by Bart Whiteman
posted July 15, 2004
Mired in an Iraqi War which has no foreseeable resolution and ensconced deep in the Middle East, which has no foreseeable future amicable to our interests, George W. Bush has decided to try to bring the focus of the war home in an effort to shore up his flagging re-election campaign. Instead of latching on to the really important issues of the day like education, health-care, national finances, job and industry creation and security, etc., he has decided to bet all his money and his legacy on another losing effort, a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
So far, he can’t get the Senate to take a serious look at it despite the efforts of his personal henchman, Majority Leader Bill Frist. He can’t even get all the Republicans to vote for it, let alone the Democrats.
This open effort to deny some people their civil rights is totally in keeping with the technique, method, and approach of someone who decides to dismiss world outcry and invade a foreign country on the other side of the planet when he didn’t have to and with no plan to get out once there.
Unfortunately for Mr. Bush and company, Thomas Jefferson and company trumped his pathetic initiative many years ago with a simple statement called the Declaration of Independence. In it, we can read about some basic proposed elements of our government and the society we would go on to try to create and maintain from that point on, sometimes with great difficulty. Sadly, in times to come, Mr. Bush will more than likely be relegated to the “difficulty” side of the equation instead of to the creation and maintenance side.
The phrases “all men are created equal” and “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” pretty much define what civil rights are and ought to be. Everything flows from there. A great deal of our social and political history has been an effort to live up to these very idealized promises despite the chains of history and social practices and prejudices that had to be overcome to do so. A good part of the rest of the world has looked up to us for daring to raise the bar of human endeavor this way. Would that it would always be that way.
Mr. Bush is a very regressive person. He is attempting to move the clock back to a time when fear, ignorance, superstition, bigotry, social hierarchy, and all of their attendant vices governed human behavior and displayed it at its worst. The desperateness of his actions is completely transparent. He believes if he can frighten the public enough about something, anything, doesn’t matter what, he might have a chance to hold on to his job. It is hard to believe that this is the sort of leadership this country needs or deserves right now, or that it is keeping with its finer and nobler traditions.
There is a total gap of logic in the idea that somehow gay marriage threatens heterosexual marriage and the American family. Perhaps we should poll the divorce list when it appears in the paper every week and ask people how many couples were driven apart by the possibility or proximity of gay marriage. Rumor has it that Mr. Bush’s own marriage was threatened once, and it had nothing to do with gay marriage. The culprit was demon rum. It was the Legion of the Bended Elbow. It was good ol’ reliable booze. Perhaps Mr. Bush would be doing marriage more of a service if he tried to bring back Prohibition.
Dick Cheney has remained noticeably quiet on this subject. He usually likes to roll up his sleeves and mix it up in the big fights. But this time it appears that he has decided that getting his next meal and keeping a place to sleep is more important than his political and moral convictions. His wife is opposed to the amendment. His daughter is gay. I have a little trouble believing that following conversation would actually take place:
Cheney’s daughter: “Dad, I’ve met someone. We are very happy together. We want to get married. We’d like your blessing.”
Cheney: “There answer is no. No blessing. And if you try to get married anywhere, I’ll have to arrest you.”
Mr. Bush has the Constitution completely wrong. It is not designed to express the will of the majority at the expense of the minority. If anything, it asks people to forego their self-interests and ideological beliefs to create an environment where minority rights are recognized and afforded. The majority can be the worst tyrant ever devised. The Constitution actually forces people to abide by a level of tolerance that is sometimes at conflict with habit.
Mr. Bush’s efforts to limit the civil rights of a whole class of people puts him in league with all the rogues gallery of individuals who have tried for centuries (and in some cases are still trying) to deny women the right to things like voting and equal pay, who think it convenient to deny minorities the right to an education or to mingle with Whites in public places, and who saw some greater social good in denying the freedom or right to hold property on the part of other people whose only “sin” was that they were “different.”
So far, Bush has been stymied in his Constitution re-making efforts, but we live in a noticeably angry culture. And angry cultures historically have been capable of doing very destructive things that hurt a lot of people. We also are surrounded by a daily barrage on the freedom of speech, everything from the denial of certain anti-war billboards in Times Square because of the coming Republican convention, to Disney’s refusal to release Fahrenheit 9/11, to the levying of massive retaliatory fines on CBS for Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl prank (if the Fox had been televising the event, there would be no fines). These assaults are masked under the heading or “morality” or “business,” but they are evidence of a society losing its ability to endure open discourse and fearing the possibility of change. It is also evidence of a shrinking social pie that has to be fought over and not shared. Bush’s current efforts are aimed at other sections of the Constitution, and he is willing to push any hot button necessary to achieve his ends.
He blames “activist” judges for having to take this course of action. That just means they disagree with him. If they agreed with him, these same judges would be “principled.” Frist says he wants to side with the “people” in this debate. Which “people” does he mean? Are gay couples seeking marriage not “people,” too? Right away he has stratified people or de-valued some people’s aspirations in making the statement. Doctor, heal thyself.
Granted, not everyone is going to be “comfortable” with the idea of gay marriage. Not everyone was “comfortable” seeing Black faces in SEC backfields. Yet, there they are, and they win lots of games. Bush, by connecting his present moral crusade to his re-election, has made his efforts all the more tawdry and cynical. He has muddied his own water. Would he be willing to sacrifice re-election in order to “save” the institution of marriage? Or is he using the institution as a means to patch up his crumbling house of electoral cards?
Bart Whiteman
bartw@cdc.net
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