Thanks, Lynne. The vice-president’s wife is sticking, mercifully, to federalist principle and opposes the religious right amendment to the Constitution. But I think it’s incorrect to say that she necessarily differs from her husband. Dick Cheney has never said he disavows his belief that marriage should remain a matter for the states. He has merely said he’ll abide by George Bush’s decision to prevent any state from enacting marriages, civil unions or domestic partnerships for gay citizens through a federal amendment. Mrs Cheney, of course, has a lesbian daughter and so it is hard for her to see gay people as some sort of “threat” to the family. After all, a gay person is her family. I’m heartened and grateful that there are some decent people still left in the Republican leadership. Meanwhile, there’s only one thing you really need to know about this week’s Senate vote on the amendment. And that is its backers would rather lose votes than propose a simple one-line amendment reserving marriage for heterosexuals. More tolerant alternatives – that would have simply said “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman,” or that would have constitutionalized DOMA, or that would have merely restricted courts – all these have been ruled out in favor of an amendment whose second sentence reads:
Neither this Constitution, nor the Constitution of any State or Federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups. (My italics)
If you removed the italicized phrase, you’d ahve a reiteration of the first sentence. But that phrase is critical to the religious right. On its face, it would ban any court-prompted civil unions, domestic partnerships or indeed any protections or “legal incidents” for gay couples short of marriage. That means the end of civil unions in Massachusetts and Vermont, for starters. This is not, and never has been, about “protecting” marriage. If it were, the amendment would need just one sentence, and would stand a far better chance of passing. The amendment is about ensuring the second class citizenship of an entire minority. The timing is designed to exploit fear of that unmentionable minority into a winning strategy for president Bush’s re-election. Because of those two things, it is one of the most disgusting measures ever introduced into the U.S. Senate.
The Dish 