Monday, July 12, 2004
High Theater & Foregone Conclusions
FMA Debate in the Senate is Theater, GOP Needs and Wants It to Fail
Is it just me or is the debate over the FMA turning kind of lame. I mean today I was surprised to see Senator Orin Hatch say he supports legal rights for gay men and women for things such as insurance, inheritance, etc. Nice. But was left scratching my head when he claimed that the definition of marriage has been unchanged for thousands of years, then went on to talk about his Grandfather who had three wives. Doens't that imply that the definition of marriage does change?
Anyway, none of this is important, because in order for the FMA to achieve its Rovian electoral strategy, it must fail. Passage would render impotent or at least weaken the need for any state level gay marriage ban initiatives which have been put on the ballot in a handful of swing states. The goal isn't to pass FMA, but to continue to manufacture a psuedo-marriage crisis to rally the troops for the fall election. For that reason, everything your seeing this week is high in drama, but low in susbtance. The GOP needs FMA to fail to scare social conservatives to the ballot box on election day because they have nothing else to offer in terms of accomplishments.
Expect the crisis to be taken to the next level when FMA fails to pass the Senate and the social conservative wing of the GOP urges voters to go to the polls to pass initiatives in thier own states. This could have been an interesting debate over a fascinating issue of religious values, conservative principles, states rights and federalism...a chance for true leadership in finding a way to unite our country on a very divisive issue, unfortunately its merely machinations of the Bush re-election machine.
Is it just me or is the debate over the FMA turning kind of lame. I mean today I was surprised to see Senator Orin Hatch say he supports legal rights for gay men and women for things such as insurance, inheritance, etc. Nice. But was left scratching my head when he claimed that the definition of marriage has been unchanged for thousands of years, then went on to talk about his Grandfather who had three wives. Doens't that imply that the definition of marriage does change?
Anyway, none of this is important, because in order for the FMA to achieve its Rovian electoral strategy, it must fail. Passage would render impotent or at least weaken the need for any state level gay marriage ban initiatives which have been put on the ballot in a handful of swing states. The goal isn't to pass FMA, but to continue to manufacture a psuedo-marriage crisis to rally the troops for the fall election. For that reason, everything your seeing this week is high in drama, but low in susbtance. The GOP needs FMA to fail to scare social conservatives to the ballot box on election day because they have nothing else to offer in terms of accomplishments.
Expect the crisis to be taken to the next level when FMA fails to pass the Senate and the social conservative wing of the GOP urges voters to go to the polls to pass initiatives in thier own states. This could have been an interesting debate over a fascinating issue of religious values, conservative principles, states rights and federalism...a chance for true leadership in finding a way to unite our country on a very divisive issue, unfortunately its merely machinations of the Bush re-election machine.
