Post by outgirl on Sept 30, 2004 5:01:32 GMT -5
The Divider
Bush's Domestic Legacy
www.andrewsullivan.com/main_article.php?artnum=20040720
The paranoid style in American politics is not new. But it is certainly alive. Listen to some of the statements made last week in the Senate of the United States, during the debate on whether to ban gays from marrying in the federal Constitution itself. Senator Rick Santorum compared the thousands of gay couples already legally married in America to the threat coming from terrorists: "Isn't that the ultimate homeland security? To defend the sanctity of marriage?" he argued. Senator Wayne Allard, the main sponsor of the amendment, continued: "There is a master plan out there from those who want to destroy the institution of marriage." A master-plan? To destroy an institution gay couples merely want to join? In private, the rhetoric was even stronger. One of the leading religious right supporters of the president, James Dobson, wrote to his followers earlier this month: "Barring a miracle, the family as it has been known for more than five millennia will crumble, presaging the fall of Western civilization itself." Gary Bauer, the head of the "Campaign for Working Families," wrote to his supporters: "If you still think homosexual 'marriage' won't affect you, think again. Your job may be at stake! ... Once the state approves of homosexual 'marriages,' the full weight of the law will be brought down against men and women of faith who believe in Judeo-Christian values." Yep. The gays are trying to get you fired as well.
If the stakes are this high, you'd think last week's humiliating defeat of the Federal Marriage Amendment would have provoked despair among these advocates. But you'd be wrong. Within minutes of losing the Senate vote, they were preparing to introduce a similar measure into the House, knowing full well that there is no hope of passage. But success at this juncture is not important. In fact, failure helps entrench the sense of alienation and anger that is already being stoked for political ends. The religious right has therefore achieved what they set out to achieve. The have used this issue to galvanize parts of the evangelical base, just as president Bush's political master-mind, Kark Rove, intended. They have identified Republican Senators who defied them and will do all they can to get rid of them in future primaries. And in Florida and South Dakota, they think they have a chance to use the issue to tilt a few Senate races this fall. They also now plan to introduce up to a dozen state constitutional amendments in swing states around the country. The Senate debate was merely an opportunity to get media oxygen for this effort. It is an integral part of the Bush re-election campaign.
But how real is the "threat"? Amid the hysteria, it's worth reassessing the facts on the ground. Gay couples have the provisional right to marry in only one state, and that state's voters will decide in 2006 whether that right will remain. Thirty-eight other states have legislative bans on marriage rights for gays and on recognizing other states' gay marriages. The federal Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 underlines the right of states not to recognize marriages from other states. Four states now have constitutional amendments barring marriage to gays; up to a dozen have them scheduled. Even in Massachusetts, traditional marriage comprises the overwhelming majority of civil marriages.
There is, in fact, no danger to traditional marriage at all - just a move to bring the last remaining citizens into its embrace. By any rational judgment, giving gay couples the right to marry is a conservative measure, demanding of gays that they live up to standards of fidelity, responsibility and committment never before asked of them. It is pro-family - uniting those gay family members with their siblings and parents in the unifying ritual of civil marriage. In order to believe that this threatens heterosexual marriage, you have to believe it's a zero-sum game. If gay couples get married, then somehow straights will not. But why not both? Why cannot marriage be defined by the virtues it includes rather than by the people it excludes? Why cannot marriage bring us together rather than tear us apart?
The answer, alas, is that this president has decided it will help him politically to tear us apart. His base is restless over spending and Iraq, and this is a means to placate and energize them. If that means turning a tiny minority into a lethal threat to civilization, so be it. If that minority's sole crime is to seek to live up to the same responsibilities as everyone else, to uphold the family, to support responsibility, then that also is beside the point. In this battle, the president has shown his true colors. He is a divider, not a uniter.
July 20, 2004, Time.
copyright © 2000, 2004 Andrew Sullivan
Bush's Domestic Legacy
www.andrewsullivan.com/main_article.php?artnum=20040720
The paranoid style in American politics is not new. But it is certainly alive. Listen to some of the statements made last week in the Senate of the United States, during the debate on whether to ban gays from marrying in the federal Constitution itself. Senator Rick Santorum compared the thousands of gay couples already legally married in America to the threat coming from terrorists: "Isn't that the ultimate homeland security? To defend the sanctity of marriage?" he argued. Senator Wayne Allard, the main sponsor of the amendment, continued: "There is a master plan out there from those who want to destroy the institution of marriage." A master-plan? To destroy an institution gay couples merely want to join? In private, the rhetoric was even stronger. One of the leading religious right supporters of the president, James Dobson, wrote to his followers earlier this month: "Barring a miracle, the family as it has been known for more than five millennia will crumble, presaging the fall of Western civilization itself." Gary Bauer, the head of the "Campaign for Working Families," wrote to his supporters: "If you still think homosexual 'marriage' won't affect you, think again. Your job may be at stake! ... Once the state approves of homosexual 'marriages,' the full weight of the law will be brought down against men and women of faith who believe in Judeo-Christian values." Yep. The gays are trying to get you fired as well.
If the stakes are this high, you'd think last week's humiliating defeat of the Federal Marriage Amendment would have provoked despair among these advocates. But you'd be wrong. Within minutes of losing the Senate vote, they were preparing to introduce a similar measure into the House, knowing full well that there is no hope of passage. But success at this juncture is not important. In fact, failure helps entrench the sense of alienation and anger that is already being stoked for political ends. The religious right has therefore achieved what they set out to achieve. The have used this issue to galvanize parts of the evangelical base, just as president Bush's political master-mind, Kark Rove, intended. They have identified Republican Senators who defied them and will do all they can to get rid of them in future primaries. And in Florida and South Dakota, they think they have a chance to use the issue to tilt a few Senate races this fall. They also now plan to introduce up to a dozen state constitutional amendments in swing states around the country. The Senate debate was merely an opportunity to get media oxygen for this effort. It is an integral part of the Bush re-election campaign.
But how real is the "threat"? Amid the hysteria, it's worth reassessing the facts on the ground. Gay couples have the provisional right to marry in only one state, and that state's voters will decide in 2006 whether that right will remain. Thirty-eight other states have legislative bans on marriage rights for gays and on recognizing other states' gay marriages. The federal Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 underlines the right of states not to recognize marriages from other states. Four states now have constitutional amendments barring marriage to gays; up to a dozen have them scheduled. Even in Massachusetts, traditional marriage comprises the overwhelming majority of civil marriages.
There is, in fact, no danger to traditional marriage at all - just a move to bring the last remaining citizens into its embrace. By any rational judgment, giving gay couples the right to marry is a conservative measure, demanding of gays that they live up to standards of fidelity, responsibility and committment never before asked of them. It is pro-family - uniting those gay family members with their siblings and parents in the unifying ritual of civil marriage. In order to believe that this threatens heterosexual marriage, you have to believe it's a zero-sum game. If gay couples get married, then somehow straights will not. But why not both? Why cannot marriage be defined by the virtues it includes rather than by the people it excludes? Why cannot marriage bring us together rather than tear us apart?
The answer, alas, is that this president has decided it will help him politically to tear us apart. His base is restless over spending and Iraq, and this is a means to placate and energize them. If that means turning a tiny minority into a lethal threat to civilization, so be it. If that minority's sole crime is to seek to live up to the same responsibilities as everyone else, to uphold the family, to support responsibility, then that also is beside the point. In this battle, the president has shown his true colors. He is a divider, not a uniter.
July 20, 2004, Time.
copyright © 2000, 2004 Andrew Sullivan
...when he's around