On July 14, the Senate effectively killed the Federal Marriage Amendment. Ninety-eight Senators were there; only two were not. Unfortunately, the absentees were John Kerry and John Edwards-the Democratic presidential ticket.
Both had already made it clear they oppose a constitutional amendment, so why not actually vote against it? The answer they have given is disingenuous; the real reason for their absence should be disturbing to anyone who's hoping a President Kerry might actually take some chances to advance gay equality.
Kerry has missed many Senate votes over the past few months while campaigning. However, when a matter has come up that he cares about or that has important political implications-like a veterans' issue-he has altered his campaign schedule to return to Washington. You can tell what really counts for Kerry simply by listing these moments of campaignus interruptus.
According to a Kerry campaign spokesperson, while the Senate was voting on gay Americans' constitutional future, the Democratic nominee was in Boston "preparing for the convention," whatever that means. In this modern age of telephones, fax machines, and email, it's hard to imagine Kerry couldn't have prepared for the Democratic convention from his Washington Senate office. (Edwards was giving a speech in Des Moines, which is more excusable but hardly Earth-shattering.)
Is a last-minute plane flight from Boston to D.C. prohibitively expensive? I checked Travelocity. With one-day's notice you can get a round-trip ticket starting at $201. According to a friend of mine who has raised funds for Kerry in San Francisco, he's gotten more than half a million dollars from gays in the Bay Area alone.
Here are three common excuses for Kerry's absence.
Excuse No. 1:
The vote was on a procedural motion, not the substance of the amendment.
This is the excuse offered by Kerry and Edwards themselves, who claimed they would have attended an actual vote on the FMA. The implication is that this "mere procedural vote" wasn't very important.
That's nonsense. During the 1960s, the most important votes on civil rights legislation were "procedural" votes to close debate. Nobody who knows how Congress operates thinks they're trivial. They're often the most effective way to defeat legislation.
Everyone understood that the July 14 vote would be tantamount to a vote on the FMA itself; indeed, it was probably the only vote we'll have on the FMA this congressional session, perhaps ever. "We are casting this, as are our enemies, that this is absolutely a vote on the FMA, this is not a procedural vote, this is a substantive vote," said Human Rights Campaign Executive Director Cheryl Jacques on July 6.
You can gauge the significance of the vote by the reaction to it. Gay groups rejoiced; religious conservatives vowed to fight another day. The media played it as a knockout punch, not a technical triumph. Here was the front-page headline in the New York Times: "Senators Block Initiative to Ban Same-Sex Unions; Amendment, Endorsed by Bush, Fails After Days of Debate."
Excuse No. 2:
Kerry's vote wasn't needed to defeat the amendment.
This is true, but irrelevant. It ignores the fact that opponents of the FMA considered it essential not just to win, but to win big. Again, listen to HRC's Jacques, speaking to reporters the week before the vote: "It isn't just about narrowly defeating this measure, it's about winning soundly, sending a clear message to the House and to the states [considering state constitutional amendments] that discrimination is wrong.... [Kerry] will be there."
It was unclear immediately before the vote whether the FMA would get a bare majority, which would've been a symbolic majoritarian victory for its advocates (though still short of the 60 votes they needed for cloture). In the end it was close, but they didn't get a majority. But we didn't know that beforehand, and neither did Kerry.
In fact, over the past few months Kerry has hurried back to Washington to vote on other issues even when his vote wasn't "needed." What was different this time?
Excuse No. 3:
"This effort [to pass the FMA] is about re-electing George Bush and we don't blame John Kerry and John Edwards for not participating."
That's the word-for-word rationale I received from HRC's political director the day after the vote. It not only contradicts what HRC said before the vote (see # 1 and #2 above), but it's no excuse at all. Every anti-gay effort in Congress has both political and ideological aims. If avoiding even small political cost on gay issues is reason enough for Kerry to stand down from a fight, please remind me what the point of supporting him is.
That gets us to the real reason Kerry stayed away. Since he has publicly opposed a federal amendment, he's already paid most of whatever political price that opposition will entail. The GOP will still run commercials against him for it, and Bush will bring it up in the presidential debates. His vote would have increased the political cost only slightly.
Kerry does not believe we're worth that small additional political cost, even on an issue as fundamental as amending the Constitution. And politically it's a safe call for Kerry since he believes we have nowhere to go.
Considering only gay issues, a friendly but utterly uncommitted candidate (Kerry) is still preferable to a committed and hostile one (Bush). But let's have no illusions about the choice, or about the likely fecklessness of a Kerry administration.