Bush Wants Gay Marriage Amendment

Well, I've got another reason to add to my ever growing list of why I hate George Bush.

The "idiot in the Oval Office" (as I like to refer to him) yesterday backed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. (links - Houston Chronicle article, Washington Post article, United Press International response article)

In what is being regarded as pandering to his ultraconservative base, I think (and am backed by a lot of others out there) that he is doing more harm to his cause by alienating the moderate Republicans, especially those who happen to be gay or have gay family members. The Log Cabin Republicans the nations largest gay Republican organization, strongly criticizes this move as "writing discrimination into our Constitution". Check out this link, the article is very well written.

The Democrats response: (quote is from this article in "The Detroit News")

Democrats accused Bush of tinkering with a document that is the bedrock of American democracy to divert election-year attention from his record -- an allegation the White House denied. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who hopes to run against Bush in this year’s presidential election, said: “I believe President Bush is wrong.”

“All Americans should be concerned when a president who is in political trouble tries to tamper with the Constitution of the United States at the start of his re-election campaign,” said Kerry, who opposes gay marriage but will oppose the amendment if it reaches the Senate floor. Bush is “looking for a wedge issue to divide the American people,” Kerry said.

Columnist and blogger Andrew Sullivan, a former Bush supporter, pledged war against the president: (pullquotes taken from this Salon article)

"The president launched a war today against the civil rights of gay citizens and their families ... He is proposing to remove civil rights from one group of American citizens -- and do so in the Constitution itself. The message could not be plainer: these citizens do not fully belong in America ...

"Those of us who supported this president in 2000, who have backed him whole-heartedly during the war, who have endured scorn from our peers as a result, who trusted that this president was indeed a uniter rather than a divider, now know the truth."

These people have said it better than I possibly could. This man does not care about the majority of America. He cares about his core constituency only: the ultraconservative and the rich. And the rest of us are just here to pay taxes and watch our civil liberties erode and serve those who sign our paychecks. I can only hope that he does enough stupid things like this to ensure his loss this November.

I honestly cannot see what the fuss is about. Us straight folks have been abusing and defiling the institution of marriage as long as there has been an institution of marriage. How can a gay couple do any more harm than people who have been married five times, or people who tried it for 55 hours *cough*Britney*cough*?