see, the Massachusetts Supreme Court, when it started this move toward same-sex marriage, actually defined marriage — now get this — it defined marriage as simply, ‘the establishment of intimacy,’” Hayworth said. “Now how dangerous is that? I mean, I don’t mean to be absurd about it, but I guess I can make the point of absurdity with an absurd point — I guess that would mean if you really had affection for your horse, I guess you could marry your horse. It’s just the wrong way to go, and the only way to protect the institution of marriage is with that federal marriage amendment that I support.”

This kind of thing comes up with alarming frequency from Christian conservatives. For some of them, any issue of gay rights is about sex – — hot, steamy sex, so hot they can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve always said that James Dobson thinks about gay sex more than any five gay people I know put together. And apparently, people like Hayworth think that there is a tide of perversion lapping at our levees, and if we allow a crack in the edifice of heterosexual marriage, it will come down upon us like a tidal wave, drowning us with its forbidden temptations. I wonder what kind of thoughts led them there?

He said it here.

That sounds about right about James Dobson, and one suspects Fred Phelps thinks about it more than every other gay man in Kansas. Any time folks start going into lurid details or taking their proposed prohibitions to extreme lengths there’s gotta be at least a little fire behind all that smoke. Another example, one with almost universally horrific consequences are the white slave-owning men who, while regularly justifying violence against African American men for their “lust” for white women, also happened to have unrestricted and coercive access to African American women. Another example? I always wonder what’s really up when I hear of another regressive state legislator proposing one of those no-exceptions-for-rape-or-incest abortion restrictions. For instance one wonders how long it’ll be before a weeping Glenn Beck upbraids the likes of me for being all nonconsanguino-centerically privileged and just not understanding that, say, Louisiana state legislators deserve grandchildren just like people do. Now I’m forced to wonder whether J.D. Hayworth would support this petition drive... or if he’d change the subject and fulminate about government having no business interfering with private property rights. $%!#%~%

(Quick note, plus attempted guilt expiation for quoting his entire post: I don’t quote Paul Waldman often in this blog but if you’re into politics and social issues TAPPED is a great group blog and you can find a bunch of his other posts here. I particularly appreciated his post Pro-Lifers For More Abortions from yesterday.)

Comic by XKCD. Used under a Creative Commons license. Click to see full-size at xkcd’s site.

XKCD tackles the gender-stereotype driven driving “Porn for Women“ book series.

Sharon Johnson of WE.News says (bold and italics mine)

A bill under contention in Nebraska proposes joining 14 states and the District of Columbia in providing prenatal care for all pregnant, low-income women regardless of immigrant status under CHIP, the children’s health insurance program.

It is authored by Republican Sen. Kathy Campbell, a long-time advocate for women and children, who says the bill is “morally right because all children deserve to be born healthy.” Republican Gov. Dave Heineman opposes it, saying taxpayer-funded benefits should not reach people without legal citizenship.

Read the quote in context here.

Oddly, in 2006 the Nebraska Right to Life Political Action Committee aggressively endorsed Gov. Heineman’s reelection, saying abortion-rights opponents “got more action in 15 months from Heineman than we did out of [previous governor] Johanns in six years.”

And by “oddly,” in this case, I mean that the Nebraska Right to Life PAC steadfastedly supports the bill Heineman’s threatening to veto. In direct violation of blogger protocol (we’re supposed to just sit in our pajamas in our mom’s basements) I called them to ask. The woman who answered said NRTL believes strongly in prenatal care for everyone regardless of status.

Whatever else one might say about any organization opposed to reproductive rights one can say that at least on this issue NRTL has a consistent position. Whatever else one can say about Heineman, he clearly doesn’t.

And it’s not just about the choice issue that he’s being inconsistent by the way. He can’t claim this is about his nominal conservative principle of “States Rights.” The bill is a Nebraska initiative to restore a program that was cut from this year’s Medicare legislation. He can’t claim this is about his nominal conservative principle of “fiscal responsibility” either. By replacing Medicare funds with CHIP, which has more generous reimbursement rates, the bill would save Nebraska taxpayers almost $4 million a year.

Instead, like Congressman Bart Stupak, Heineman’s position is pure, gratuitous Teabagging.

Via Matthew Yglesias,