Jackson, Democrats shouldn't run from Bush on the marriage issue

It looks like the junior senator from Massachusetts will be the Democratic nominee for president, and coincidentally, the Massachusetts Supreme Court has found that the concepts of liberty and equality before the law in their state’s constitution require that homosexual couples be allowed to get married just like men and women can. Thus George W. Bush has expressed his deep concern and says that the US Constitution may need to be changed to prohibit gay marriages.

No doubt Bush has taken his stand on the advice of, among others, his campaign manager for the south, Ralph Reed. You know, the baby-faced religious fanatic who succeeded Pat Robertson as head of the Christian Coalition. You know, the guy who ran the most disgraceful campaign of 2002, wherein he created TV commercials that morphed the image of Vietnam war hero Max Cleland, a triple amputee from his service to the United States, into that of Osama bin Laden, on behalf of a chickenhawk jock who got of Vietnam with a doctor’s note about his bad knee, which somehow didn’t prevent him from running up and down the football field.

Bring it on if you must, Dubya. However, the important issue here isn’t gay marriage, but the influence of the Protestant Torquemadas, the Christian Hamas, the neo-conservative Jewish Khomeinis --- the bigoted, talking gibberish in the name of The Lord, interpreting ancient scriptures to condemn whole nations to be carriers of water and hewers of wood, forging God’s imprimatur onto endless wars and mass arrests, Bible-twisting zealots like Ralph Reed, John Ashcroft and a legion of Bush administration officials. The school bullies who have been behind so much of the teenage suicide problem in the United States --- which is largely a matter of gay kids being ridiculed, harassed and beaten up until they can’t take it anymore --- now run the Republican Party and they think they’ve found another easy kill. The Democrats should shed all fears about defending the small and unpopular gay minority and all qualms about denouncing perverse ideas that come in religious garb and address the issue head on. The issue isn’t queers in Massachusetts or San Francisco, but belligerent Bible-thumping rednecks in control of the US government.

But what about the sacred institution of marriage? Shouldn’t it be defended?

Take it from a guy who has been divorced most of his life (me) --- it is a legitimate public policy concern that American marriages should be happy and successful. To the extent that they are, many social and economic problems will be avoided. Of course the government should defend marriage.

Notice, however, that no happy and conventional husband, wife and kids marriages are breaking up because in some places gays and lesbians can formalize their relationships and thereby secure certain legal rights just like heterosexual couples can do.

Also notice that the rocks upon which failed marriages founder are usually economic.

So how many marriages has George W. Bush busted up with his “free trade” policy of exporting America’s high-paying manufacturing jobs to Third World sweatshops?

This is not a fanciful question. I have lived in a Rust Belt town hit by manufacturing layoffs, and seen households that were once secured by good union-scale paychecks shattered when the factory closed and the people who worked there couldn’t find jobs that paid nearly so well.

It’s all so common that it’s banal. First the financial arrangements based on the old economic equation break down, and before long what were once happy homes become little corners of Hell where husbands and wives argue about money. Then come all the consequences of broken homes.

Yeah, Dubya can protest that HIS marriage hasn’t been like that. But then not many other Americans get Bahraini oil concessions due to daddy’s influence either.

So does the GOP want to fight the 2004 election on the issue of marriage? The only way they can win at that is if the Democrats stupidly try to duck the issue.

Also in this section:
Madriz, Caribbean ministers' summit in Panama
Fisher, Scarlet Letters
Green, Colombia's war addiction
Bernal, Obstacles to the changes we need
CPJ, Challenging the criminal defamation laws
Andoni, Plea from a strangling Bethlehem
Jackson, Bush runs against gay marriage

opinion

So Dubya wants to run on marriage