The questions I would have liked asked at the last debate

By Tom Quiner

I’m still chewing on the loaded questions thrown at the Republican candidates for President at last Saturday night’s debate.

Diane Sawyer

They dealt with gay marriage issues. This is certainly an important issue. But in this Obamanomics-sustained Great Recession, is this the issue, along with contraception, truly the main issues real people want to be talking about?

George Stephanopoulos wasted seven questions on the (non) issue of contraception.

Josh McElveen, of New Hampshire’s WMUR, posed this question on gay adoption:

“Your position on same-sex adoption, obviously, you are in favor of traditional families, but are you going to tell someone they belong in — as a ward of the state or in foster care, rather than have two parents who want them?”

And the sultry-throated Diane Sawyer purred:

“I want to turn now … to something closer to home and to maybe families sitting in their living rooms across this country. I would really love to be able to ask you what you would say personally sitting in your living rooms to the people who ask questions like this. Given that you oppose gay marriage, what do you want gay people to do who want to form loving, committed, long-term relationships? What is your solution?”

Using the Newt Gingrich technique, I would like to turn the questions around. To Mr. McElveen, I wish he would have posed his question something like this:

“In light of the tremendous demand by married heterosexual couples to adopt, why didn’t you issue an Executive Order in 2006 when you were Governor to exempt Catholic Charities, Massachusett’s largest adoption provider at the time, from the requirement that they adopt to gay couples?”

Catholic Charities was driven out of the business by that state’s insistence that they adopt to gay couples, in violation of their religious beliefs and freedoms, or get out of the business.

Catholic Charities got out of the business.

So when Josh McElveen poses questions invoking terms like “foster care and wards of the state,” he is ignoring the  impact unyielding gay rights activism has on real kids … and real parents … whose adoption options have been limited by their government in the name of political correctness.

I know many who have turned to Russia, the Ukraine, Siberia, India or elsewhere to adopt because the American adoption system is slow and bureaucratic.

To Diane Sawyer, I wish she would restate her question to Barack Obama in a future debate this Fall, something like this:

“I would really love to be able to ask you what you would say personally sitting in your living rooms to the people who ask questions like this. Given that you now refuse to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), what do you say to the Catholic voters, 54% of whom supported you in 2008, now that you seem to be supportive of gay marriage and gay rights? Why do you put more stock in the sliver of Americans with same sex attractions over the the religious freedom of millions of Catholics who view marriage as a sacrament? “

The next debate is Monday night. Let’s hope we get better questions than the ones candidates heard from ABC’s politically-correct partisans.