Posted on 03/01/2004 7:02:52 PM PST by beaureguard
The Grand Old Party of Georgia should join the Republican National Committee in hosting a magnificent gala to salute homosexuals seeking to “marry.”
Those gay rascals have achieved more than all the GOP policy gurus and television advisers combined. They have reinvigorated the stumbling reelection campaign of President George W. Bush and taken the heat off Gov. Sonny Perdue for incompetence. Republicans should show their appreciation.
Until gays decided to start acting up, Bush appeared to be in deep trouble. Even the president’s most conservative allies began to lose faith. His administration had allowed the deficit to spin out of control, the bloody war in Iraq to flounder, millions of good-paying jobs to vanish, illegal aliens to swamp our land and health care to become more expensive and less inclusive. The Bush presidency was becoming a bad joke, and Democrats had a full platter of real issues with which to batter the president.
In Georgia, Gov. Perdue stepped on one political banana peel after another. He failed to keep track of state budget numbers (how can a bunch of state-employed ex-bankers lose nearly $200 million in taxpayers‚ money?); he couldn’t stop joyriding in state helicopters; he seemed obsessed with crippling the HOPE scholarship; he insisted on being photographed wearing football helmets and biker hats that didn’t fit; and he couldn’t wait to tell National Public Radio that he didn’t know exactly what was wrong with Georgia’s budget or economy. The Perdue administration was on its way to becoming an even worse joke.
Then some associates of Queer Nation and similar homosexual organizations came down with the wedding bell blues. They wanted to be treated just like everybody else. They dreamed the impossible dream — to join in official wedlock, despite semantic, legal and physiological obstacles that make such arrangements in the traditional sense unattainable.
Among the first indications of new trouble on the homosexual horizon: At least two gay couples at Atlanta’s Druid Hills Golf Club demanded that spousal “privileges” be extended to non-member partners of homosexual club members.
Such a demand created a legal stir, apparently putting Atlanta’s anti-discrimination ordinance at odds with state law against the recognition of same-sex unions. The club execs decided to work out a compromise.
Just as that fuss faded, a bigger bomb exploded. Massachusetts courts started to recognize gay marriages. In California, hundreds of gays suddenly popped up at San Francisco City Hall demanding marriage licenses. The San Francisco mayor — in the ultimate fairy godparent role — granted their wishes. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, ordinarily an ally to the gay community, stepped in. “Hey, ve kan’t let dis happen!” the Terminator thundered.
As the curtain was rising on these real-life dramas, the television industry celebrated the successes of their shows with positive gay themes.
Embattled Republican incumbent office holders in Washington and across the Bible Belt could not have been happier. Gays had come to their rescue.
The politicians could ignore, at least temporarily, complaints about high taxes, poor services, rotten schools, government corruption and American kids dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. The freshly inspired pooh-bahs had a more pressing battle to wage. They had to stop at all costs the scourge of homosexual marriages. Polls show that nearly 70 percent of Americans — the figure in Georgia probably hovers around 80 percent — oppose gay weddings. For Republicans, fighting homosexual wedlock is a win-win-win war.
Even before the White House could act, the Georgia Senate heard opportunity knock. Amidst a roar of passionate oratory on the “sanctity of marriage,” the GOP-run Senate adopted by an overwhelming margin a state constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex weddings. After more than three hours of debate, the Democratic-controlled Georgia House narrowly voted it down, thus establishing the gay-marriage amendment as a make-or-break issue in the state’s November election. The House will reconsider the measure next week.
Technically, the Georgia action didn’t much matter. President Bush had already initiated a proposal to amend the federal constitution to ban homosexual marriages — an action that might not come to fruition for years, if ever.
Georgia’s own infallible political weather vane, Sen. Zell Miller, was the first Democratic senator in line to become a co-sponsor of Bush’s “Federal Marriage Amendment.” Just six months ago, Miller had said, “I’m not much on constitutional amendments. We have to be very careful and go slow when we talk about changing that sacred document.”
State Sen. Mike Crotts, R-Conyers, a congressional candidate once best known for his near-death visions of the great beyond, became a generalissimo in the war against gay wedlock — and against Democrats who seemed allied with the gay side.
The winds against Dubya and Sonny have changed directions. The same-sex marriage issue has knocked national Democrats off balance. In Georgia, state Democrats were left confused and divided along rural-urban lines. Republicans have a tailor-made wedge for the coming campaigns.
Just about anyone who believes in conspiracy theories could make a compelling case that gay activists and Republican leaders secretly collaborated to produce a crisis to throw the donkeys into disarray.
Otherwise, the Democrats might now be successfully focusing on meaningful problems instead of trying to dodge moral finger-pointing regarding homosexuals seeking marriage licenses.
You can reach Bill Shipp at P.O. Box 440755, Kennesaw, GA 30160 or e-mail: bshipp@bellsouth.net, Web address: http://www.billshipp.com.
What they have, in fact done is the opposite. They have given the 80% of Americans who oppose their agenda, a cause of their own, and it ain't pretty for the gays. The demoncrats worst fear is that there won't be enough closets left by election time for them to return to and everyone left out is a liability solely for the rats..
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