I meant the economy which I would see as a bit more important but then you have to vote about everything together.

Actually this has been the Republican stance on abortion for as far back as I can remember. There are certainly individuals who object to abortion for any reason but they are in the extreme minority. On the other side I have heard Democrats who are pro abortion as a form of apartheid, the idea is to have a registry of people who are anti abortion and then force them to adopt all the black babies that abortion prevents. These too are very much in the minority.

Neither the Left nor the Right are solid united ideologies. Both are horribly splintered into numerous factions that usually coalesce around a central figure at election time. The beliefs held by the Liberal and the Socialist are very different, but unless you are in one of these groups you will never see it. A Socialist would have a government which levies taxes against private enterprise to redistribute that wealth to the lower class so that they may engage in the commerce of free enterprise, to a Liberal this is highly inefficient. Some forms of Liberalism state that the government should seize the best of private enterprise and put it under government control to ensure that the best is open to everyone regardless of class, other forms try to accomplish the same goal through regulations rather than outright seizure. Both the Communist and the Anarchist are considered Leftist but their ideologies are fundamentally opposed. Likewise the Right Wing Police State of Fascism would be impossible to achieve under the rules of Right Wing Conservatism. The Evangelical Right believe that one God in heaven created all things and that it is right to give Him thanks and praise in all things. Another tenant is to spread the word of the goodness of the Almighty to all nonbelievers in order that they may know the joy of having peace with Him. The Right Wing philosophy of Objectivism sees little difference between oppression by man under his invention of government and oppression under his invention of religion/God. But to an outside observer each of these groups is either Left or Right, these are the same people who are confused by Fundamentalist Christian Democrats and Gay Rebublicans, because these don't fit into the classic view of the two party system.

As to Romneys speech, I have no opinion as I didn't watch it. I won't watch the Presidents speech at the DNC either. At this point it's just a lot of posturing and panegyric, wake me up when we get to the debates. I did tune in for Clint though.

"I will honor the institution of marriage."

Yes, this has often been used as the "secret phrase" that means "I will only support marriage between men and women" - but being politicians, they don't want to come right out and say it. How anyone can think it doesn't imply that is beyond me. When do you otherwise hear anyone use the phrase? Same goes for "sanctity of marriage". Note neither is actually honoring the concept of "marriage" but marriage with qualifiers. I have yet to hear anyone use the term "institution of marriage" and mean it as anything but exclusionary.

For what it's worth, I believe in the institution of marriage. And I believe that government should also make way for a civil equivalent that confers the same legal and civil rights to homosexual couples as religious marriage (condoned by government through the license process) confers to heterosexual couples. So yeah. Now you're heard it and no longer need to assume that "institution of marriage" equals dislike for homosexuals.

You do know that when the issue came up in Massachusetts during Romney's tenure as governor, he ordered court clerks throughout the state to go ahead and issue the marriage licenses for gay couples seeking to wed, right? See, he also honors the rule of law and the courts, even though it would seem to go against the notion that he does not support homosexual unions.

It's a puzzler.

So it's super okay when Kim Kardashian gets a divorce 30 days after her marriage, but letting two people who love each other but are the same sex to marry is wrong? :D

Allowing gay couples to marry is argument PRO sanctity of marriage :D Because I don't know any other group in a society who would want to marry more than gay couples.

Also, saying as "we will make the same rights and obligations, but we won't call this marriage" is almost equal to "we give your all the civil rights, but we won't call you people" to black folks, for example. It's humilating to say the least.

People who think that are entitled to control if they can marry or not are sick. Get a life.

btw. It's sad that election in US usually looks like:

either you choose some conservative bigot that is pro free market (the only good thing about them) , or you choose a socialist that is pro personal freedom (the only good thing about democrats). Oh my.

I just think america cannot afford another conservative republican president after what bush did.

Wow. I think this thread is kind of getting heated. Also, you do realize that by insulting and belittling people for different opinions, you are completely exposing yourselves as just as bigoted and intolerant as you claim US Republicans are, right?

Even more intolerant than Republicans, in fact. Romney may have different opinions than you do, but at least his speech stayed polite, and never included "You're sick, get a life", or "Atheism causes war" (equivalent of StingingVelvet's blatantly insulting "God causes war").

Bush wasn't conservative.

then he was just republican?

Yeah. One of the confusing things about the 2-party system is that a lot of groups who aren't naturally allies wind up stuck in the same party.

Bush was a big-government corporatist, and not actually very conservative. His winning the election was a victory for bread-and-circuses big-government branches of the Republican parties, and the Tea Party comeback was actually the resurgence of conservatism (small government, balanced budget, representatives should be responsive to citizens, etc)

The Democratic party has these tensions too. I don't know half as much about the inner politics of the Democratic party (since I'm not a member and don't care that much), but at least one source of conflict has been between African-Americans and gay rights, since African-Americans tend to be very against that sort of thing.

In places with smaller, more specific parties I think the party will tie a lot more closely to a person's specific beliefs, but when there's really only 2 games in town most people wind up in one of them even if they aren't a great fit. Libertarians are trying to change that, but not getting very far very fast.

would you say romney is the same,least,or worse then bush jr.?

can I ask another question:

why is it a that alot of people in the internet likes ron paul I remember ever where I go I see

"Ron Paul 2012" in forums why was he so popular back then?

Ayn Rand + legal weed.

John Kerry 2.0

???