Andrew Sullivan is, not too surprisingly, extremely angry with Bush's opening salvo in the Culture Wars, 2004 Edition. Here's Andy spitting venom:
That very tactic is so shocking in its prejudice, so clear in its intent, so extreme in its implications that it leaves people of good will little lee-way. This president has now made the Republican party an emblem of exclusion and division and intolerance. Gay people will now regard it as their enemy for generations - and rightly so.
Josh Marshall weighs in on the issue, saying:
[I]t really is a sad day when we consider using the amendment process to turn back the widening gyre of equality and emancipation which has always been this document's role in the American state....
So deprived of the ability to run on his record he's decided to save his political hide by trying to tear the country apart over a charged and divisive social issue which is being hashed out through the political process in the states. It's his dad and the flag burning amendment all over again.
Is there really anything that tells you more about a man's character than this?
I notice that Bush's remarks focus on the "definition of marriage" as what he is trying to protect:
The amendment should fully protect marriage, while leaving the state legislatures free to make their own choices in defining legal arrangements other than marriage. America's a free society which limits the role of government in the lives of our citizens. This commitment of freedom, however, does not require the redefinition of one of our most basic social institutions.
There's a strong Orwellian ring to these sentences, of course ("All Americans are free, but some are more free than others"). What's even more troubling is that this emphasis leaves open the possibility of states enacting civil unions (marriages in all but name). But that wildly distorts the actual wording of the proposed Constitutional amendment:
Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.
This seems on its face to deny the possibility of enforceable civil unions for gays at the state level. Jack Balkin has more. Unless he has another marriage amendment in mind that he's not telling us about, this is just classic Bush fait accompli maneuvering: Lead the country in a direction everyone can agree on, then use technicalities to take it in a much more radical direction once the policy is in place. We saw this with the Patriot Act, with the September 2002 resolution against Iraq, with the various tax cut packages, and so on. This latest direction should offend everyone. It's a simple civil rights issue, and Bush has put his foot down against freedom. Not only that, but he's said so in so many words.
Appalling.