Bush’s statement was crafted to consolidate support among the conservative-minded voters who constitute an important part of the electoral base of the Republican Party. At the same time, the president put forward no timetable and proposed no campaign to speed the progress of the amendment, which at best faces years of debate and many obstacles.

Any such amendment, Bush said, should leave state legislatures “free to make their own choices in defining legal arrangements other than marriage”—a reference to civil unions. Under legislation passed in Vermont, the first state government to recognize civil unions, same-sex couples are entitled to the benefits associated with legal marriage.

Speaking for five minutes and allowing no questions, Bush argued on the precedent set by his Democratic Party predecessor. “Eight years ago,” he said, “Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage for purposes of federal law as the legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.”

Bush did not state his support for any specific amendment. Of the several proposals circulating in Congress, reported the February 25 New York Times, “White House officials said Mr. Bush liked the language in the only amendment introduced so far, by Representative Marilyn Musgrave, Republican of Colorado.”

Agape Press, which bills itself as the Christian News Service, reported January 21 that Musgrave’s Federal Marriage Amendment “currently has 108 bipartisan co-sponsors”—a long way short of a majority of the 535 representatives in Congress.

A Constitutional amendment would require a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate. If it achieved that, it would go to the state level, where it would require the approval of three-quarters of state legislatures to be written into the Constitution. Such a process would take years.

Bush’s announcement gained the immediate approval of Senate representatives from his party who have supported the amendment. However, House majority leader Thomas Delay, a Republican from Texas, refused to commit to pushing the amendment through before the November presidential election. “We are going to look at our options and be deliberate about what solutions we may suggest,” he said. According to the Times, Delay said, “it would be ‘very difficult’ to get such a measure through Congress and that some Republicans were strongly resistant to changing the Constitution.”

While it initially received little support in Congress when she first introduced it in May 2003, Musgrave’s amendment quickly became part of a broader debate.

In mid-June the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas anti-sodomy law on the grounds that it violated privacy rights—a registration of the widespread rejection of state intrusion into private matters, and opposition to discrimination against gays.

The two front-runners in the primary race to decide the Democratic Party presidential candidate said they would vote against the amendment. Massachusetts senator John Kerry, the odds-on favorite to win the nomination, said February 24, “While I believe marriage is between a man and a woman, for 200 years this has been a state issue. I oppose this election-year effort to amend the Constitution in an area that each state can adequately address.”

Second-placed John Edwards said that he also opposed same-sex marriage. However, he said, “we have had our Constitution for more than 200 years…. We should not amend it over politics.”  
 
Stance on affirmative action
This is not the first time that the Bush administration has rhetorically supported a conservative political cause, while refusing to attach its banner to the right-wing social crusade known as the cultural war.

Last year the White House filed a brief backing a legal challenge to a University of Michigan admissions policy that takes nationality into account. The Supreme Court rejected the challenge and upheld the affirmative action policy.

While the administration had asked the court to invalidate the programs, it angered right-wing groups by accepting the consideration of race as a factor.

The administration’s pragmatic stance on immigration has further angered rightist commentators who call for a clampdown on the influx of working people over the border. Howls of conservative outrage greeted Bush’s January proposal to create a new work visa that would give employed undocumented workers temporary legal status, regularizing the low-wage exploitation of millions of immigrants.  
 
Gay marriages in San Francisco
In his February 24 remarks, Bush criticized the action two weeks earlier of San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, who had “issued thousands of marriage licenses to people of the same gender, contrary to the California Family Code.” He noted that the Defense of Marriage Act had also been defied in Massachusetts, where the highest state court has instructed the government to issue licenses for same-sex couples starting in May.

When the San Francisco marriage licenses became available February 12, hundreds of couples lined the blocks around City Hall to apply. The February 23 San Francisco Chronicle reported that “after more than a week of block-long lines, the city is now issuing the licenses by appointment only.” By February 24, more than 3,000 couples in San Francisco had taken advantage of the opening. The licenses may not be recognized in other states.

Mayor Newsom said his action complies with the state constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. His decision was “about human beings,” he said February 22. “It’s about dignity. It’s about advancing and affirming marriage in a unique bond and relationship.”

The newspapers reported similar comments from other opponents of discrimination against gays. “We have the deeply moving images of thousands of couples lining up overnight, some in the rain…because of their deep hunger to marry,” said Evan Wolfson, director of Freedom to Marry. “There’s no question it’s touching a chord.”

Among the opponents of the marriage license extension were 25 people who briefly blocked the door of the count clerk’s office. Right-wing columnists across the country expressed outrage.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger instructed State Attorney General William Lockyer to file suit to block the issuing of any more licenses.

Two opposition groups have taken legal action with the same purpose. Terence Thompson of the Alliance Defense Fund, one of the groups, said: “This is a simple issue of legal anarchy. The mayor can’t decide what is constitutional or what is unconstitutional.” Mathew Stover of the Campaign for California Families said the group was seeking an injunction to block further marriages.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home