Wednesday — February 25, 2004

A most
un-presidential act

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The United States of America has a lot on its plate, and the sideboards are groaning.

War on Terror. Rebuilding Iraq. Afghanistan. National Security. Foreign policy: Korea, Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Israel, Haiti.

Sluggish economy. Federal budget deficits. Jobs moving offshore. Illegal immigrants. Illegal drugs.

Mad cow disease. Medicare. Medicaid. Ballooning health care costs. Social Security. Tax shifts to the middle class. Public schools. Costs of higher education.

Yet, a mere eight months before the election, President George W. Bush has chosen to serve up gay marriage to the nation as his hot issue. Not Iraq. Not Afghanistan. Not national security. Not nuclear disarmament. Not any of the looming threats in the world.

Bush steered clear of advocating a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in the January State of the Union speech. Yet, this week he jumped on the amendment bandwagon.

It was a most un-presidential act.

Coming as it did on the heels of questions about his National Guard attendance record, finding no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, poor numbers on the economy, and reports about faulty intelligence used to lead the country into the Iraq war, the move smacked of desperation. It was a cheap way for a president irritated by months-long attacks of Democratic presidential hopefuls to try to deflect attention from his record.

Coming up with good ideas about complex issues is hard. It’s easier to exploit fear of minorities, foster misunderstanding and foment hatred—the very things the president regularly condemns in other leaders. That the leader of the world’s most powerful free nation would stoop to this is most distressing.

The issue of gay marriage makes people crazy, and the president knows it. He’s counting on it.

Idaho, for example, already has a law outlawing gay marriage. Yet, some fear that’s not enough. Heaven knows, after they marry, gays may want to live openly next door. So, Idaho’s House of Representatives passed a measure calling for a constitutional amendment to be put on the November ballot.

Senate State Affairs Committee Chair Sheila Sorensen, a Republican, may refuse to bring the bill before her committee. She said the bill is distracting the Legislature from work on more important issues.

Exactly.

The president and the American people have more important things to do than waste years of effort trying to enact a constitutional amendment. Remember the Equal Rights Amendment?

The president should reaffirm his commitment to the Constitution by leaving the question of gay marriage to the churches and the courts.

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