This article by Glen Greenwald was beyond brilliant:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/01/mccain/index.html Here is John McCain's "straight talk", in defense of traditional marriage yesterday, regarding the Iowa state court's decision declaring unconstitutional that state's opposite-sex-only marriage law:
John McCain also entered the fray last night, calling the decision "a loss for the traditional family," and noting that he supports "the traditional definition of marriage as between one man and one woman."
By stark contrast, this is John McCain's "straight action":
McCain was still married and living with his wife in 1979 while, according to The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof, "aggressively courting a 25-year-old woman who was as beautiful as she was rich." McCain divorced his wife, who had raised their three children while he was imprisoned in Vietnam, then launched his political career with his new wife's family money.
How can John McCain claim to believe that the law should recognize only "traditional marriages" while simultaneously demanding that the law recognize his own so-called "second marriage" -- also known as "an adulterous relationship" under the precepts of "traditional marriage" (Mark 10:11 -- "And he said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her").
The issue is not that McCain sinned in the past. It is that he argues now that the law ought to recognize only "the traditional definition of marriage" while simultaneously demanding that the law recognize and treat as equal his own "marriage," which is as much a deviation from the "traditional definition" as the same-sex marriages he opposes. How can someone with this "family" stand up in public and claim to support the "traditional definition of marriage"?
McCain married Carol Shepp, his first wife, in 1965. He adopted her two children from a previous marriage, and they have a daughter, born in 1966. The couple divorced in 1980. He and his second wife, Cindy, have four children.
Whatever else that family is, "traditional" is not it. But the only reason this glaring contradiction can be maintained is because most of the media and huge numbers of voters even outside of the "Value Voters" sphere have convinced themselves -- driven by obvious self-interest and oozing self-centeredness -- that the only rule of "traditional marriage" is that you need a man and a woman and provided that rule is complied with, all other types of marriages and divorces qualify as "traditional."
Hypocrisy, thy name is modern conservatism.