was an indication of respect for islam, which was heard and understood and appreciated. and people like dick cheney don't want to concede the fact that somebody could have a different approach and it would be a responsible and smart approach. and we are hearing, however, people like henry kissinger expressing admiration for the way that obama is handling that crisis. so we have an adult in the white house. we have a very responsible person who is trying to take a new approach that is not based upon simple bell ksty and threats and posturing. and yet is continuing to sort of strong military. so i'm hopeful that a new approach can emerge and we can focus more on the domestic policies. but the fact that is that obama has a lot on his plate. and to be denouncing a person and crying betrayal after 150 days doesn't strike me as terribly mature. host: lynn on our line for

democrats. coming out of stockton, california. caller: good morning, gentlemen. and thank you for c-span. i just wanted to offer some words of encouragement for you to keep up the fight. i think it's absolutely abhorrent that we have allowed ourselves to basically create a second class of citizens in our gay and lesbian community. and i think california is one of the worst offenders. i happen to live in a count that passed prop 8 overwhelmingly and i just don't understand. as far as the marriage issue goes, my thoughts are this. why not make all marriage just a civil union between two people? heterosexual and homo sexual? and then if you want to sanction fi it with some kind of church ceremony afterwards, fine. take the church out of the institution of marriage to start with and let it be jst

between two human beings. host: lin, we're going to leave it there. guest: first of all, as to california, the positive sign the trend is with us. the earlier proposition on marriage passed by 60-some% of the vote. and now it was 52%. so the trend is in our direction. and fairly soon the numbers will favor us. and then we will win and that will be permanent. and as for whether or not you call marriage, i don't really have any strong feelings whatever it's called as a civil institution, and that's all we're talking about, a civil equality, not having to do with what churches or synagogues choose to do, is for equal treatment under the civil law. and whether to separate religious marriage and civil marriage and call the civil marriage something else, that's for everybody the discuss. that's not a specifically gay issue. we simply wanted to be treated equally, whatever the

institution is. i just don't happen to think that it's likely that society is about to make that separation at this point. the only thing to keep in mind is nobody is advocating telling any church or minister what they can do. no minister has been forced to conduct a same sex wedding or to bless one or to welcome gay people into his or her church. those kind of claims by the other side are a complete red herring. nobody is advocating such thing. and advocates on our side have been consistently been delighted to add clarification langwauge to make it clear in these bilts a reiteration. host: thank you for being on the program this morning. we're going to open up the phones for all sorts of items. and that will be coming up right after this break. the phone numbers will appear

on your screen.

>> open phone for about the next 25 murnts of the program. if you'd like to give us a call, we'll put the numbers up on the screen. you can also send us an e-mail or submit your comments through twitter. the address is twitter.com/c-span wj.

our first call comes from florida. caller: good morning. well, i have to say, i was just listening to your last speaker there, and i'm a former homo sexual, i'm part of the ex-gay movement in america, you might have heard of exodus international. i have to say, i was involved in the gay activist movement in the 80's and 70's. and i think that last speaker was not being honest with you. i think we need to be tolerant of homo swulls, but when i was in the homo sexual lifestyle the gay activists were coming after the churches and sin alberto gonzalez in america and were really upset that most of the churches do not support homo sexual marriage nor do they support the homo sexual lifestyle. so as an exgay i speak as an expert because i know what

they're up to and it's very upsetting as we really don't want to come after the churches and synagogues. they want gay marriage and they want to shove the lifestyle down the delotes of the america and the conservative churches. host: tampa, florida. caller: good morning. this is the first time i ever got on. i love it. i watch your show every saturday morning. host: congratulations for getting through. caller: i want to say, i want to talk about the gay representative there. and i find it so ill luminating that most of these guys that called in that were gay were white. and what happens is once they're raised white but when they turn whatever age they turn gay, they don't know it but they become a minority. and once they become a minority, they get treated like any other minority.

they don't listen to you. blue they're used to being treated like, i say this and people listen. host: you can tell somebody's ethnicity by listening to them over the phone? caller: a lots of time you can. you can tell i'm black and a lot of whites you can tell they're white. not everybody but about 70% you can. host: on the front page of the "new york times", the article, house unvails health bill, mine new key points. the proposal would establish a new public health insurance plan to compete with private plans. this week on our program, "newsmakers," representative pete stark of california is one of the authors of the health care draft that the democrats announced yesterday.

and he talks about whether new taxes are needed to pay for the health plan. >> i would say there's no consensus. nobody likes to raise taxes. so that i would be misleading you if i said there's going to be a vat or -- there will be i'm quite sure at least i would favor this an increase for people making more than $250,000 a year. i would suggest that's the president's suggestion. we're going to adopt that, i'm pretty sure. >> an income tax increase? >> i think so. >> but other than that, i suppose, which i think is maybe fair to say was something on the agenda irrespective of health care. is it your goal and do you think it's attainable, to finance the bill at the end of the process without additional taxes? >> i don't know. i don't know.

>> you can see the entire interview with representative pete stark on "newsmakers" sunday, tomorrow morning at 10:00 and also 6:00 p.m. on c-span. also, more regarding the discussion on health care. there are several different pieces of legislation that are currently being discussed on capitol hill. and if you want to look at some of the differences between the house bill that was introduced yesterday and the senate finance bill, you can find that in the chart in the "washington post." and you can also see the coverage of the markup of the bill that was going through senate health education labor and pensions committee. that's been going on for this past week and will go on next week. and you'll be able to see coverage of that on c-span. you can get the exact details on our web site.

back to the phones. stewart on our line for independents. caller: how are you doing today? i'm that retired chief master sergeant from the air force that a e-mails you every day. i spent 30-some years in the air force, and when you had the last guest on, i kind of squirmed. i'm not religious but i also remember the sodm and ga morea story. but aside from that, i roomed with a homo sexual that i had no clue was and i saw some things that went on. what people don't understand, military people work real close knit and we believe in comradry and that's not the kind we were groying up with. so for you all to sit there and bless all this about homo sexuality, it's really discouraging over here. like i say, i've soifered over 30-some years in the miltrifplt

and also, i feel for president obama. i'm and independent but i feel this man is going to go from first to worst. host: did you have an opportunity to work with this individual? and how would you grade his job performance? caller: the man worked well and what i witnessed was a homo sexual act and it was disgusting. i don't believe that's normal. and apparently -- the lord doesn't believe that's normal either because he said man shall not lie with man. so that's how i feel about it. host: woodbridge, virginia. caller: i'm very disappointed in the media, how they're more or less pushing obama to say something. i think he's taking the exact right course as to stay out of iran's business. we enough going on here in the united states. we don't have the most perfect election that's held here. and we need to clean that up.

you have people talking about acorn and different things like that. and i think the president is doing marvelous. and we just need to give him time to work everything out. this country is in a great mess and it didn't happen overnight or 150 days. republicans, democrats, and independents just need to take a deep breath and let the president with his great intelligence straighten this country out. host: who in the media is pressing the president to say something? >> i look at wolf blitz and it seems it's a rampage from one station to the station. the president needs to say this or he needs to say that. then i watched on larry king last night and it was supposed to be a comedy affair but he kept on and on about what the president should say or what he shouldn't say. i feel the consensus of the united states people is he should stay out of the iran

business and handle the united states business. thank you kindly. host: good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to just follow up on the previous speaker on obama and the gay community. and my question would be, does obama then find himself in a difficult position when running for reelection in 2012 if don't ask, don't tell are still being practiced? you can't use the same speeches to run for reelection. and i'm wondering what he will be able to say to the glbt community if he wants to run for reelection in 2012. if you talk a lot about these things to get yourself elected in 2008 and then they're still around even though you vote sort of voiced opposition to

them, what can you say to this stronghold of the democratic party if when you want to go for reelection? i understand that incremental change is very useful, but at one point do gay and lesbian sits i sense sort soff say we appreciate what you've dobe but if you expect us to support you for another four years you need to go back and make good on some promises or at least some speech that is you made when you first ran for election? so i would be curious if barack obama is going to be in sort of a touchy situation with the gay and lesbian community when he decides to run for reelection if these two policies are still on the books. host: do you think that would be a major sticking point if that were the case? caller: well, i would like to see more progress. i understand he's only been in for 150 days and i'm one of these people that believe that change is not going to happened

immediately. host: ron, the administration has said that they're just following the law and that it's congress that needs to change the laws. coich true. but it wasn't the members of congress who were running for election as president in 2008. so you can't sort of say, well, i'm going to stand here and say i'm against these policies but if they're not going to change i'm gloing to blame congress. if you're running for election for president, and you're making campaign speeches to any faction of your party or to the electorate as a whole, you can't then sort of turn around and blame somebody else if it doesn't quite go your way. i mean, if you're advocating for the repeal of don't ask, don't tell, then that's the platform that you take. host: u.s. troopsered in air

strikes. at least 26 afghans died, says a military report. this talks about an air strike made in early may. the military report that is it is impossible to determine the number of civilian carbts that occurred on may 4, and says the number could be higher. a report on the same incident by the afghan independent human rights says there were as many as 86 civilian carbles. locals put the death toll at 140. jacksonville, florida. you're on the line for independents. caller: good morning. i'm calling about the florida senate race. they've got on the democratic side, mr. meek running i think. representative. and he's running on the democrats. then they've got another lady,

her name is cor reinbrown. she lives here in jacksonville and she's running on the premise of, i can deliver. and i'm an african american contractor here, sir. and she has not delivered for us because we get 1% -- i take that back. less than 1% of between 30 million and $100 million that comes through duval county for people to bid on. so if she can't deliver and help the local folks, how can she deliver and help the state and the united states? less than 1%, sir, of $30 million? host: in the philadelphia enquirer, sode mire quits club of women. they write, supreme court nominee resigned yesterday from an elite all women's club after

republicans questioned her participation in it. she said she resigned from the club to prevent the issue from becoming a distraction in her confirmation hearings. back to the phones. caller: good morning. and thank you for taking my call. host: thank you for making the call. caller: in regards to your last guest, sir, i have a lot i guess to say about this issue. but first of all, let's start from the beginning. now, i know they want to say if they were born that way. but they were not. this is a way of life they have chosen. well, this is completely wrong by all -- by most people's standards. and if they'd read their bible at all they know how god feels about it, that this is an abomb nation to god.

now these folks, unless they get themselves turned around and live the way they're posed to liff, they'll never be able to see the kingdom of heaven. in addition to that, then they want to bring children into all this mess. and this is not fair for children to be able to see this kind of stuff, it's not normal. and then we have all these aids. sometimes gay and sometimes they're both ways and they're spreading aids. and then we need all this money to try to do something about the aids situation. host: do you think that all of this should preclude them from serving in the military if they want to serve their country? caller: you know, i know we need people in the military. but is it fair to the men and women that are in the military

that are good upstanding citizens living the way they're supposed to live? so i guess maybe what we need to do is a poll and ask these folks, you know, how do you feel about serving beside gay or less bns? because i have never been in the military lds lots and lots of my family have been there. and i know the ones in our family are completely against it. caller: this is bruce in jacksonville. host: sorry about that. go ahead. caller: i was just mar velling at some of the things, especially the lady talking about aids. i was mar fling at the lady talking about aids. aids came from africa and it was a heterosexual disease to

start off with. and there was an hbo movie years ago that they did the whole thing of when the young guy worked for cdc, alan aleda plays in it. but going on to other things. everybody's talking about obama doing this and doing that but we're rushing into everything. and they want the government to pay for everything. and nobody seems to realize that the government is your money. you know. you're going to pay for it eventually. and i jist don't understand why the american public doesn't understand that government is spending your money. host: more about the story of the supreme court nominee quiting an all-women's club. says the club bills itself as a

women's answer to the 130-year-old all male bo heemion club in california to which chief justice earl warren belong ds before he joined the court and long before the federal judiciary adopted a code of conduct. president obama made reference to supreme court nominee sonya sode mire last night at the radio and television correspondents dinner here in washington, d.c. he threw out a few jokes. one of them was at the expense of his supreme court nominee. this is what he had to say. >> the challenges we face are many, and i will be honest i don't have all the answers. and when i'm not sure what's right, i often ask myself, ww wld, what would a wise latino do? i'm proud of my nominee. and all those -- [applause]

-- who oppose her, all those who say that there's no place for empathy on the bench, i say this. i completely understand how you're feeling. when you're upset, i'm upset. another difficult challenge is how to help our auto makers thrive in the 21st century we tried a number of different approaches and tonight i'm announcing a new one. it's a plan pass ds on to me by a close friend and advisor, oprah winfrey. so if each of you will look under your seat, you will find that you get a car company. you get a car company. and fox, you get a.i.g. >> you can see more of the president's standup routine if you go to our website.

it will tell you when we're going to replay it and on which network. cats lean, thank you very much for waiting. caller: thank you. i would like to say, for one thing, go sonia. and also, i want to make a comment about the past caller that called in about aids. and the caller before that called in about the bible. and, jesus did not say a man shall not lie down with a man. that was one of his apostles. one of his apolls st is not jesus. therefore, people who quote the bible and say these things are not saying things that came out of jeefssuss' mouth. keep it real. >> do you believe that the obama administration is doing all it can to support the gay community? >> i think they could probably do a little bit more. but small steps are needed here. obviously. with the way people react to this situation.

so small baby steps but let's get there. host: eric on our line calling out of baltimore, maryland. caller: good morning. the thing i'm trying to get my thoughts together. first, tonight ask a question you asked the one elderly lady? i'm a former marine myself and i'll serve with anybody that can shoot straight and can listen to the commands to the letter and has the ability to keep our moral high. what you do behind closed doors is your business as long as it's kept behind closed doors. do i think that gay and lesbian people deserve any special rights? at some point we have to draw the line. forget all this bible stuff. at one point, the next group that's going to come out is people who want to sleep with animals. because i want to sleep with my dog, i want to have that open.

? you don't deserve any special rights for anything. you are a human being. you have the same rights. but you want to be openly married? what does it matter? host: can you really equate a relationship with another human being with beastality? caller: what you do behind closed doors is your business. where are we going to draw the line? what's the difference? host: out of the baltimore sun this morning, former fannie mae head to take over bank bailout. the former head of the troubled mortgage jipent fannie mae has been confirmed to oversee the government's $700 billion bank bailout to confirm friday as assistant secretary. alison will oversee the troubled asset relief or tarp program which was established last fall to inject capital

into banks hit hard from the mortgage crisis. tampa, florida. >> i want to thank you for taking my call. i want to comment on the last who spoke. i also had the same idea about those who want to sleep with animals. now, if these people are claiming that that is how god made them, like that is who they are, that is how god made them, then no one has any right to say that they also don't qualify to mary the animals. and then also, we have those who want to marry more than one. so if i want to marery three or four women, can the laws prevent mem from doing that? host: more from last night's radio television

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