I'm quite certain the author MEANT "kvetch"! Noted that, immediately, myself.

Thank God MSNBC has given us Joe and Tucker to lead the Basher's Parade! And of course the rest of the MSM has given them a pass.

the problem with using the bible as a standard? george w. bush!

I don't understand the headline, "Don't Ask, Don't Kvell". Kvell means "to beam with pride", doesn't it. Who is beaming? Or does the headline writer mean kvetch, "to complain"?

I know that kvell has the desired sound, but the meaning doesn't seem to fit (in my opinion).

The next time you hear a politician promise to protect "traditional family values," keep your kids away from him...especially the boys.

We could, you know, talk about all the good things about sex.

I really don't care if people are gay or not. But, Larry Craig, as a Republican Senator, voted to kill hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq, many of them babies, for greed and power. Jesus preaches forgiveness, but for the sake of the children of Iraq, the evil people who caused their deaths must be removed from power, by any means fair or foul. Stop the killing is the first priority; forgiveness is later.

Gay rights is important. The right of children to live to be old enough to know if they are gay or straight is far more important.

Yet again Republican fundafacists give Christianity a black eye. If they love God so much why do they keep abusing Him? Indeed, they do not love God, but hate all, even themselves (apparently). To these people, religion has become a club with which to beat others over the head so they can feel superior in their own sick souls and their own worthless little lives.

Jesus Christ, if you'll listen, taught compassion was the essence of Godliness. Let's stop calling these idiots religious and call them what they are: facists!

Bravo, Marie! I was going to make an inappropriate comment about Republican men doing their part to keep the abortion rate down by engaging in public bathroom sex with other men, but hey ... I'm all in favor of the whole country growing up and getting over sex as being the most important topic of discussion, at least in the political arena.

You know, there is a positive side to all this sexual scandal brouhaha. As the parent of an adolescent who is coming of age during this sordid-sex-as-news era, I would like to thank all these political officeholders and the news sources for providing my child with all the information she needs now, at the age of 12, to realize that being obsessed with sex is a really dumb thing. Thank-you for making my child realize things that parents usually are unable to do, simply because of the "I gotta rebel against every value my parents put in front of me" nature of the parent-(pre)teen relationship.

Here Here!! About time someone stood up and said it. Get out of peoples' lives and pay attention to the job of fiscal management. Someone else's adult sex habits are their business, not mine and not yours. Not that I'm sad to see Larry Craig get booted for lying...he should have been booted for soliciting the Senate pages.

Someone else's abortion is their life-transforming decision and thankfully, not mine, since it would rend my soul to have to deal with it and it surely must rend theirs. Not my business...not your business.

If you've been elected to serve your country, start doing it by creating jobs, protecting the environment, and protecting the nation by bringing our troops home within our own borders. Oh, yes, there IS that little matter of obviously unfinished business that you better get started in the next few days...IMPEACHMENT!

Amen. Preach it, sister! If a law does absolutely nothing towards making the problem go away, i.e. sodomy laws, it has no business being on the books. We need to recognize that there are far more significant issues of justice and morality out there then whether two people sleep together, male, female or gay. Open your Bible at random and it is unlikely to be a passage about sexuality, but far more likely to be about mistreatment of the poor or misuse of violence. The social conservatives use their Bibles to call other people to be what they would like themselves to be and Sen. Craig demonstrates frequently are not, but never use their Bibles as a standard for their own behavior.

Imagine how conflicted the man is who was raised to be good little christian, one who waits for marriage to have sex (of course having to take himself in hand after a steamy everything but date - even though he also knows the taking of himself in hand is also wrong from what he was raised to believe - and after he's married and the children intended are all born, it's off to seperate beds. Yet the urge doesn't diminish. Can he risk sending his dear wife to hell to if he talks her into continuing to have sex, without having more children? No. So he goes to a prostitute if he's straight, or does what Craig did if he's gay and needing to be straight. This way they can blame Satan for leading them astray, or blame it on the prostitute and willing gay because everyone knows they're already hell-bound.

I feel sorry for these conflicted "good christians" who are trying to follow their god's laws, especially since that god also gave them those dasterdly needs that just won't go away.

With all the sadness in the world, and all the violence and unecessary wars, plus accidents and disease, if two people of the same sex find happiness with each other, more power to them. Live and let live. When man learned the art of controlling another's behavior with a superstitious belief system, religion was born.

The biggest hypocrites of all time are the Republicans. They have lied so many times the line is blurred between fact and falsehood for them, and the public is increasingly turning away from their selfish policies and condemnations of everyone else who disagrees with the pernicious agenda they unraveled decades ago.

I could never understand Log Cabin Republicans, but I guess for some, the love of money and power is all important.

As for family-values,( another false Republican cliche ) why did they refuse to pass The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) last month in the Senate? Any legislation which helps working people is usually voted down by Republicans.

The Master once said, "by their works shall ye know them" ...we sure do.

Who cares if a person is gay, or straight, bisexual, or asexual? Who cares if a person is a celibate, or a nymphomaniac? Unless you are interested in having a sexual relation with them, why would you care about that part of their personal life?

The United States has a perverted interest in the sex lives of other people. Where else in the world would the police set up a sting operation to catch people engaged in dirty doings. Where else would anybody want to read all about a politician's private philandering. Canada, South America, and Europe all have a big laugh every time we have another sex scandal. They really yuck it up when all the bible thumps start shaking their fingers of condemnation.

The government spent sixty million dollars investigating that silly little incident with President Clinton. You might have thought Fort Knox had been robed. The crime was not that he got a little on the side, but he lied about it. The big peace of evidence, in this crime of the century, was the Blue Dress. Remember the Blue Dress? Doing DNA tests on the Blue Dress Stain, to see if it belonged to Bill, was the same as smelling the behinds of everyone in a room to find out who farted. I mean, who the hell cares?

I think conservatives believe that sex is terrible and immoral. They all do it, just like everyone else, but they feel guilty. I guess they think god only reads the headlines, so by putting the spotlight on someone else, may be god will overlook their little weaknesses.

The bible by the way has very little to say about sex, but quite a lot to say about sticking one's nose in other peoples business. The Puritans are long gone, but their legacy lives on.

Hmmm, I have to agree with gde. Here in Vermont we have civil unions. My partner and I CU'd 5 years ago, mainly for the fiscal benefits. Would we rather be married? Sure. We're being denied the federal rights that go along with marriage. BUT, here's what's pissing me off. We have so many people in Vermont concerned with Iraq, impeachment, healthcare, stagnant wages etc. And these issues are SO VERY IMPORTANT. But our state legislature, in some kind of twisted ploy to keep us from discussing these issues, has decided that NOW is the time to revisit gay marriage. Now, when our children our dying in Iraq. Now, when wages are so low and manufacturing is moving out of our state at an alarming rate. Now, when we should be acting to impeach, pushing for universal healthcare, getting the hell out of Iraq. Now we have to talk about gay marriage.
Quite frankly whether or not my partner and I can get married is the LEAST of my concerns.

great posts all. why is it that the christians are so interested in other peoples sex lives? mabey one of you christians could enlighten us.

good article. but next time, check your use of yiddish. i think you meant kvetch.

"Why is it that the Christians are so interested in other peoples sex lives? May be one of you Christians could enlighten us." The Jews were the first to make laws in regard to peoples sexual functions. These laws were incorporated in Roman Cannon Law. Roman Cannon Law was passed on to the Christians. Although these laws were on the books for centuries they were almost never enforced. It was well into the middle ages when Conservative Catholicism took hold. It was believed that the good things in life were God's gifts and the bad things were God's punishment. Syphilis was introduced and was rapidly spreading across Europe. Church and state set forth to control the sexual functions of all people. Sex became Bad Bad. Sex was so bad that the mother of Jesus couldn't have had sex. That's when the Virgin Mary was invented.
Mark Twain once said that, "Tradition was the passing on of bad habits from one generation to the next." So here we are today.
Same sex unions are a small issue, which quickly become a big issue for the above reasons. I think this is being used to take the focus off the more important thing. That is impeachment. The only way to end the war, and make this a free country again, is to impeach Bush and Cheney. It looks like Wacko Bush is moving fast to bomb Iran. We must move faster. I don't think lesbian, and gay couples need their unions recognized if they are dying of radiation poisoning. We must put all of our efforts to impeachment, as if our life depended on it, because it does.

thanks john j.