Bush should favor civil unions
Now that the Massachusetts Supreme Court has legalized gay marriage, President Bush will come under heavy pressure from right-wingers to endorse a constitutional amendment banning such unions and make gay marriage a “wedge issue” in the 2004 campaign.
If he’s anything like the “compassionate conservative” he claimed to be in 2000, Bush will resist the temptation. Ideally, he’d come out in favor of civil unions, as practically all of his Democratic rivals have done.
Or, if that’s too “liberal,” he could endorse no action, let the legal system sort out the ramifications of the Massachusetts ruling and take action only when he feels he has to — sometime after 2004.
Already, the upcoming campaign seems likely to be the ugliest in memory. Democrats are accusing Bush of lying to get the country into the war in Iraq and of “destroying America’s liberties” through the Patriot Act. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., accuses Bush of “deserting the troops.”
Now the Republicans have answered back with an ad that says, “Some are now attacking the president for attacking the terrorists,” implying that Bush’s critics are pro-terrorist. Democrats already accuse Bush of impugning their patriotism, and the charges are likely to escalate.
The campaign could get really dirty if the same Bush Republicans who spread stories in 2000 that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has a black daughter (she was adopted from Bangladesh) get to work on Democratic candidates who favor civil unions, i.e. statutes that give gay couples the legal protections of marriage without applying the term.
Various conservative groups, long unhappy with Bush’s tolerance for gays, have made the “defense of marriage” their top political priority and are busy writing and promoting amendments to the Constitution to ban gay marriage — and, possibly, civil unions, too.
So far, the only amendment introduced in Congress — by Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo. — reads: “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.”
Musgrave and the Alliance for Marriage argue that the amendment would not bar Congress or state legislatures from enacting laws extending to gay couples such normal marital rights as inheritance, child custody, hospital visitation, co-ownership of property, etc.
However, the second sentence of the amendment also could be construed as barring any government from extending the “legal incidents” of marriage to unmarried couples.
The whole idea of gay marriage and civil unions is that some homosexuals want to make a legally binding lifetime commitment to each other, promoting fidelity, stability and monogamy.
The latest Pew Center poll indicates why Bush might be urged by his political advisers to “do something.”
Only 51 percent of the public, according to Pew, oppose civil unions. The poll did not report numbers on religious opposition to unions, but it’s presumably high. At some point, the Supreme Court presumably will have to rule which has precedence — DOMA and its 37 state copies or the “Full Faith and Credit” clause of the constitution, which requires the states to honor one another’s laws.
If Bush shows courageous and humanitarian restraint, the country can avoid an ugly 2004 fight over homosexuality and the Constitution can be saved from dealing with sexual preference. Then, the states could handle the matter, the way “federalist” Republicans usually say things should be done.
(Morton Kondracke is executive editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill.)