Anti-gay social and religious conservatives are now split
between those who favor amending the U.S. Constitution to forbid
same-sex marriage while allowing states to grant lesser civil
unions and domestic partnerships, and those who seek to bar any
recognition of same-sex couples, even if it makes it much harder to
pass an amendment. Writes the Washington Post's Alan Coooperman
("Opponents
of Gay Marriage Divided"):
Although they are early in the process of trying to win a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states, some conservatives worry that the political clock is ticking and the drive to amend the Constitution will be doomed unless they can reach consensus.
This isn't what was suppose to happen. A few months ago when
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist came out in favor of the proposed
anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment, it was assumed that the move
would unite the GOP in support while dividing Democrats -- with the
Demo's liberal base opposing an amendment but more moderate
factions favoring it. That hasn't happened (aside from support for
the amendment from some African-American ministers). All of the
Democratic candidates for president have taken positions against an
amendment. Meanwhile, conservatives have split over whether there
even should be an amendment, and if so how far it should go. Writes
popular conservative pundit George Will in his
Nov. 30 column:
Amending the Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman would be unwise for two reasons. Constitutionalizing social policy is generally a misuse of fundamental law. And it would be especially imprudent to end state responsibility for marriage law at a moment when we require evidence of the sort that can be generated by allowing the states to be laboratories of social policy.
The same day, conservative Jonah
Goldberg writes in his column:
The FMA [Federal Marriage Amendment] would ban same-sex marriage "or the legal incidents thereof" -- which many take to mean civil unions as well -- in all 50 states for all time.
That may sound like a good idea if you're against same-sex marriage, civil unions, and all the rest. But to me it sounds an awful lot like a replay of Prohibition. "[T]he FMA will not make this issue go away. Rather, it will more likely serve to radicalize the anti-FMA forces in much the same way Roe v. Wade radicalized antiabortion forces.
So the push to rewrite the Constitution is turning out to be a
divisive issue in the Republican camp -- not at all what party
leaders expected.
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