Bush Backs Amendment Banning Gay Marriage [Live Thread 10:45 Statement]

Fox News ^ | 02.24.04

[Dr. Marten]

Bush Backs Amendment Banning Gay Marriage

Breaking news...no details yet..

[TigersEye]

I stand in that "flock." There are others.

I'm there with you ... we almost constitute a gaggle.

[redhawk]

Leave up to the Gay's to create this fiasco within their own party. Let's see what Kerry & Dean do now. Maybe Ralph will support Gay Marriage and they'll all vote for him.

[Recovering_Democrat]

If the problem lies with the Supreme Court, then we need to change the Supreme Court, not the Constitution.

I disagree in this case. SCOTUS should not be relied upon to do the right thing: the stakes are too high, in my opinion.

[Miss Marple]

People can talk about impeachment of judges all they want, but in Massachusetts and in California we are dealing with STATE judges, which means they would have to impeached by their very, very democrat controlled legislatures. That is NOT going to happen.

Our recourse without an amendment would therefore be waiting until conflict between a gay marriage law in California and it's lack of recognition in a state like Indiana came up. Then we would have to fight all the way to the Supreme Court, which, given their decision last summer, would not be an automatic victory for us.

A Constitutional amendment is in my opinin the only way we can get this movement stopped.

[k2blader]

Is it feasible to do both?

So far I don't see much impeachment happening...

[Sabertooth]

Despite the grumblings from those who don't understand public opinion and politics, I believe the President has just laid the smack-down on the Rats.

This will definitely play to the GOP's advantage.

As quite a few have opined, coming out for the amendment last year would have been perceived as a stunt. By waiting until we had nice visual evidence for about two weeks with that fiasco in San Francisco, everyone knows what's going on.

Those opining thus are then in the position of having to ignore the President's statements last year, or disbelieving them.

How many posts before we're told that the President in his prescience knew that the Democrat nominee would be a Senator from Massachusetts, and that Bush was just waiting for a Massachusetts judge to force the same-sex marriage issue, "to put the Democrats in a box?"

Did President Bush also know, last July, that Gray Davis would be recalled and replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger, and that Schwarzenegger would be in a position to order a Democrat Attorney General to enforce Proposition 22 against the rogue Mayor of San Francisco, who was jumping on the Massachusetts bandwagon?

It's so perfect!

Sometimes events play out with a certain serendipity, and it isn't always smart to attribute the fruits of that serendipity to political strategery.

[Miss Marple]

LOL! No, I don't think that the President knew that Gavin Newsome would pull such a stupid maneuver. All I am saying is that the President knew that some issues are, indeed, better pursued in an election year. This is one of them. He did get lucky on the visual evidence from San Francisco, though.

[Dane]

Musgrave, on this issue, is hardly obscure. Still, with Bush's early support imagine where we'd be on it today instead of where we are

The same place we are today, with the Mass SCOTUS writing law from the bench, and Mayor Newsome flouting the law.

[ohioWfan]

Anyone who read Lawrence v. Texas when it was handed down last Summer could and should have seen at a CMA would be necessary.

So, I'm glad the President finally came to te correctt conclusion because the attack on marriage is the most important issue of this election cycle.

Do you have any idea how arrogant your words make you seem, Saber?

You are glad that the President 'finally came to the correct conclusion??' LOL!

You can't be as self righteous and condescending toward the President's decision making ability and moral clarity as you seem on this forum...........can you??

btw, what public office do you hold, so that you can actually put into practice your absolute, and flawless political ideas......including their timing? Or are you just a 'pundit' who doesn't have to govern wisely, and live with the consequences of his decisions..................as the President does??

Oh, yeah.......and you still would have to be reading his mind to determine that he had not made a decision yet about this issue last July, or last December. All you know is that he hadn't determined to act on it......until now.

[ohioWfan]

Every word a jewel! Thank you, Miss Marple!

[txrangerette]

Right-o, Miss M...Bush had to be
dragged kicking & screaming into
supporting Musgrave's measure...
EXACTLY like he had to be dragged
into making that exceptional talk
to the Republican Govs last night.

WHAT TOOK HIM SO LOOONG??

WAH...WAH...WAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

LO

[justshutupandtakeit]

In order to amend a post you must get permission from 3/4s of the posters. :^)

I also do not want to amend the Constitution for trivial reasons but what do you do when the courts ignore the basic meanings of a word such as marriage?

[ohioWfan]

Gee........you seem to have left out a fairly important war, Granite.

Was that deliberate?

[jeremiah]

The Massachussetts Supreme Court should be slapped into next week by the legislative branch of that state. The Judicial CANNOT tell the Legislative branch to pass an amendment(which is what they want them to do). If there is discrimination, the Supreme Court can find the marriage laws unconstitutional, but they didn't. Once the amendment process is opened, the war on America begins.....

The District Atty of SF should be prosecuting the ones responsible for gay marriages, and those being married. If not, he should be fired until someone does do their job.

Bush simply has to go on TV and say, there is NO discrimination against gays. They can marry anyone they want of the opposite sex. They are the ones that want the laws changed, let them do the grunt work. If there is an amendment, it will take many years, and peoples ideas will change. So how many thousands will be married before it is ratified??? We need someone with the guts to stand, not pass this off to a process, that is what Bush is doing....passing the buck to others.

[Imal]

I'm not saying there aren't problems with our congress and our courts. Serious problems abound. My point is a marriage amendment to the Constitution will not solve them, and is far more likely to make them worse.

I'm also not saying there aren't problems with the Constitution as it currently is amended, either.

The 14th Amendment, for example, needs serious clarification to plug the hole through which the federal government has slipped to expand into areas not enumerated by Article I Section 8. I'm not saying it's a bad amendment in its intent, but its language has permitted very bad things to happen. The assault on religion under extension of the 1st Amendment beyond a limit to Congress is just one of the many bad things the 14th Amendment is used to justify.

And the 17th Amendment, which has resulted in the state governments being cut off from direct representation in the Senate for almost a century, and radically changed the balance of power in our republic with disastrous results, needs to be repealed altogether. State governments need to be reempowered, hand-waving arguments like "patronage" notwithstanding.

What we specifically do NOT need is to put a definition of marriage, which has and always should fall under the purview of the states, in our federal constitution. While it may solve the problem at hand, the unintended consequences it opens the door to are too hazardous to risk.

The problem here is not marriage, or gays or any of that, it's the way in which the federal government is running roughshod over the states and the people.

Slapping a gay-marriage band-aid on the Constitution is not the answer. Restoring the proper balance of power between the federal and state governments is. And if it can't be done, gay marriage will be the least of our worries.

[mrsmith]

If it wasn't for the Supreme Court's behavior I would be willing to let states do what they want with the issue internally rather than amend the Constitution.

If they want to issue sodomy licenses I have no more problem with that than Nevada's prostitution licenses.
Other states don't have to recognize them in their territory.
But 'Lawrence' made it clear that 5 judges on the Supreme Court would force other states to recognize the sodomy licenses in their states.

The proper recourse is to remove the judges but admittedly that won't happen.
But it is what should happen.

[Wait4Truth]

This President plays poker all time. Even many Republicans don't yet seem to realize this. He almost always waits until things are just right before he jumps in. When he does, he gets maximum effect. Is that politics? Yes, but it is based on firm convictions that he has long held.

[Miss Marple]

Apparently some people don't understand that there is a most auspicious time to do things like this. I had no doubt there would be an amendment after I saw that Massachusetts decision. The media in their haste to destroy the fabric of society unwittingly did our work for us.

I wouldn't be surprised if Arnold had a hand in this as well. I wonder what gave the Mayor of San Francisco the idea that this would be a smooth move? It's very curious, isn't it?

[GraniteStateConservative]

The point is that he found time for plenty of other things.

The only thing people have said to me about this is to agree with me-- that it is politically expedient to do what he is doing when he is doing it.

[EveningStar]

This is yet another frivilous proposed amendment, just like the proposed flag burning amendment, the proposed balanced budget amendment... Just what we need. :(