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The Daily Show's Jon Stewart had a field day with the opponents of gay marriage at this week's Supreme Court hearings on the Defense of Marriage Act, starting with Paul Clement, the lawyer hired by House Republicans, who was called out by Justice Elena Kagan when he attempted to make the claim that the law wasn't based on bigotry.

After playing some of the back and forth between Clement and Kagan, Stewart gave the audience a reminder of just what the House Republicans sounded like back in 1996, before playing the audio of Kagan reading from the actual House report which said "Congress decided to reflect and honor of collective moral judgment and to express moral disapproval of homosexuality." As Stewart noted, "with moral arguments no longer available to opponents of same-sex marriage, what's left for the conservatives to argue?"

Cue the idiocy of Justice Scalia, who made this ridiculous claim:

JUSTICE SCALIA: Mr. Cooper, let me — let me give you one — one concrete thing. I don’t know why you don’t mention some concrete things. If you redefine marriage to include same-sex couples, you must — you must permit adoption by same-sex couples, and there’s – there’s considerable disagreement among — among sociologists as to what the consequences of raising a child in a — in a single-sex family, whether that is harmful to the child or not. Some States do not — do not permit adoption by same-sex couples for that reason.

As Stewart rightfully noted in the segment, no, there's not.

And then there was Justica Alito's equally ridiculous remark that the issue of gay marriage is "newer than cellphones or the Internet."

STEWART: No, we want you to step in and render a decision based on whether it's right, fair and just under the Constitution, having nothing to do with its "newness" and what you think might happen. Which by the way, what do you think might happen? That they'll discover letting two ladies get married is going to rip open a hole in the ozone layer? And I've got news for you. Gay marriage will definitely cause less national harm than cell phones or the Internet.

But here's the thing that we're pretty sure you don't have to do. You don't have to beta test rights. Black people have only been here fifty years. I mean, let's see how the Netherlands does with them before we lift some barriers.

Stewart did have one hope that the justices might be moved by one thing though, and that's the "mother f**king injustice" of Edith Windsor, the plaintiff in the case, being forced to pay estate taxes and their concern "about the heartbreak, that is double taxation."

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Evan Wolfson, the founder of the one of the country's top same sex marriage advocacy groups, on Sunday assured Family Research Council President Tony Perkins that "the gay people are not going to use up all the marriage licenses" if the Supreme Court strikes down marriage discrimination.

CBS host Bob Schieffer asked a Face the Nation panel if it would make more sense to drop the same sex marriage bans and allow churches to decide if they wanted to include gay and lesbian couples.

"And then various churches could define what they thought marriage was," Schieffer explained. "And gay people, other people could choose the church that fit their particular beliefs."

"If you want to talk about rights, let's talk about those rights that have been lost in the wake of same sex marriage," Perkins argued. "And religious freedom has been among them. You've got Catholic charities no longer doing adoptions, not providing vital services right here in this city as a result of same sex marriage in D.C. You've got parental rights that have been lost, parents no longer being able to determine what their children are taught, whose moral values they are taught in school. We have small businessmen losing their rights because they won't participate in same sex ceremonies. So you talk about rights, let's talk about rights."

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In a heated confrontation on Sunday, lesbian Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen shot down Faith and Freedom Coalition Chairman Ralph Reed after he argued that the primary purpose of marriage was procreation.

During a NBC panel discussion about the Supreme Court's decision to consider the federal government's Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Reed suggested that current polls in favor of same sex marriage did not matter because 31 state elections had backed "traditional marriage," while only three had affirmed marriage equality.

"The issue before the country is, do we have a compelling interest in strengthening and supporting the durable, enduring and uniquely complementary and procreative union of a man and a woman?" the conservative activist asked. "And by the way, the reason why is it's better for children, and all the social science shows that."

NBC host David Gregory pointed out that the American Academy of Pediatrics has said that marriage was in the best interest of children living with same sex parents.

"Ralph raises a point that we cannot ignore," Rosen observed. "Which is the rationale that the opposition is putting before the Supreme Court, the only difference between a gay couple and a married straight couple that gets benefits from the federal government is that one has accidental procreation. I think that would be a surprise to a lot of infertile heterosexual couples."

"Well, that's not really a fair characterization," Reed insisted.

"Of course it is," Rosen shot back. "That's the point you just made, which is the point of marriage is procreation. That's not the point of marriage. The point of marriage is love and commitment."

"What I said is the verdict of social science is overwhelming and irrefutable," Reed said, refusing to look at at Rosen, who is a same sex parent. "And that is without regard to straight or gay -- in other words, this applies to one-parent households, it applies to foster homes, it applies to the whole panoply. They have looked at them all, that the enduring, loving, intact biological mother and father is best for children and it's not even a close call. And the only issue before the court is there a social good to that and does the government have a legitimate issue in protecting and strengthening. That's the only issue."

"We're going to dispute on the science," Rosen replied.

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Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Sunday suggested that implementing a flat tax could assuage gay and lesbian Americans who want equal marriage rights because straight marriages would not get a tax break.

During an interview on Fox News, host Chris Wallace pointed out that the Supreme Court would be hearing arguments this week on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which prevents the federal government from recognizing same sex marriages even in states where those unions are legal.

"Would you strike down that as federal interference in a state matter," Wallace asked the libertarian senator.

"You know, I think it's a really complicated issue," Paul asserted. "I've always said the states have the right to decide. I do believe in traditional marriage. Kentucky's decided it, and I don't think the federal government should tell us otherwise. There are states that have decided in the opposite direction, and I don't think the federal government should tell anybody or any state government how they should decide this."

"I think there is a chance that the court could strike down the federalization part [of DOMA]," he continued. "If they do, I think the way to fix it is maybe to try to make all of our laws more neutral towards the issue. And I don't want the government promoting something I don't believe in, but I also don't mind if the government tries to be neutral on the issue."

"You know the tax code -- I'm for a flat income tax, and we wouldn't have marriage as part of the tax code."

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Conservative columnist George Will suspects that the Supreme Court could support equal rights for LGBT people because "quite literally the opposition to gay marriage is dying... it's old people."

On Friday, the Supreme Court announced that it would take up cases on California's Prop 8 same sex marriage ban and the federal government's Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which denies benefits to gay and lesbian spouses.

Will on Sunday suggested that it was not a coincidence that the court decided to hear the cases just a month after voters in Maine, Maryland and Washington backed marriage equality.

"It could make them say, 'It's not necessary for us to go here,'" Will explained. "They don't want to do what they did with abortion. The country was having a constructive accommodation on abortion, liberalizing abortion laws. The court yanked the subject out of democratic discourse and embittered the argument."

He continued: "On the other hand, they can say it's now safe to look at this because there is something like an emerging consensus. Quite literally, the opposition to gay marriage is dying... it's old people."

Republican strategist Mary Matalin, who has previously said that marriage equality is not a civil right, asserted that polls now show Americans support same sex marriage because they know it's not a "threat to the civil order."

"Well, because Americans have common sense," she explained. "There are important constitutional, biological, theological, ontological questions relative to homosexual marriage. People who live in the real world say, the greater threat to the civil order are the heterosexuals who don’t get married and are making babies. That’s an epidemic in crisis proportions. That is irrefutably more problematic for our culture than homosexuals getting married."

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Family Research Council President Tony Perkins found himself in an awkward situation on Thursday when one CNN host insisted he explain why "homosexuals bother you so much."

When Perkins agreed to appear on CNN to hype his press conference supporting the Defense of Marriage Act, he probably didn't expect host Brooke Baldwin to make the conversation personal.

"Everyone has the right to opine," Baldwin told Perkins. "But my question is more on a personal level to you: Have you ever been to the home of a married, same sex couple?"

"I have not been to the home of a married, same sex couple, no," Perkins admitted.

"If you were ever to do so and you were sitting across from them over dinner, how would you convince them that their life together -- either two men, two women -- hurts straight couples?" the CNN host wondered.

"That's not how we make public policy," Perkins replied. "Certainly there are some same sex couples that are probably great parents, but that's not what the overwhelming amount of social science shows us. And we've got some great single moms that are doing great jobs and we applaud them and encouraged them, but we still know that the best environment for a child is with a mom and a dad."

"I know you don't want to answer the personal questions, but I'm going to try again," Baldwin pressed. "Why do -- you've never been to the home of a same sex couple -- why do homosexuals bother you so much?"

"They don't bother me," Perkins insisted. "I'm not going to be silent while they try to redefine marriage in this country, change policy, what my children are taught in schools and what religious organizations can do. I'm not going to be silent, nor are millions of other Christians across this country."

"We don't have a dislike for homosexuals," he added. "They don't have a right to redefine marriage for the rest of us, they don't have a right to take away my religious freedom, they don't have a right to step between me and what my child is taught. That's what's happening."

(h/t: Mediaite)

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On this Sunday's Meet the Press, RNC Chair Reince Priebus was asked about Sen. Rand Paul's remarks over the weekend where he said that he "didn't think Obama's views on marriage could get any gayer," which naturally he tried to distance himself from and at least had the decency to admit that's not the way the party should be talking about the issue. The same could not be said for his defense of their presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his doubling down on the Republicans' stance against gay marriage.

Priebus told host David Gregory that a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is part of their party's platform and that he did not agree that it is a civil rights issue. Apparently the standard to meet for being a civil rights issue includes people being murdered according to the RNC Chair.

I guess Priebus doesn't think anyone has ever been killed because they're gay or for standing up for the LGBT community. There are also more that have been murdered in efforts to unionize in America than I can possibly try to count, but I'm sure the Republicans would never think that qualifies as a civil right either. We all know how much they hate unions that they'd never apply that same standard to that movement. And I've never heard anyone make the same arguments when it comes to women's rights and the lack of a sufficient number of murders disqualifying that movement as one that would be considered a civil rights movement as well.

If this is the hard stance the party wants to take on gay marriage, I'm hoping they find themselves in the dust bin of history with the same people who opposed equal rights for blacks and for women for their bigotry sooner and not later. There's nothing "gracious and caring" about treating any of our fellow Americans as second class citizens when it comes to their right to have the same protections as straight married couples do in regard to their relationships with those they love and their families.

Transcript below the fold.

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I'm not some big fan of MSNBC regular Jonathan Capehart because frankly the man regularly just glosses over or minimizes just how crazy the Republican Party has become these days and chalks a lot of it up to just politics as usual, when I don't think there's anything normal about how far the GOP has fallen off the cliff to the right, but the treatment he received by both host Joe Scarborough and guest New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on this Thursday's edition of Morning Joe just sickened me.

As most people who visit this site probably already know, Gov. Christie vetoed the gay marriage bill in New Jersey and that ended up being the main topic of discussion during this segment. When Capehart tried to pin Christie down about why he thought it was acceptable to put a civil rights issue up for referendum with the voters, he ended up being bullied and talked over and interrupted by both Christie and Scarborough.

Christie is trying to have it both ways with this debate and deflect how rotten it is that he had a chance to single-handedly give a group of people in New Jersey the right to be married by signing that bill into law, and blamed his decision on the Democrats, because they claimed that a majority of people in his state wanted it, while not wanting it subjected to the will of the voters. So naturally it's all their fault because he had no other choice than to decide to try to prove them wrong instead of doing the right thing. He also tried to claim that both he and President Obama have the same stance on gay marriage.

When Capehart attempted to explain that that's not true since Obama has instructed his Justice Department not to defend DOMA, or the Defense of Marriage Act and that he has never issued any veto threats if the Congress would actually pass a law allowing gay marriage, Christie decided it was best to just talk over him and hammer him about what Obama's stance is on gay marriage. I'll give Capehart credit for this much though and that is he got Christie to admit that civil rights should not have been put up for a vote a half century ago. He didn't have that same luck trying to get him to relate that struggle to those wanting marriage equality for the LGBT community today.

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