http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/30/...ain565860.shtml

Casting aside calls to legalize gay marriages, President Bush said Wednesday that he supports a law that would define marriage as a union between a woman and a man.

"I believe marriage is between a man and a woman and I believe we ought to codify that one way or the other and we have lawyers looking at the best way to do that," the president said at a wide-ranging news conference at the White House Rose Garden.
________________________________________________

Now its time for Log Cabin to do what they do best....step up to the plate boys and give us a great press release. Let 'er rip!

I'm so pissed at this. Not surprised but really pissed.

I just checked the Log Cabin site and it's like a month behind

Dear Outsports,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank mr bushie for carrying on in my footsteps on being anti-gay. DOMA was the blueprint for the constitutional ammendment i've always supported.

Please remember that i supported you, well sorta, till it came down to votes... but it's ok cause i supported you...

But as Raze pointed out, i never ran on supporting gay marriage, just you.... so that's ok, but when bushie says this it makes him an anti-gay bastard... but really that's ok.

Much love,

William Jefferson Clinton.

The more interesting Bush quote from his remarks:

Bush also urged, however, that America remain a "welcoming country" -- not polarized on the issue of homosexuality.

"I am mindful that we're all sinners and I caution those who may try to take a speck out of the neighbor's eye when they got a log in their own," the president said. "I think it is important for our society to respect each individual, to welcome those with good hearts."

Of course that may just be cover-all-the-bases B.S., but interesting nonetheless. Maybe Cheney's daughter was in the room at the time...

What exactly is so threatening to traditional marriage that there must be a law defining it? If a gay partnership is called a union, or god knows what else, does that actually lessen it? Needing to define marriage, making a law to define it, is just very bizarre to me.

You're usually better at deflecting the issue, not one of your better efforts. As soon as your hero gets the constitutional amendment through Im sure you will be bringing it up in every other post.

Go Log Cabin!! Now's the time to flex your mighty muscle, show us how much influence you have with the administration.

as much influence as you had witht he Doma act?

Another PhillyFan post with DOMA - IM SHOCKED!

Hey man, dont dare critize Chimp or offer up an opinion, just live in the past like you keep telling others not to do. PhillyFan mantra: ABC

Always
Blame
Clinton

Letter thats going out to my congressman

Dear Representative Lantos:

I am writing out of concern for comments that President Bush made today regarding gay marriage. I strongly disagree with his call to codify the legal description of marriage as between a man and a woman only. As a gay man, I feel that this discriminates against me on the most basic levels.

I am asking you to oppose any attempt to define marriage as between a man and a woman, ignoring those gays and lesbians in permanent, loving and stable relationship who would wish to legalize their relationship through marriage and all of its legal benefits.

first of all, they have zero chance of a constitutional ammend..... so what the hell does it matter if he says he wants it???????/

IMO I did welcome Mr. Bush saying what he did. First the log in their eye was a public rebuke of some of the outlandish remarks made by the right.
Regarding his belief about it being between a man and women, well he did make a statement about where he stands.
Phillyfan, I am curious as to why you think there is no way the ammendment would pass. Are you thinking it will die in the senate ( I think we can agree the house would pass it) or it would fail at the state level?
I think if it gets out of the senate it got a better than 50/50 chance of passing.
IMO all the deep south, plus Tx Oh Nm Az Ka Ok would vote yes that 15 right off the bat...

The amendment already has 45 sponsors and this is a perfect wedge issue to get people on. I'm worried as hell about this. The right wing is already calling for the ban. And we all know how cowardly politicians can be around election time.


EDIT---they're up to 75 in the past two weeks

[ August 01, 2003, 11:13 AM: Message edited by: theodoresdaddy ]

I wouldn't exactly say "casting aside calls". It's more like those calls were drowned out in the backlash coming from the Religious Right.

I'm really disappointed in Bush. He had been doing such a good job of deflecting questions along these lines up until now. I never expected Bush to support gay rights, so I considered all the non-committal dodging as a positive.

Some of our more politically active brethren should learn a lesson from this. Don't pressure a highly popular and visible politician to take a stand on gay marriage rights when you know (if you'd stop and think for two seconds) that he will take a stand in opposition.

There is a difference between calling for support of gay rights and calling for a clear, public declaration of a politician's position on gay rights. Be careful what you wish for...

I think this announcement is a clear sign the Mssr. Bush is very concerned with losing his "Christian" base. They have said over and over that he had to make a stand on the issue of marriage, or they might walk. Given that his presidency has hit its shakiest moment, I am not suprised he is playing toward the base.

However, it is not enough to simply have gay people write Congress to stop this amendment, it is vital we enlist our supportive family and friends who are straight. I intended to start that process last night, but the anti-Christ's (Bill Gates) network was having email problems. Will try again tonight.

The thing we have to stress is that the Federal Marriage Amendment does not merely codify existing laws on marriage - it is aimed at overturning the VT civil union law, and every other law allowing for rights for domestic partners. It is meant to roll back all of the success we have had.

Only one time before have we ever amended the Constitution to limit people's rights, and not since slavery has the Constitution been used to create separate and distinct levels of citizenship. We must get our straight allies behind us, or we could lose this battle.

It's scary, CPT_Doom, but I was thinking the same thing this morning. Now that I live in CA, I recognize that my voice is diminished. Every single person in CA could be against this amendment, and it could still pass in a landslide. CA is but 1 state among 50. We need 13 (preferably many more) states to oppose this amendement.

Call, write, email, fax your friends - gay, straight, or other - in the other 49 states where the outcome is not a foregone conclusion. If you live in one of those states, call, write, email, fax your representative and senators. I agree with the statement above that the real fight is in the Senate.

If you're (somewhat) closeted like I am, now would be a good time to start expanding the circle of friends who know. The more Americans understand that this would hurt people that THEY know and love, the more we can change minds.

CPT_Doom -- I always appreciate your very calm and poignant posts. Thank you for sharing your views and insights.

I do agree that this is bigger than just whether or not "gay marriage" will be a legal possibility. This is about much more than having the federal government acknowledge our rights. It is about protecting gains made (some very painfully) over the past decade or two.

After all, a Constitutional amendment explicitly banning any legal recognition of a union between two same-sex partners would overturn Vermont and any other state legislation in the works.

And this is hardly about whether or not the amendment can pass. It is about our President telling the nation that he does not believe we deserve equal rights or protection under the law, and he wants this to not only be his personal opinion, but also he wants it written into the Constitution upon which our country is based. That is a huge statement, and anyone who tries to claim it is just political positioning is selling all of us very short.

I just read the write up of what Mr. Bush said. One line I really find galling is"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush on Wednesday rejected same sex marriage but declined to pass moral judgment on homosexuality, saying he was "mindful that we're all sinners."
Anyway..I completly agree that we need to get moving or get run over. I am framing this in a equal rights not special rights light. I am tired of have those on the right whose oppose us (GLBT)saying we want special rights! We do not. I also think it is important to point out issues such as vistation rights, health insurance etc so people understand what is at stake.
BTW tomorrow the Catholic church is releasing a paper on this issue. Do not expect it to be kind

The question of the day on Wolf Blitzers'(CNN) website is "Should there be a federal law banning same sex marriage"? Currently No leads by 60% to 31% saying yes.

13 States against this HATEFUL nonsense:

California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, Maine, Vermont, Illinois, Oregon, Washington, New York, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

That would be enough. Maybe we could also persuade Delaware to come along for the ride.

What? No New Hampshire? What happened to "Live Free or Die?" It's interesting (and sad) to note the geographic contiguity of the states named above. New England and northeast Atlantic states, West Coast, and a couple upper Midwest states. No wonder the rest of America thinks we're on the fringe - we are! Geographically anyways. wink

Maybe I just missed her name in theodoresdaddy's post, but Marilyn Musgrave from here in Colorado has been squawking on and on about this for a long time. She was one of the more vocal cheerleaders for Amendment 2 back in 1992, and extremely critical when the Supreme Court struck it down a few years later. I even saw her name in a national news story I read recently about this. Ugh. Unfortunately, with a governor, both senators and 5 of the 7 reps being Republican, and my state's track record on this (although it was close in '92 and strangely worded as to confuse the voter), I doubt Colorado could be counted on to vote it down, should it come to that. Let's hope it doesn't.

As we all know, getting an Amendment passed is perhaps the most difficult method to achieve a legislative end. So the odds are ridiculously high against a gay marriage ban via amendment.

I have a feeling that Shrub and Company see this as a closing-window opportunity; controlling both houses and the white house with ONE year before new elections. I think the GOP will probably pressure this issue through as fast as possible.

Still, I'm not terribly worried about this whole thing. The way the Supreme Court has been operating lately, a gay marriage ban could be struck down rather quickly.

Just out of curiousity, have you read the language of the proposed constitutional amendment?

As I read it, the proposed amendment merely bars courts from declaring unisex marriages legally required under federal or state constitutions. The second sentence makes it clear that it would not overturn state laws granting equal (or near-equal) marriage rights:

The text of the proposed amendment reads: (Emphasis added).

The proposed amendment would not change Vermont (or any other state's) statutory law. But if the Massachusetts or Hawaii state supreme courts were to compel recognition of equal marriage rights, then those court decisions would be overturned.

There's a lot of scare tactics being thrown around by both the right and the left on the issue. My advice: everyone should read the amendment for him- or herself.

[ July 30, 2003, 04:07 PM: Message edited by: Charlie in the Trees ]

here's the link to the amendment site

http://www.allianceformarriage.org/reports.../colorchart.cfm

Same sex marriage will be OUTLAWED.

And the courts are prohibited from legalizing same sex marriage, domestic partnerships, and any benefits associated with marriage.

The amendment only allows legislatures to approve partnership and benefits, thus blocking any lawsuits over the denying of these.

I did read the amendment for myself, and I came to a different conclusion than Charlie. The phrase "or the incidents thereof" is very troublesome for laws such as Vermont's.

Also, because this is a U.S. Constitutional Amendment, it supercedes EVERYTHING ELSE. It even states (to drive the point home) in the proposed amendment that no state laws or constitutions can require recognition of same-sex partnerships.

Want to pass a law granting partner visitation rights in hospitals? FORBIDDEN!
Want to require companies to provide health insurance for domestic partners? FORBIDDEN!
Want your state or municipality to provide said benefits for its civil servants? FORBIDDEN!
Want the government to recognize your Candian same-sex marriage? FORBIDDEN!

Is this written in stone? No, but it's my interpretation of what this says.

[ July 30, 2003, 04:45 PM: Message edited by: beachjock73 ]

Still, I'm not terribly worried about this whole thing. The way the Supreme Court has been operating lately, a gay marriage ban could be struck down rather quickly
My understanding is if an ammendment is passed the SCOTUS could not rule on it, as it is the law

But you're ignoring the use of the term "require". The "incidents thereof" language is included, I would think, to prevent judicially-imposed marriage equivalents such as civil unions or judicially-mandated equality in employee benefit plans.

If the purpose of the amendment were to directly forbid state (or local) legislatures from passing full equality of marriage rights, or even baby steps like equal access to hospitals, more direct language would be required than what has been offered. The U.S. constitution has many provisions directly forbidding state action. Article I, section 10, e.g., contains a number of these direct prohibitions against state action, and they each begin with "No State shall ..." I don't see any "No State shall" language in the proposed amendment.

That's not to say some future conservative activist Supreme Court wouldn't completely misconstrue the obvious meaning of such an amendment and ban all state statutes recognizing equal marriage rights. Conservative activist Supreme Courts up to the 1930s, and liberal activist Supreme Courts since then, have repeatedly struck down statutes representing the political consensus of the particular state when the Court felt like imposing its ideological agenda. But, to be honest, I don't see this amendment as enhancing the ability of some future conservative activist court striking down the Vermont civil union laws based on some of the vague, plastic provisions already contained in the text of the Constitution.

For the record, I am against this proposed amendment. I just think the argument should be based on the actual amendment, not its caricature.

I just want to reiterate that an adopted Constitutional amendment is not the only damage this whole thing will bring. The fact that this is the position of the President, and that both chambers of Congress are controlled by his party, makes this damaging in and of itself. It is definitely one of those situations where I wish the strategy was more "do no harm" than play to the radical aspects of your party.

Im lazy and cant read this late at night, but did anyone point out the fact that Bush wants a law defining heterosexual marriage and not a law that bans gay marriage. Those two things are entirely seperate if you read into this verbage. Hes kind of pandering here by not wanting to flat out say gays are bad, but at the same time keep his conservative ideal. I guess thats the old compasionate conservative thing again.

Though a few of you in other posts have considered the idea of the feds legalizing gay "unions". If they leave marriage to the heteros that would still open up the union idea for gays. Even though Id prefer it be marriage myself.

That's interesting. I'm honestly curious, is it constitutional for legislature tell the judiciary how it's allowed to interpret a law? That seems to run counter to the checks and balances thing.


This "great" quote gets me:
"President Bush on Wednesday rejected same sex marriage but declined to pass moral judgment on homosexuality, saying he was 'mindful that we're all sinners.'"
Um ... do I just read too deep, but didn't he just call homosexuality a sin? And, isn't that by itself passing judgement? Or, am I just a bitter queen looking for something to bitch about?


As far as the amendment making it out of Congress, the thought totally scares me.
Do we really not have either 34 Senators or 146 Representatives that actually care about us?

Bah! "Land of the free" my ass!

Sodomy Ruling Fuels Battle Over Gay Marriage

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2003Jul30.html

Sinner PhillyFan - You may want to avoid this tread, you are really embarrassing yourself. You harp on and on about DOMA daily, yet when your hero wants something 10 times worse you try to pass it off as something thats no big deal - "what the hell does it matter...."

As you would say.....way to be consistent.

Dear Mr. Bush.
Thank you so much for finally stepping up and defending marriage between A man and A woman. Hopefully your lawyers will be able to persuade my Catholic ex-brother-in-law to give up his girlfriend (who is 20 years his junior) and return to my sister and her kids. The oldest really misses him. He's out of drug rehab but my sister has to find a school that will take him (kinda hard when she's working two jobs).
So please hurry up and get that law passed. We need to save marriage as we know it!!!

God I am so f**king sick of other people determining whether I should have the right to marry. Whatever happened to separation of church and state? All these lunkheads are using the Bible's definition of what marriage is to keep us from getting marrried.

Meanwhile over half of all marriages end in divorce. Heterosexuals can just meet in a casino in Vegas and get married a few hours later. That child murdering racist Susan Smith can put a personal ad online to try and lure some man (maybe to knock her up with her future victims) and she probably has the "right" to marry. All these idiots on these reality shows (The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, Joe Millionaire, etc) are certainly taking to sanctity of marriage very seriously. If I am to believe these politicians really care about the blessed sacrament of marriage and want to protect it, then they'd better do something about all these things as well.

I have heard both Charlie in the Trees' and others' analysis of the proposed Amendment, and the most frightening part is that I believe it is written just so such confusion will be in the public's minds. It can be read both ways - Even if the intention of the Amendment is to prevent judicial "interference" then would not that strike down the VT law - yes it was passed as by the legislature, but only under a direct order from the Court - write a CU law or marriage is open to gays.

More importantly the supporters of this Amendment have been working very hard to undo every single advance in gay rights - even before any court rules on its reach, if the Amendment passes it will be used by anti-gay hatemongers in every state that is even trying to think about expanding gay rights.

And just because it is difficult to pass an Amendment does not mean it is not a threat, and we need to treat it as such.

As for Bush, he said he wants a legal way to codify that marriage is between a man and a woman - that can only mean an extension of DOMA - which now only affects federal benefits.

And those morons at the Vatican have felt the need to open their Eucharist-holes about the issue.

Vatican Voices Opinion on Gay Marriage

From the article:

Their concern over children is truly touching, isn't it?

[ July 31, 2003, 08:17 AM: Message edited by: George_vikingfan ]

It's not constitutional for a legislature (or an executive, for that matter) to tell a court how to interpret a law. (The Congress can, however, pass a law to limit the Court's jurisdiction to hear certain types of cases, but that's not an issue here.) Only the U.S. Supreme Court has the power of "judicial review," which it gave to itself in 1803 in the famous Marbury v. Madison decision.

That's why this is being proposed as a constitutional amendment. The Constitution certainly could be amended to limit judicial power. And the U.S. Constitution is amended only by legislative acts (2/3rds of the U.S. Congress, then 3/4ths of all state legislatures). The President actually has no role in amending the Constitution. He can't formally propose an amendment; he can't veto it. He can only state an opinion, just like you and me.

One final point in response to the issue of interpreting the language in this amendment. If the purpose of the amendment were to strike down the existing Vermont civil unions law - and not just prevent the Massachusetts appellate court from mandating gay marriage - the amendment would have been much more simply written. It could have said: "No State shall recognize marriage as being anything other than the relationship between one man and one woman." Period. End of discussion. That's not the language of the proposed amendment, which is clearly focused on perceived judicial mischief into this arena. A lot of commentators in the major media - who have no knowledge of constitutional law - are just plain getting this wrong.

I think Charlie is correct in that the amendment addresses a blanket no state constitution can be construed as requiring same sex marriages, as Hawaii did (For the record, Hawaii then passed a state amendement to its constitution making it legal to discriminate against same sex unions).

What the amendment is trying to do is cutoff the ability of courts to interpret what the laws say.

The anti-gay forces would LOVE to pass an amendment that prohibits gay unions. However, this runs against state's rights. So the next best thing is to require unions to pass through the legislature where it will have a more difficult time. The tendency of legislature is to do nothing.

Equality comes from the courts. The courts led the way for de-segregation. The courts were a major force in ending sodomy laws. I believe very few states actually repealed their sodomy laws. Most (Massachusetts included) had their sodomy laws declared unenforcable by the state supreme court.This amendment attempts to prevent the US from following in Canada's footsteps by putting the burden of equality on the legislature, which almost NEVER happens.

It's a shrewd plan.

Nobody has stated the obvious - Bush was not being truthful. His lawyers ain't working on no legislation! This is Bush we're talking about, making a remark in an impromptu press conference. For us to parse his remarks as if he's fully aware of the freaking intricacies of federal law is to be naive.

The Defense of Marriage Act exists, it's pretty much as far as Congress can go in terms of banning gay marriage. The press has done a poor job of realizing this.

Then again, I suppose Congress could try to bar individual states from allowing gay marriage or civil unions (perhaps by denying them highway funds or something). But the federalism problems that brings up are far more insane than any 55 MPH. The could criminalize gay marriage, as many states criminalized interracial marriage WHILE BUSH WAS AN ADULT. They could also deny Most Favored Nation status to Canada until they change their marriage laws.

However, I'm guessing it's the constitutional amendment we need to worry about, as it's perfectly clear that the only part of DOMA that has a CHANCE of withstanding scrutiny by a non-vengevul Supreme Court are the parts that explicitly deny federal protections to gay spouses. The full faith & credit violation will be struck down, IMO.

I'm still mad at Clinton for DOMA, although keep in mind that while he SIGNED it, he did not INSTIGATE it, which is what Bush wishes he could do. He did not use it as a wedge issue, he did not speechify about it, he was clearly upset that politically (remember, this was 1996) he and the Democrats had really no choice but to sign the damn law. Regardless, it was a chump move by an often chumpy president.

The really really really really annoying thing to me is the term "protect the sanctity of marriage." It's dirty on so many levels, but mostly because it shows the arrogance of already-married people. It's like the old money family who resents the white trash neighbors wanting to have the same furniture they have. It doesn't really hurt the old money family, but because the other people who want the furniture are TAINTED, it will tarnish the wonderfulness of what it means about you that you have this furniture.

We taint. Gays taint. That's what they are all saying. Gays are dirty, and we taint.

f**k them.

From the Washington Post article linked above:
fantomas might want to cross-check his list of 13 states.

I'm almost certain the Colorado legislature (not the voters) passed a Defense of Marriage law, though I don't know which other states have. But how could the Washington Post say "three-quarters of the states have enacted such laws"? Wouldn't that be 37 and 1/2 states? I'm probably just splitting hairs.

According to the HRC's Website, it's actually 37 states that have "anti-gay marriage laws", and 14, including the District, that don't.

BTW here is what I have found of the LCR's response.
Guerriero of the Log Cabin Republicans said Bush's remarks might play well among conservative Christians but would do little to help him win moderate swing voters.

"We think its extremely dangerous for a Republican president to engage in a cultural war rather than focusing on the war on terrorism and jump-starting the economy," he said.

Shrub decided to take the easy road on this one. Doesn't want to alienate his core radical right constituents now. If I was a Log Cabin Republican I wouldn't be at all happy with Bush.

Though my overall regard for the Shrub is somewhere near absolute zero, all that I saw in those words were some sweet nothings whispered to the religious right. He stopped well short of endorsing a constitutional amendment. With DOMA & 37 mini-DOMAs already in existence, I can't see how passage of another statute would have any additional meaning or impact. Insulting definitely, but negligible in real harm. The one thing that would cause real harm is a constitutional amendment, & so far Shrub is not signing on to that.

I could be wrong, but I suspect that W. & his political strategists are simply trying to defuse this before it becomes a dominant election issue. Though it is amply evident, judging from their records, that neither he nor his party care one whit about our rights, they still don't want to be branded as a party of small-minded bigots obsessed over a single issue by pushing an anti-gay constitutional amendment during 2004. But meanwhile the conservatives have been positively in freak-out mode since the recent developments in Canada & the sodomy decision in the U.S. So W./Rove is compelled to throw them some kind of bone.

If the religious right is able to apply enough heat or leverage, then Shrub will come out in support of the amendment. But really I think he would prefer that this issue just go away. And as far as we are concerned, as long as conservative Republicans are in power, the less this is talked about, the better.

I don't see why Karl Rove might not want this as an issue in the next election. I don't like it and I certainly don't support it, but if Mr. Rove can paint an opposing candidate as being for gay marriage or against "traditional marriage" because the Democrat won't support a constitutional amendment to "protect marriage" then I think they will use it. A lot will depend on how the issue is framed, but this could make a great wedge issue for the right much like with DOMA in '96. You could almost sense the Democrat's nervousness about it in some of their responses at the HRC event a couple of weeks ago. Pressing the issue, Mr. Rove will strengthen their base, and, if polls remain consistant, may even draw significant numbers of right leaning undecided voters.

Yes, but will the bone be enough - the anti-gay Right has made the Federal Marriage Amendment their raison d'etre in the last few weeks, and are expecting public support from Bush on this - and I hope they keep the pressure on. No matter what the outcome, it is better for Bush to have to show his true colors (and I don't think they are anywhere near a shade of pink) than to let hime get away with basically dodging the issue, as he did in 2000.

Americans, clearly from the latest polls, swing between the "ick" factor with gays and hating outright discrimination. Anything that Bush does to push himself and his party toward advocating discrimination is good for the Democrats, if 1992 is any predictor.

Maybe Mr Rove is think Mr Dean is the front runner, and is raising the issue?