{"id":5539,"date":"2004-02-24T11:02:38","date_gmt":"2004-02-24T18:02:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2004\/02\/24\/line-in-the-sand.html"},"modified":"2014-11-05T15:22:54","modified_gmt":"2014-11-05T22:22:54","slug":"line_in_the_san","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/02\/24\/line_in_the_san.html","title":{"rendered":"Line in the sand?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pressed, inadvertently or intentionally, by his supporters on the Right and events in Massachussetts and San Francisco, Bush has declared his support for a Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today, I call upon the Congress to promptly pass and to send to the states for ratification an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union of a man and woman as husband and wife.
\nThe amendment should fully protect marriage, while leaving the state legislatures free to make their own choices in defining legal arrangements other than marriage.<\/p>\n

It will be interesting to see how this plays out as an election issue. Kerry and Edwards have been against gay marriage, but can they maneuver this into being a question of whether an Amendment is the right approach without the discussion sounding pedantic (and their potential gay supporters not getting torqued at the hemming and hawing)? After all, the DOMA was passed pretty substantially in Congress by both parties, and was signed into place by Clinton; we’re not talking about fringe politics here.<\/p>\n

And, for what it’s worth, Bush wisely (or cleverly) left the door open to the states to make alternative arrangements (i.e., civil unions) if they choose, which is more than some of the proposed Amendments floating around were willing to do, and that’s actually seems to be what the mainstream population is willing to accept. How those unions, as contracts, would be respected in states without them will be interesting to see (as will whether steps of this sort will, as I’ve worried about before, marginalize marriage and make civil unions the norm, not the exception).<\/p>\n

To a degree, though, this has to be considered an election issue, albeit one pushed forward by events. No Amendment is going to get passed this year. Hell, one might not get passed through an entire Bush second term. <\/p>\n

So … <\/p>\n

… clever election year tactic to pin down Bush’s opponents, either disarm them or force them to take an unpopular opinion during an election year?
\n… despicable pandering to the Religious Right?
\n… measured response to judicial activists and local civil disobedience?
\n… fear-mongering and wedge-driving?
\n… reflection of current popular opinion?
\n… radical extremism to amend the Constitution to forestall a given class of people sharing equal protection under the law?
\n… a middle course between centralism and federalism?<\/p>\n

I’m in favor of gay marriage being legal. I’ve made that clear, and will continue to. I think this amendment is not in keeping with the principles of equality and equal protection, and reflects, at best, the ambivalence and apprehension that the American public feels about this issue. That they do feel that ambivalence and apprehension is troubling to me, and unfortunate, but it’s a reality.<\/p>\n

How this proposal gets spun during an election year will be both entertaining and frustrating to see. I expect a lot of heat over a very narrow range of opinions, at least between the leading candidates (Nader notwithstanding<\/a>). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pressed, inadvertently or intentionally, by his supporters on the Right and events in Massachussetts and San Francisco, Bush has declared his support for a Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage. Today,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52,25,718],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-2004","category-gay-stuff","category-marriage-equality"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5333,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/04\/06\/just_to_show.html","url_meta":{"origin":5539,"position":0},"title":"Just to show …","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 6-Apr-04 7:03am","format":false,"excerpt":"... that Colorado is not always at the foremost fringe on some political issues, the Musgrave Amendment, a US constitutional amendment banning gay marriage introduced by a Colorado Representative, is...","rel":"","context":"In "LGBTQ &c"","block_context":{"text":"LGBTQ &c","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gay-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8912,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/03\/24\/a_discussion_to.html","url_meta":{"origin":5539,"position":1},"title":"A discussion topic to look forward to","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 24-Mar-06 8:03am","format":false,"excerpt":"I suspect I'll be posting on this sometimes over the next several months. Maybe even more than once. Coloradans for Marriage, a group established to push for a marriage-defining state...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12408,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/05\/11\/the_marriage_game.html","url_meta":{"origin":5539,"position":2},"title":"The Marriage Game","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 11-May-08 8:29pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Michigan's voters\u00a0passed a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage \"or similar union for any purpose.\" Because of that, the state supreme court has now ruled that no public agency can...","rel":"","context":"In "LGBTQ &c"","block_context":{"text":"LGBTQ &c","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gay-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5521,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/02\/26\/splitting_hairs.html","url_meta":{"origin":5539,"position":3},"title":"Splitting hairs","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 26-Feb-04 6:09pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Let's see. George W. Bush backs an amendment to the Federal constitution that would ban recognition of gay marriage on a federal level, but would allow states to define other...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2004"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2004","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2004"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9380,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/07\/18\/i_am_all_in_fav.html","url_meta":{"origin":5539,"position":4},"title":"I am all in favor of these amendments to the Amendment","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 18-Jul-06 3:56pm","format":false,"excerpt":"During the debate on the Gay Marriage (Shudder!) Amendment, Rep. Lincoln Davis (D.-Tenn.) spoke to the whole sanctity of marriage thang -- with a perfectly straight face. His concern with...","rel":"","context":"In "LGBTQ &c"","block_context":{"text":"LGBTQ &c","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gay-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5612,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/02\/11\/sacramental.html","url_meta":{"origin":5539,"position":5},"title":"Sacramental","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 11-Feb-04 7:23am","format":false,"excerpt":"Word is that Bush will today back a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a heterosexual-only institution, at least so far as the Federal Government is concerned (and as it impacts...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2004"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2004","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2004"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5539"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46743,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5539\/revisions\/46743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}