Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Set your irony meters for stun: David Vitter and Larry Craig have signed on to sponsor the Marriage Protection Amendment in the Senate. The two men are clearly deeply committed to saving the sanctity of sham heterosexual marriages. Jesus' General is on the case and has quotes like this Craig:
If we allow homosexuals to marry, who's going to take care of the needs of the many straight, married men who like to blow guys in public restrooms?
And this, from Vitter:
Being diapered by a prostitute didn't end my marriage. But if my wife knew homosexuals were marrying each other, she'd divorce me in a minute.
And I just can't resist posting this picture of the "proud" Mrs. Vitter:
Remember, this is the woman who criticized Hillary Clinton and said that if she ever caught her husband cheating on her she'd pull a Lorena Bobbit on him. So he gets caught paying hookers to put him in diapers and she's "proud" to be his wife. Right.
Politics
Comments
By signing on to the Marriage Protection Amendment Craig and Vitter have probably tainted it beyond hope. Who else would touch it? Ew, yuk!
Posted by: Rod | July 1, 2008 9:42 AM
You put way to much faith in the moral consistency of the types of politicians who would support this kind of nonsense. The fact that it's blatantly hypocritical doesn't matter. It's a pandering move, meant to placate knuckle-dragging homophobes who just simply can't stand the idea that somewhere, somehow, somebody gay exists.
The Amendment has almost no chance of being ratified, and even a lot of its supporters probably don't give a damn whether it passes or not. All that matters is that they can stand up in front of a crowd of ignorant yokels and proclaim their undying devotion to protecting marriage from the Gay Threat(tm).
Posted by: Wes | July 1, 2008 10:08 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjAfM6mbqfs
Which sums up the irony rather perfectly.
Posted by: Skwee | July 1, 2008 10:13 AM
Reminds me of the Carlin bit about how Christian groups should team up with gays, because who has less abortions than the gays? They're losing a valuable ally...
Posted by: Dennis N | July 1, 2008 10:23 AM
I don't understand what the issue is -- after all, Larry Craig is completely heterosexual (as is, of course, Ted Haggard).
Posted by: Tulse | July 1, 2008 10:48 AM
Loved the Craig quote!
Yeah, let's take a poll of congress and see who has kept their marriage sacred. Let he/she without sin cast the first vote....
At least Jimmy Carter was willing to admit he had lusted with his heart!
Posted by: Rev. AJB | July 1, 2008 11:14 AM
I like the term "wide stance Republicans" for those Republicans whose public image is well distanced from their private behavior in these respects...
Posted by: Ray Ingles | July 1, 2008 11:29 AM
That quote is fantastic. :D
Posted by: phoenix | July 1, 2008 11:42 AM
I wonder if sales of this will go up?
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | July 1, 2008 11:44 AM
I loved going to Saint Paul Saints games when I lived in the Twin Cities. Sounds like the kind of whacky promotions they were doing in the early '90's.
Posted by: Rev. AJB | July 1, 2008 11:52 AM
Marriage "Protection" Amendment
All they really want is for people to practice Safe Marriage.
Posted by: JohnH | July 1, 2008 1:16 PM
So, does Safe Marriage include Absteinance Only training.
(sorry, couldn't help myself)
Posted by: jufulu, FCD | July 1, 2008 3:14 PM
And here I thought irony died when Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize. Turns out it was alive and well and living on Capitol Hill.
Viva la irony!
Now please excuse me. The hypocrisy of Vitter and Craig is making me feel ill.
Posted by: Mara | July 1, 2008 4:23 PM
Mara:
Kissinger negotiated an end to the Vietnam war, opened China peacefully to the West, and brought peaceful regularity to one of the most potentially explosive and strained conflicts of the 20th Century through establishing detente with the USSR. He was awarded the Peace Prize for these achievements; his advising of South American dictators was not known until after the fact.
No one is a shining knight on a white charger; we should take our capable figures where we can get them and accept them for what they are, not hold them to our greatest desires.
Posted by: Julian | July 1, 2008 5:17 PM
That made my day.
I always like to bring up Craig when talking with hard righties about gay marriage, but I forget about Dave Vitter sometimes. What a nutjob that guy is.
Oh, and the picture of big bad Vitty with his wife is awesome.
Posted by: JStein | July 1, 2008 5:26 PM
I confess to being endlessly amused by the notion that we praise Kissinger for negotiating an end to the Vietnam war when he (and Nixon, of course) was also largely responsible for continuing and escalating that war for 5 years to the tune of an extra million or so people dead after running on a platform of ending the war. Perhaps next we should issue awards to men the moment they stop beating their wives.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | July 1, 2008 5:52 PM
Sounds like someone is extremely desperate to put a positive spin on their already dead-as-a-doornail political legacies.
If Vitter or Craig had an ounce of sense they would have resigned their Senate seats the moment their secret sex lives became fodder for public ridicule. But if they want to stick around and embarrass themselves even more with bills like these, that's fine with me.
Posted by: CHV | July 1, 2008 6:05 PM
Julian:
::coughs:: Actually, I was deliberately misquoting Tom Lehrer, who said (if I remember correctly) that Kissinger winning the Nobel Peace Prize made political satire obsolete.
Mind you, I still think the statement isn't entirely inaccurate...
Posted by: Mara | July 1, 2008 6:12 PM
Irony, no.
Hypocrisy, yes.
Posted by: wheyghey | July 1, 2008 6:23 PM
I'm rather sure that the 3(?) posts you've said that on all classify as ironic. Irony and hypocrisy are not mutually exclusive.
Posted by: tincture | July 1, 2008 7:34 PM
tincture...
I thought I was the only one who noticed that. Three is a charm...or so I have been told.
Posted by: BobbyEarle | July 1, 2008 11:13 PM
This is another example of my former Senator Craig (R of Idaho) proving just how rabid he is to stamp out the effect of homosexuality destroying marriage. I'm surprised his behavior hasn't prompted his wife to pull a Bobbitt on him. And just to make a point, us [in my case, former] Idahoans have long suspected the dear Mr. Craig of being "a gay" simply because of the longstanding bigotry that he seems to have personalized throughout his long decades serving Idaho (and Chicago, apparently).
Posted by: Jaime A. Headden | July 2, 2008 4:18 AM
Someone needs to make a video and run it as an ad in California.
"Senator Craig wants to pass a law in Idaho that would forbid gay people from marrying. (picture of Craig making a speech) Senator Craig was also arrested for propositioning a male police officer for sex in a public restroom. (picture of Craig's mug shots). Now some people here in California want to amend our state Constitution to undo the equality of marriage granted by our state Supreme Court (picture of Lou Sheldon with expression of righteous rage on his face). We think they ought to do more for their own marriages, rather than interfering with the marriages of others." (back to picture of Craig).
Posted by: g347 | July 2, 2008 6:58 AM
>> Someone needs to make a video and run it as an ad in California.
"Senator Craig wants to pass a law in Idaho that would forbid gay people from marrying. (picture of Craig making a speech) Senator Craig was also arrested for propositioning a male police officer for sex in a public restroom. (picture of Craig's mug shots). Now some people here in California want to amend our state Constitution to undo the equality of marriage granted by our state Supreme Court (picture of Lou Sheldon with expression of righteous rage on his face). We think they ought to do more for their own marriages, rather than interfering with the marriages of others." (back to picture of Craig). >>
Yeah, maybe that would make sense if every person who opposed gay marriage was like Larry Craig. Get real.
Posted by: mroberts | July 2, 2008 3:04 PM
Do you foot tap mrroberts?
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | July 3, 2008 11:00 AM
Craig reminds me of the Lenny Bruce cartoon "Thank you maskman";
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CebRfSFnWGM
"I've read about it, I want to see how bad it is."
Posted by: bernarda | July 4, 2008 4:48 AM