Yes, it's disappointing that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, in an effort to firm up the support of the religious-right bloc, has come out in favor of a proposed constitutional amendment to ban states from recognizing gay marriages. As I noted in yesterday's posting, so much for the right of states to pass their own legislation! It's unclear whether Frist and the Republican leadership genuinely intend to pursue such a divisive strategy, or whether it's just lip service. But it shows the GOP still believes it must kowtow to the most reactionary elements in America.
Of the six justices who voted to overturn the Texas law criminalizing sodomy, four were Republicans, appointed by Republican presidents. This is the other face of the GOP -- moderate, live-and-let live, opposed to government intrusion. At some point -- and it may well be the gay marriage fight -- it's possible the GOP coalition of the libertarian-minded and the religious-right theocrats will implode. Or maybe the theocratic faction will continue to decline as a bloc and the leadership will feel freer to ignore its threats. But abandoning the GOP to the "wingnuts," as some progressives argue, is just the kind of self-defeating politics that the left too often specializes in.
Addendum: The Federal Marriage Amendment was introduced in Congress by a bi-partisan group of co-sponsors, notes the Log Cabin Republicans, and "even liberal icons like Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) oppose gay marriage." True, but perhaps not the the degree of muddling up the Constitution (I hope!).
Changing Times.
A
nice bit of analysis on why the Lawrence decision won't be a
boon to the far right is provided by Jacob Levy over at The Volokh
Conspiracy website. Surprise, the decision might even help the GOP
since sodomy laws were:
the most absurd and embarrassing face of social-cultural conservatism -- absurd always, and embarrassingly for the past several years, and increasingly embarrassing as time went on. For social-cultural conservative Republicans to be able to appeal past their base, they couldn't defend the laws. For them to avoid alienating their base, they couldn't attack them. For social-cultural conservatism to avoid looking increasingly anachronistic and foolish, sodomy laws had to be taken off the table and the subject had to be changed to other fights.
Of course, it now appears that one of those "other fights" is
gay marriage, and it won't be pretty.
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