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Stephen Colbert told his audience Monday that like most conservatives, he's "long had respect for the Hispanic community, ever since they voted Barack Obama in for a second term" and said that was a "sobering moment" -- at least, it would be if he could stop drinking.

Colbert then opined that he thought Hispanics came to the United States to do the jobs that other Americans did not want to do, like voting for Mitt Romney, whose name he couldn't remember as usual, and he played footage of some of the political pundits out there, claiming that Hispanics should naturally be a part of their coalition. Colbert agreed.

COLBERT: Yes, Hispanic and Republicans go together like beans and very, very white rice... that is very suspicious of the beans. Now granted, we conservatives may have said a few things about immigrants in the past, but now that is just agua the Spanish word for bridge. Because Republicans have now reached out to a group they trust even less than Mexicans -- Democrats.

After showing the Republicans out there talking about their newfound embrace of immigration reform and the right wing pundits explaining how this is just going to make all of the racist statements in the past go away, Colbert made note of why they still might have some problems with those voters.

COLBERT: Yes, Republicans will take racism off the table, or have their bus boy do it. Either way it's gone.

After showing the yappers over at Fox attacking President Obama for coming out with his own plan and basically telling the President to sit down and shut up, Colbert got to the root of their problem and this recent pandering we've seen by Republicans.

COLBERT: Hispanic voters know that immigration reform is moving forward only because Republicans decided to quit blocking it. They're not going to give Obama credit for supporting it all along. That would be like passing a kidney stone and then thanking your doctor, instead of thanking the kidney stone for taking you on such a character building adventure of agony.

Colbert wound things up explaining that there is still another hitch for the GOP, which is actually following through and voting for any of this, which is the President's plan wanting to give visas for same-sex partners. As I already noted here, Harry Reid might have expressed some optimism (heaven forbid, as Colbert noted) for "treating gay people as people," but I don't share it. I don't see Republicans doing anything else but continuing to treat just about everyone other than old white men as second-class citizens if they think there's any political benefit in demonizing them.

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As Igor Volsky at Think Progress noted, we'll see how far this goes with Republicans when you've got Senators like John McCain calling equality for gay and lesbian families in immigration reform as a “red herring” and comparing it to tax payer funding for abortion: Harry Reid Predicts Immigration Reform Will Pass, Says It Must Include Protections For Same-Sex Families:

Senate Majority Leader Harry (D-NV) expressed support for including gay and lesbian families in comprehensive immigration reform, during an appearance on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, insisting that they should have the same protections as everyone else.

The United States is home to at least 28,500 same-sex couples in which one partner is a citizen and the other is not, but federal law does not recognize these relationships and prohibits gay and lesbian couples and their children from seeking visas on the basis of same-sex unions. The Obama administration’s framework would allow families to apply for visas on the basis of their permanent unions, while the bipartisan senate principles do not. Reid characterized the GOP resistance to including the equality amendment as an excuse to avoid supporting comprehensive reform: Read on...

Regardless of their rhetoric and Harry Reid's optimism, I won't be surprised if Republicans find an excuse to block the bill, but we shall see.

Full transcript below the fold.

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From the New York Times:

BUENOS AIRES — Argentina’s Senate narrowly approved a measure early on Thursday authorizing same-sex marriages, making Argentina the first country in Latin America to allow gay couples to wed.

After 15 hours of debate, the Senate voted 33 to 27 in favor of the measure, which was sponsored by the government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. For weeks, she waged a bitter war of words with the Roman Catholic Church over the measure.

The church organized large protests throughout the country on Tuesday night involving tens of thousands of opponents of the law. Some senators criticized the Senate leadership on Wednesday for not allowing a vote on an alternative bill to authorize civil unions for gay couples.

The same-sex marriage measure will give gay people the same marital rights as heterosexuals, including adoption and inheritance rights.

Argentinian President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner made no secret of where she stood on the issue or why.

Mrs. Kirchner harshly criticized church leaders on Monday, saying that their discourse on the issue resembled “the times of the Crusades” and that they failed to acknowledge how socially liberal Argentina had become.

“They are portraying this as a religious moral issue and as a threat to ‘the natural order,’ when what we are really doing is looking at a reality that is already there,” the president said from Beijing. “It would be a terrible distortion of democracy if they denied minorities their rights.”

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April 15, 2010 CNN