The president has decided to again jump into the marriage amendment debate with an announcement of his support next week. No surprise here. He has been low-keyed about it since the election.
But critics said the only reason Bush and Frist are reviving the issue is for election-year pandering to conservative voters, who, polls show, have grown disaffected with the president for various reasons.
If critics indeed say that the Republicans have no problem, they need to say it better than this.
“They understand that they are in deep trouble and they need to do anything they can to appease their people, which is the right-wing base,” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights organization. “This is an age-old political tactic, which is when everything is falling down around you — as it is for the administration — you go for your base.”
About half way through the first sentence, it needs editing.
“They understand that they are in deep trouble and they need to do anything they can to shore up support from the few people for whom the marriage amendment is most important. This is an age-old political tactic, which is when everything is falling down around you — as it is for the administration — you go for whatever support you can get.”
It does little good to characterize supporters of the amendment, much less call them “right-wing base.” But all in all, Solomonese’s comment is much better than this.
“Because polls show that the American people, including their core supporters, have completely rejected their failed agenda, President Bush and (Senate Majority Leader) Bill Frist are once again pushing a hate-filled constitutional amendment that attacks LGBT Americans,” [Democratic National Committee spokesman Damien] LaVera stated. LGBT is the acronym used for “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender” individuals.
“…I think the American people are tired of the politics of fear and division and are ready for leaders who will focus on the issues that matter most to them, like health care and the cost of gasoline,” LaVera said. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure this hate-filled, divisive amendment does not pass.
It’s clear that the federal amendment hasn’t a chance of passing. Why enflame the debate by calling the opposition names? Time is on our side.
A recent Pew Research Center poll found that most Americans do not support same-sex marriage but concluded that opposition has softened in the last two years. In 2004, 63 percent of Americans opposed same-sex marriage and 30 percent approved. In March, 51 percent opposed it and 39 percent supported it.
In 20 years, we will have won this debate; any state statutes will be repealed by the younger generation who by and large is much more tolerant of gay rights. Calling it “hate-filled” and “right-wing” solidifies the opposition. Call people names and you pretty much stop any reasoned debate and diminish your chances of either converting them or at the least getting them to be less passionate about the issue.. Even Bush is sensitive to overreaching.
The White House told activists that Monday’s speech would be in the Rose Garden, but after criticism that he was using such a symbolic site, the White House moved it to an office building next door.
A better response by opponents:
The administration should be focusing on other issues facing Americans, said Jay Smith Brown, director of communications for the Human Rights Campaign.
“With the high gas prices and the war in Iraq and the real challenges facing American families, [the fact that Bush is] now going to have spoken on this twice in the Rose Garden and not addressed any of the other challenges is a real disgrace,” Brown told Cybercast News Service.
Until he gets here.
But Brown asserted that “people will see this for what it is – a political attempt to bow to extremists.”
It’s not a bad idea to criticize outrageous charges.
In one North Carolina congressional district, for instance, Republican challenger Vernon Robinson has aired a radio ad attacking Democratic Rep. Brad Miller with mariachi music playing in the background: “Brad Miller supports gay marriage and sponsored a bill to let American homosexuals bring their foreign homosexual lovers to this country on a marriage visa. If Miller had his way, America would be nothing but one big fiesta for illegal aliens and homosexuals.”
Miller has a pretty good comeback.
Miller voted against the Marriage Protection Amendment in 2004, saying the matter should be left to the states. “The republic has survived pretty well for 220 years with marriage based on state law,” he said yesterday. “I don’t think we ought to amend the constitution every time a politician wants to campaign on an issue.” Miller said he supports North Carolina law banning same-sex marriage but is open to civil unions between gay partners.
If he indeed supports the state law, why not lead with “Mr. Robinson has deliberately lied about my position. I do not support gay marriage and he knows it.”
What might have made this response even better is something along the lines of:
“The republic has survived pretty well for 220 years with marriage based on state law. I don’t think we ought to amend the constitution every time a politician wants to campaign on an issue. More important is that we are criminalizing and ostracizing people for behavior that has no impact on our lives, while we are ignoring issues that really do matter to all of us.”
He might also consider acknowledging what may really be driving the opposition. While certainly there are many people — and most of the leaders of the gay marriage amendment push, in my opinion — who are simply bigoted and see the issue as a way to drive the people they need to the polls. But many may see marriage threatened, and gays are just a symbol of their concern about the moral direction of this country. It may be that what turns them off about gays, as unfair as it may be, is the stereotype they have in their heads: flamboyant sexuality. But they may also dislike as much flamboyant heterosexuality they see on MTV. While our society has become more sexually explicit, there are too many divorces, single-parent families and forgotten children. I wonder if Rep. Miller had framed and acknowledged their fears by following up his remarks with:
“I, too, am concerned about the institution of marriage and the breakdown of moral values. But we don’t strengthen heterosexual marriage by demonizing people whose commitment to each other is likely to be as strong as ours is to each other. I’d rather work to find ways to make marriage stronger in this country, to lower the divorce rate and to help preserve nurturing and safe environments for children. We cannot lose sight of the larger concerns we have in heterosexual marriages by looking for scapegoats.”
Meanwhile, we need to point out that the federal amendment, as well as Virginia’s, goes far beyond prohibiting gay marriages.
The Marriage Protection Amendment would ban same-sex marriages, but sponsors say it would allow state legislatures to approve civil unions with similar benefits for gay couples. In its entirety, it reads: “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.”
“[T]he legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.”? That’s dangerous and we need to point it out, but we shouldn’t shrink from saying that discriminating against people because of who they love is wrong and against American ideals. We just don’t gain anything by calling them extremists or denying larger concerns they may have. Acknowledging that there is something wrong with marriage in this country may be a way of diffusing the opposition to gay marriages.
