“I don’t quite know what to say. I’m a 21 year old gay student at Wesleyan University. I have no affinity for President Bush. I have little respect for him. I knew, on an intellectual level, that he might eventually support this amendment. But to hear him say it aloud – I wasn’t prepared for the emotional response I would have … this is truly, truly devastating. Truly devastating.”
“While it may mean little in the face of the hatred and discrimination expressed by our nation’s leader today, I want you to know you have my wholehearted support. How can it be that two people expressing their love for each other and asking society to recognize that love be a bad thing? How can a couple choosing to spend their life together in a bond of love possibly harm our society? It is beyond my apparently meager comprehension to anticipate the consequences that allowing gay marriage will bear. All I can anticipate is love and acceptance.
It shouldn’t be an important fact, but I am straight. One of my close friends is gay. I’ve watched him experience heartbreak, hope and love over the last few years. His emotions are no less real than mine. His love is given as truly as mine is. Why should we not recognize this? And how dare we amend a document that gives hope and freedom to the world to deny hope and freedom to a group of our own citizens?
It offends me as a straight man, as an American citizen, but more importantly as a human being who believes that each one of us deserves equal dignity, that our president seeks to cloak a beacon of liberty with a veil of intolerance and discrimination. I only wish that President Bush would have turned to the words of a great Republican president and heeded the better angels of his nature to oppose this amendment. It saddens me that his actions do not come as a surprise.”
“What a strange juxtaposition, almost surreal. Today we get “The Passion of Christ” delivered. A bloody, gory, historically inaccurate film sure to stoke religious fundamentalism in America, ironically the same folks who refuse to accept modern science and any notion that homosexuality is anything but a behavioral choice. We get Bush calling for a Constitutional amendment to “protect” marriage. It does not outlaw no-fault divorce, or cheap 5 minute weddings performed by Elvis in Las Vegas. Instead it is a cheap political exploitation, but unlike most others (from both sides of the isle) would attempt to enshrine in the Constitution religious fundamentalism. And finally, we get two new Al Qaeda tapes. How ironic that those fundamentalists in the Arab world may have a more positive view of America because its President will now push to permanently stigmatize gays as inferior and not worthy of full citizenry? Those who really believe in the ideals of this country must now speak up.”
“Islamists want to keep human understanding and progress trapped in the 8th Century. Keeping it trapped in the 20th is surely just as awful. History will not look kindly on George W. Bush, even if his foreign policy ends up being what saves the future. We will take that for granted. But future generations will look back and see how he demanded the Constitution’s alteration to discriminate against a minority group. This is what he will be remembered for. This will be his legacy.”
The Dish 