Yep, the senate voted not to pass the amendment denying marriage rights to gay people today. However, they basically knew it would fail this year. The key was to get people on record voting against the amendment, so they can use it as a tool to bash Senators in the upcoming election. Then if they win, they plan to introduce it again. And all signs point to the fact that it could pass if Bush is re-elected.
Because of the erosion of support from independents and from moderate Republicans, Salon reports that Karl Rove’s new strategy is to energize evangelical Christians for the election. His choice of tool: The anti-gay marriage amendment. so they’re coming after me, y’all.
The White House’s strategy for winning the votes of evangelicals has several components. It includes the faith-based initiative to spread public money to religious charities. And it includes controversial moves such as the recess judicial appointment of a fundamentalist Roman Catholic, William Pryor, to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals after Democrats had blocked his nomination. Pryor is the former Alabama attorney general and strongly antiabortion. (This conflict generated the bizarre spectacle of conservative Protestant Republicans attacking liberal Catholic Democrats on the Judiciary Committee for somehow discriminating against Pryor because he’s Catholic.) But the centerpiece of the Republican strategy is the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
The amendment is the kind of wedge social issue that Republicans have exploited profitably in the past, and Rove appears to have made careful political calculations. Although the amendment has infuriated many — if not most — of the estimated 1 million gay Republicans who voted for Bush in 2000, the insult is not expected to significantly damage Bush at the polls. Gay Republicans are too scattered geographically to be a factor in the 19 battleground states, and they mostly live in East Coast and West Coast states that are likely to end up in Kerry’s column anyway. Moderate Republicans aren’t happy with the emphasis on this divisive social issue, but if they abandon Bush, it’s more likely to be over the conduct of the Iraq war and record budget deficits.
Whether the amendment will have its intended effect of spurring large numbers of evangelicals to the polls in key swing states is uncertain. The strategy “is smartly developed,” political scientist Green says. “But how well it’s going remains to be seen. It’s just not clear that it’s going to come together.”
See Yahoo’s picture slideshow of 173 photos of same sex partners marrying in Massachusetts. My favorite is the one where the hearts are projected on the side of the church…
I want this man out of my White House. At the very least, the man needs to go back to high school and take a damned civics course, so he can remember how the government, especially the judiciary, is supposed to work.
From the Indianapolis Star:
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — President Bush on Monday renewed his call for Congress to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriages.
On the same day that Massachusetts began issuing licenses to gay couples, Bush said in a statement, “The sacred institution of marriage should not be redefined by a few activist judges.”
In the statement, read aboard Air Force One by White House press secretary Scott McClellan while traveling to Topeka, Kan., Bush said that “all Americans have a right to be heard in this debate.”
Noting that he had called on Congress some time ago to pass a constitutional amendment banning such marriages, Bush said “the need for that amendment is still urgent, and I renew that call today.”
Ahhh, love. Isn’t it grand? Have I mentioned recently that I expect my whole family to vote Democrat this year??
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Reuters) – Two women were among the first gay couples to be legally married on Monday and hundreds more waited for their turn to make history as Massachusetts became the only U.S. state to allow same-sex marriage.
Marcia Kadish, 56, and Tanya McCloskey, 52, who have been partners for 18 years, were married by Cambridge City Clerk Margaret Drury shortly after 9 a.m. EDT.
“Now by the power vested in me by the state of Massachusetts as a justice of the peace, and most of all by the power of your own love, I now pronounce you married under the laws of Massachusetts,” Drury said. “You may seal this marriage with a kiss.” The couple embraced.
The election-year milestone, which is likely to fuel legal and political battles nationwide, made Kadish, a human resources employee, swoon. “I feel all tingly and wonderful. So much love, can’t you see it is just bursting out of me?”
Wow, I spoke too soon; Democrats won’t be able to dodge this as a campaign issue no matter what. The Massachusetts Supreme Court just decided that civil unions were not enough and only full marriage rights for gay people would be acceptable under Massachusetts law, meaning that gay people may be able to get married there as early as May.
Which means that the religious right will begin pushing the U.S. Constitutional amendment to ban equal marriage rights for gay people into high gear starting today.
An intelligent, well thought out article on the Bible, and on equal marriage rights for gay people.
Note: there’s a reason why I always say “equal marriage rights for gay people” and not “gay marriage.” There’s a difference between the two, and this is it:
We already have gay marriage. Yeah, you read that right. Gay people have been getting marriage for decades. The used to do it on their own in a park or the backyard with a handful of friends, but in the last 10 years, they get married in churches, with ministers, in front of their families and congregations, and throw big receptions afterwards.
We have gay marriage, and nothing can take that away. Gay people are never going to stop having marriage ceremonies, building lives together. What we don’t have is the legal rights that heterosexual people get from that piece of paper from the government.
Britney Spears can get drunk and marry a guy in Vegas and get that legal piece of paper giving her all sorts of rights with a guy she doesn’t really much care about, but a gay couple who’ve been together 10 years, who own property and have built a life together, don’t get to protect that life with that legal piece of paper.
That seems pretty arbitrary and just downright mean, to me.
On Sunday, Pope John Paul spoke out against equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian people.
“In our times, a misunderstood sense of rights has sometimes disturbed the nature of the family institution and conjugal bond itself,” John Paul said.
Let me repeat: never setting foot in a Catholic church again.
The Presidential Prayer Team is currently urging us to: “Pray for the President as he seeks wisdom on how to legally codify the definition of marriage. Pray that it will be according to Biblical principles. With any forces insisting on variant definitions of marriage, pray that God’s Word and His standards will be honored by our government.”
Any good religious person believes prayer should be balanced by action. So here, in support of the Prayer Team’s admirable goals, is a proposed Constitutional Amendment codifying marriage entirely on biblical principles:
A. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5.)
B. Marriage shall not impede a man’s right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21)
C. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:13-21)
D. Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden. (Gen 24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30)
E. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9)
F. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother’s widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen. 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10) *
G. In lieu of marriage, if there are no acceptable men in your town, it is required that you get your dad drunk and have sex with him (even if he had previously offered you up as a sex toy to men young and old), tag-teaming with any sisters you may have. Of course, this rule applies only if you are female. (Gen 19:31-36)
The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that the ban on equal marriage rights for gay people was unconstituational, but didn’t go so far as to grant marriage licenses to the gay couples who filed the suit. Instead, it sent the issue back to the Massachusetts legislature, who will have 180 days to remedy the inequality of the law. What will probably happen is what happened in Vermont; a civil union law will be created that guarantees the protections of a marriage, without having the same status as marriage. So basically, we get out own water fountains and bathrooms.