Ellington

October 28, 2004

With countries such as Spain and many others making gay marriage legal, is it time that America takes the same step? That question has made gay marriage and civil unions the hot-button wedge issue of the 2004 election.

Some analysts say Sen. John Kerry's reference in the last debate to Mary Cheney—the vice president's openly lesbian daughter—hurt him in the polls. Kerry's exact words were: "If you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was born as. If you talk to anybody, it's not choice. I've met people who struggled with this for years, people in a marriage and they struggled with it. I've met wives supportive of their husbands or vice versa when they finally broke out and allowed themselves to live who they were, who they felt God had made them. We have to respect that." Kerry proponents, and many homosexuals, point out that the only way one can view his answer as bad or offensive is if the person finds homosexuality to be bad or offensive.

Both presidential candidates say that "marriage is between a man and a woman"—however, the difference between the two is that John Kerry supports the benefits that same-sex couples would receive from civil unions. He says: "You can't discriminate in the rights that you afford people. You can't disallow someone the right to visit their partner in a hospital. You have to allow people to transfer property, which is why I'm for partnership rights. With respect to Defense of Marriage Act (signed by Clinton) and the marriage laws, the states have always been able to manage those laws."

Kerry says he did not sign the DOMA years ago because he claimed it denied same-sex couples the rights they could be allowed as U.S. citizens. He referred to the DOMA as being "fundamentally ugly, fundamentally political, and fundamentally flawed."

Bush, on the other hand, has tried to make same-sex marriage a centerpiece issue to appeal to his conservative base. This year he tried to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment, changing the U.S. Constitution so that no state could allow gay marriage or same-sex unions. The amendment did not pass Congress; however, individual states are working on their own laws now. The proposed amendments in Mississippi, Montana and Oregon would ban gay marriage, while proposals in eight other states—Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma and Utah—would ban civil unions as well.

Some say the Federal Marriage Amendment failed because the motives behind it were just to rally people together on the GOP side when Bush's popularity was waning—a classic wedge issue. Bush has said he is tolerant of gays, though his record and past speeches say otherwise. In 1999, Bush said he opposed gay adoption and the extension of hate-crime laws. Bush has taken stands against gay adoption and encouraged many of the states to make laws accordingly. With the New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that said the Boy Scouts of America must accept gays in their organization in 1999, Bush said, "I believe the Boy Scouts is a private organization, and they should be able to set the standards that they choose to set."

In addition, the GOP angered moderate Republicans this year by allowing its most ultra-right faction, led by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, to assert the most stringent language about gay rights and marriage into the party platform—which does not appeal to moderates. This year, the Log Cabin Republicans—gay Republicans—decided not to support Bush's re-election.

In the 3rd district, both Rep. Chip Pickering and challenger Jim Giles oppose homosexual rights. See pages 12-13 for a 2nd district disscussion.

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