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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
Sullivan declares war on Bush over same-sex marriage; Steyn says John Kerry would flounder if terrorists blew up the Empire State Building. Plus: Osama under U.S. surveillance?
Feb 25, 2004 | President Bush's announcement on Tuesday that he'll back a constitutional ban of same-sex marriage was a bombshell, but not a surprise; in his State of the Union address in January, Bush signaled explicitly to hard-line conservatives that he'd move to "defend the sanctity of marriage" at the federal level if necessary. Gay-rights activists are mobilizing, while conservatives, angered by a wave of same-sex marriages in San Francisco and a Massachusetts court ruling permitting the practice, are applauding the president. The question now on everyone's mind: To what degree will the incendiary issue erupt into the center of the presidential race?
Bush's latest move could crack open big fissures in the GOP: Plenty of prominent Republicans have gay or lesbian family members, including Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich. For gay Republicans themselves, it may obliterate any remaining allegiances. Columnist and blogger Andrew Sullivan, once a staunch Bush supporter, vowed an all-out battle against the president Tuesday, after Bush revealed where his deepest loyalties lie regarding the issue.
"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."
Sullivan says that Bush's actions have destroyed any support from gay people for the Republican Party well into the future.
"This president has now made the Republican party an emblem of exclusion and division and intolerance. Gay people will now regard it as their enemy for generations -- and rightly so ... We must oppose this extremism with everything we can muster. We must appeal to the fair-minded center of the country that balks at the hatred and fear that much of the religious right feeds on. We must prevent this graffiti from being written on a document every person in this country should be able to regard as their own. This struggle is hard but it is also easy. The president has made it easy. He's a simple man and he divides the world into friends and foes. He has now made a whole group of Americans -- and their families and their friends -- his enemy. We have no alternative but to defend ourselves and our families from this attack. And we will."
The Log Cabin Republicans, the nation's largest gay and lesbian Republican organization, had yet to respond directly to Bush's announcement on its Web site Tuesday afternoon. But in a Feb. 11 press release, the group stated that "No matter what happens in the coming months, Log Cabin will stay in the GOP and fight." Still, its vitriol for Bush appeared to be as potent as Sullivan's.
"History will not look back kindly on this assault of our Constitution. This amendment is the product of the radical right. They have mastered the art of gay-bashing after decades of practice ... Log Cabin considers support for this amendment a declaration of war on gay and lesbian families ...
"'Writing discrimination into the Constitution is wrong. It is not conservative, it is not Republican, and it will not strengthen America,' said Log Cabin Executive Director Patrick Guerriero. 'As conservative Republicans, we are outraged that any Republican -- particularly the leader of our party and this nation -- would support any effort to use our sacred United States Constitution as a way of scoring political points in an election year.' ...
"'Log Cabin will fight the Federal Marriage Amendment all across this county, state by state, if we must,' said Log Cabin Political Director Mark Mead. 'We will use our political resources to stop anyone from writing discrimination into our Constitution.'"
Sullivan also published several reader responses to his Tuesday post (without the readers' names), one of which assailed Sullivan's arguments and forecast the expected nasty battle to come.
"President Bush didn't 'declare war' on the civil rights of homosexuals; left-wing activist judges, mayors, city bureaucrats and the gay movement have declared war on the rule of law and the institution of marriage. President Bush has merely responded to what others have started. The battle is now joined and I believe that the overwhelming majority of the country will be in the President's army, as you'll soon find out."
For now, radio talk-show host and religious conservative Hugh Hewitt is taking the legal high road on the issue -- though he still managed a swipe at San Francisco mayor and gay-marriage promoter Gavin Newsom.
"Now as to domestic partnership benefits, I am a moderate. Whatever legislatures pass is fine by me. I believe in the small 'd' democratic process. I do so because I believe in freedom -- and when legislatures decide policies, the people have the maximum freedom.
"When courts dictate law, as has happened in Massachusetts, or when low-ranking, publicity-grabbing officials make up the law, as is happening in San Francisco and may soon happen elsewhere, then freedom is diminished because the rule of a few is substituted for the rule of elected legislatures."
Hewitt is confident that a majority of Americans will prevail in rejecting same-sex marriage.
"There is no covering up this most basic of issues: Who runs America? Shall it be the people or shall it be the courts and a host of petty officials from micro-climates on the political map? The debate over the marriage amendment is a hugely important debate over how America will be governed for decades to come. I am with the president on this one, as should be every freedom-loving citizen, even proponents of gay marriage who ought to realize that winning by diktat isn't winning at all. Arbitrary power, unchecked and absolute, is no friend to political minorities, even when it arrives robed or smiling."
"There's this whole other war going on"
Meanwhile, as President Bush focuses his attention on the culture wars at home, hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops remain embroiled in conflict around the globe. For his part, conservative columnist Mark Steyn, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, says Bush's war policy in the Middle East is succeeding -- via a new-and-improved "domino" effect. That should supplant all the misguided debate, he says, over Bush's National Guard record.
"It's been said that America is divided into Sept. 11 people and Sept. 10 people. The former category are those for whom Sept. 11, 2001, changed everything. The latter are those for whom Sept. 10, 1972, changed everything. That's when Bush didn't show up at the Air National Guard base because he was dancing naked on a bar in Acapulco with Conchita the surly waitress. Or whatever. If you think this is the most important issue facing America, feel free to vote for John Kerry, who back in 1972 was proudly serving his country by accusing its armed services of committing war crimes. Or whatever ...
"Meanwhile, there's this whole other war going on, the one Bush has to attend to while everyone else is on cable TV talking about the early '70s. This war has an ambitious aim: the transformation of the most dysfunctional region of the world. You can't do it overnight. But, 10 months after the liberation, it should be possible to discern a trend, and right now all the Middle Eastern dominoes are beginning to teeter in the same direction."
Steyn further declares that presidential hopeful John Kerry, notwithstanding any Vietnam War heroics, is no match for Bush -- because Kerry might waffle after another terror attack:
"This is how [Kerry] characterized the war on terror to Tom Brokaw: 'I think there has been an exaggeration,' he said. 'They are really misleading all of America, Tom, in a profound way. It's primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation.'
"That's all I need to know. Bush wants to take the war to the enemies, fight it on their turf. Kerry wants to do it through 'law enforcement': If the Empire State Building gets blown up, he'll launch an investigation immediately. It's not enough. Even if Bush was AWOL 30 years ago, on everything that matters John Kerry is AWOL now."
