Another Lesson in White House Values

deadline Poet

By Calvin Trillin

This article appeared in the November 28, 2005 edition of The Nation.

November 10, 2005

We stand up for values. Here's what we believe:
Gay marriage is something we just can't conceive
Of happening ever. The thought causes dread.
Gay men should just marry nice women instead.
If some of them marry not women but chaps,
Our civilization would simply collapse.
Abortion is murder. If we had our druthers,
We'd jail docs who do it, and also the mothers.
And research on stem cells is evil, a sin,
And so is bad language, and flicks that show skin.
And families other than these God forbids:
A dad and a mom and two point three kids.
And we support Jesus, and, oh, by the way,
When we think it's needed, some torture's OK.

Subscriber Login

4 ISSUES FREE

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

.

About Calvin Trillin

Calvin Trillin is The Nation's "deadline poet." He has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1963 and has written the syndicated weekly column "Uncivil Liberties" since 1986. He has authored many, many books, including Tepper's Not Going Out and Deadline Poet: My Life as a Doggerelist. more...
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

Blogs

» The Beat

Another Helping of FDR Please | Obama should follow the New Deal president's example and make his Thanksgiving Proclamation a call for economic justice.
John Nichols
5 Comments
Posted at 0:24 ET

» Editor's Cut

Filibuster Follies | "The filibuster has become a cancer growing inside the world's greatest deliberative body."
Katrina vanden Heuvel
66 Comments

» The Notion

Bad Black Mothers | For African American women, reproduction has never been an entirely private matter.
Melissa Harris-Lacewell
88 Comments

» Act Now!

Coal Country | Stunning film reveals new dimensions to the cost of America's over-reliance on coal.
Peter Rothberg
103 Comments

» The Dreyfuss Report

A Kingdom of Bicycles No Longer | China's ambassador for climate change speaks on the eve of the Copenhagen summit meeting.
Robert Dreyfuss
57 Comments