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ocial conservatives are trying to make
gay marriage a wedge issue during the
next election cycle, but the politicians
whose names will be on the ballot
seem to be resisting the effort.
The Federal Marriage Amendment would
amend the Constitution to state that marriage
“shall consist only of the union of a man and a
woman.”
Anti-gay leaders tixsk heart when Republican
Senate Majority Leader Rill Frist of Tennessee
voiced his support for the amendment on a June 29
television appearance. But any momentum that
the comments might have generated seemed to
dissipate during the long Fourth of July weekend.
Nobody was surprised when President Bush
said he supported “the notion that marriage is
between a man and a woman” at a July 2 media
event. What did surprise listeners was his down
playing of the need for a constitutional amend
ment to guarantee that fact.
“I don't know if it's necessary yet," Bush said.
“Let’s let the lawyers kx>k at the full ramifica
tions of the recent Supreme Court hearing.”
The delivery had a natural, off-the-cuff flow to
it, hut most observers believe those lines represent
ed a carefully crafted message that offered some
thing to Bush’s conservative political base withixit
alienating moderate voters in the political center.
The leading Democratic political figures,
including presidential candidate Howard Dean
and U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.,
are a reverse image of that, gliding round gay
marriage with equal finesse. They vociferously
support the concept of legal equality for gay
unions hut studiously assert that does not
include the word “marriage.”
The semantic game rests upon the principle
of "separate hut equal" that proved not to work
when it came to racial matters. None of the
politicians have explained why it should work
with matters of sexual orientation.
Even social conservatives are not united in
the need for the amendment. “Honestly, I don’t
think we need any congressional legislation,” said
Phyllis Schlafly, president of the Eagle Forum.
None of the social conservatives leading
lights in Congress have embraced the House
version of the amendment as co-sponsors since
it was introduced in 2001.
U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., has not
taken the opportunity to introduce a companion
hill in the Senate. As U.S. Sen. John Ensign,
R-Nev., told The New York Times, “Regardless of
S
how you feel about gay marriage, I don’t know
that it’s a good idea to put it in the Constitution."
New York City Mayor Michael Bkxjmberg, a
nominal Republican, warned party officials not
to condemn same-sex unions in the platform
that they unveil at their convention in his city.
Recent appointments of gay-friendly politicos to
senior positions within the Republican Party and
Bush’s re-election committee increase the <xlds that
Bloomberg’s advice will be heeded. Those include
Ed Gillespie and Maria Cino to the top two party
slots and Marc Racicot to lead the re-election effort.
Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Dick Cheney,
leads her fathers re-election efforts.
The Washington Post offered its support for rec
ognizing gay couples in a July 5 editorial. “Society as
a whole is made stronger when couples—whether
opposite-sex or same-sex—cement their love and
their commitment in legally sanctioned unions.”
The newspaper was “distressed" by Frist’s
embrace of the proposed constitutional amend
ment. “Changing the Constitution in this way
would be an unwise and unnecessary intrusion
of the federal government into what is a quin
tessential state matter.”
So it is perhaps ironic that the latest victim
of the far right’s jihad against gay marriage might
he the president of the Family Research Coun
cil. After three years on the job, Ken Connor
quietly announced his resignation July 3, giving
just 10 days notice and no good reason save for
the generic “professional and personal reasons."
The question is, did he jump or was he
pushed? And was it because he was not suffi
ciently anti-gay? Perhaps Connor, an attorney,
read the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on
sodomy and decided the anti-gay gig was up.
In a strange way, the uproar now over gay mar
riage might be the best thing that ccmld happen.
Perhaps it will act like a vaccination, inoculating
the American public to the idea so that when gay
marriage really does come to the United States,
probably within the month through a decision by
the Massachusetts Supreme Court, the Ixxly
politic will be better able to handle the idea. JH
To fight the F ederal M arriage A mendment visit
DontAmend.com, which promises to be the largest
online gay mobilization in history. The Web site is the
brainchild of Rohm Tyler and John Aravosis, who co
founded the successful StofrDrLaura.com campaign.
B ob R oehr is a free-lance reporter based m
Washington, D.C.