Kyl panel maps tactic to ban gay marriages

This from The Arizona Republic:

WASHINGTON - While President Bush and other Republicans press their opposition to same-sex marriages onto the national agenda as a potential 2004 campaign issue, a little-noticed "policy paper" this week from a Senate committee headed by Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl lays out what some see as a road map for the GOP strategy.

Titled "The Threat to Marriage from the Courts," the Senate Republican Policy Committee paper asserts that a constitutional amendment banning such marriages is the way to counter a "willingness" of law school professors, the legal profession, judges and even the Supreme Court to take "pro-same-sex marriage positions."

With a "same-sex marriage" ruling imminent in Massachusetts and court cases pending in Arizona, New Jersey and Indiana, the paper says, "These lawsuits will continue until Congress and the states adopt a constitutional amendment to protect traditional marriage." ......

"Despite public opposition to same-sex marriages, it is reasonable to expect more than a few judges will accede to the gay-marriage activists' court campaign," the paper warns. "The legal profession is itself predisposed to support the remaking of marriage." ......

The paper even criticizes the Supreme Court, saying its recent ruling in a Texas case that struck down a state law banning private consensual sex between adults of the same sex "gave aid and comfort to the activists' court strategy."

"The Supreme Court itself has shown that it will show little regard for public opinion when it takes sides in cultural divisions that emerge in society," the paper asserts.

As time goes on, the paper warns, the "risk of Supreme Court intervention to create a uniform standard (or at least to permit recognition of out-of-state homosexual unions) will only increase."

After I said yesterday that I was going to distance myself from the subject of "gay marriage", here I am again writing on it. I'm sorry, but there are just too many morons out there that make themselves easy targets for people like me.

The moron today is Senator John Kyl, R-Arizona (picture at left). This issue of gay marriage is going to be in the news a lot more until the next election, so we all better get used to the ride. And it's not going to be pretty. As Bette Davis once said "Buckle your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy ride!" Indeed it will be and it won't be a ride for the weak. A lot of things will be said that are going to be hateful, divisive, and frankly, un-American. Once we start making changes to the Constitution, we start tearing away at the fabric of what has made this country great. Every time we touch that great document, we run the great danger of diminishing our freedoms that so many of us have come to take for granted. The shouldn't be taken for granted. They can be taken away by the addition of a constitutional amendment. Fortunately, it is very difficult to make changes to the U.S. Constitution, and for good reason. Some have said that there's no way they will be able to gather the support to pull off a change to the Constitution. Maybe so. But I find the mere mention of the idea very disturbing.

At issue here is civil marriage. I make the distinction between religious marriage and civil marriage. In civil marriage, the marriage may be granted by the church or it may be granted by the state. A church or denomination who disagrees with the principle of gay marriage would not have to agree to perform the ceremony. I'm totally fine with that. The state and federal government does not have that luxury. Gay people are citizens of this country (until some bigot in power is able to pull of a constitution amendment making gay citizens illegal). Gay citizens pay taxes. Gay citizens vote. We take part in this democracy and should be entitled to equal rights in all civic sectors.