"Slavery" Language in Marriage Pledge
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Atlantis arriving. Welcome to the International Space Station for the last time.</s>LEMON: High overhead, an historic moment we'll never see again. Space shuttle Atlantis is now docked with the International Space Station for the final time. The flight represents the end of the longtime U.S. shuttle program. The shuttle missions go. This one is fairly routine. Atlantis delivered supplies and spare parts. When it returns, it will bring back a broken pump and lots of emotional memories. Let's talk some politics now. This is one of the strangest arguments that you will ever hear about the sanctity of marriage. A socially conservative group called the Family Leader sent out a pledge to politicians asking them to sign it in support of traditional marriage. But listen to what the people originally -- the pledge originally had in the preamble. It read like this. "Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the U.S.A.'s first African-American president." Two Republican candidates, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum signed that pledge. Bachmann's camp said she only signed the candidate vow part of it which didn't reference slavery at all. Here's a statement from her spokeswoman. "In no uncertain terms, Congresswoman Bachmann believes that slavery was horrible and economic enslavement is also horrible." The Family Leader has since retracted that slavery passage. Now I want to bring back in now CNN contributor Errol Louis, political anchor for New York 1, and CNN's senior political analyst David Gergen. David, why was that slavery passage ever in the pledge to begin with?</s>GERGEN: It's a total mystery. You got to be a real idiot to write something like that. That would be so obnoxious because the implication of that statement is it was better for children to be born into slavery than it was to be born today. I think everyone, especially Errol can speak to this much more eloquently than I can, would find that obnoxious, especially coming from a group that pledges itself to freedom.</s>LEMON: Errol, I will let you speak to that.</s>LOUIS: Well, I mean, look, let's start with the fact that in 1860 marriage between people who were enslaved was illegal. So they actually picked the wrong year. If they wanted to make their point, it needs to be a year after 1865. But the level of ignorance and as David says sort of obnoxious tone to the whole thing is typical of what you get. I mean, frankly, if nothing else it makes it clear that candidates who aren't ready for prime time are going to be found out through this process. So, if there is anything good that comes of this, at least you get to see which candidates and which campaigns have their heads on straight and have their basic knowledge of history intact and which ones don't.</s>LEMON: David, did you notice in the signing of that -- and Michele Bachmann's, when she responded she said that economic enslavement was also bad. Was that a dig?</s>GERGEN: I'm not sure. I want to part company with Errol on one point. I think the obnoxious part comes out of the group that wrote the pledge. As to the two candidates, you know, I think it's unfair to ascribe to them all this declaration. What this represents is incompetence on the part of their staff. They should have read this and understood it. But I think it goes a little step too far to say that that's actually what the candidates believe. What I think the larger pernicious quality that this points to is that pledges are proliferating in these political campaigns and people are being asked to sign up to things that -- in this case -- you know, are way out of bounds. But in other cases lock their hands so that they can't act. To go back to our earlier conversation, 230 members of the House have signed a no new taxes pledge. That means that they have promised while they're in Washington that they will never raise taxes. That makes it very, very difficult to try to reach and foster some sort of compromise to get us out of this debt problem.</s>LEMON: David Gergen has going to have to be the last word. Errol, thank you. Thanks to both of you, as a matter of fact. Coming up on CNN --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Stone lost his life as a result of a tragic accident at Rangers Ballpark last night.</s>LEMON: The baseball community mourns the loss of a fan who fell over a stadium railing and died trying to catch a ball thrown into the stands. Is it time to improve security at baseball stadiums? That conversation is next.