THE MOST PRESSING ISSUE FACING AMERICA IS..... GAY MARRIAGE?

President Bush explains to a disappointed Prince Abdullah that marriage between two men is not possible in America unless "activist judges" impose it on an unwilling public


Lucy kneels down, the top of the football nicely balanced at a slight backward angle underneath her finger, the ball resting on the ground with laces facing forward, poised to allow Charlie Brown a chance to run up and kick a field goal. Again. Every year, Charles Schultz had his two most famous Peanuts characters line up for the traditional Charlie Brown field goal try. Every year, Charlie Brown would tell Lucy that he wasn’t going to do it, because last year she pulled the ball away at the last instant and Charlie Brown found himself kicking only air, ending up flat on his back, humiliated and embarrassed once again. Every year, Lucy would come up with a reason why this year was going to be different. Charlie Brown would carefully consider the logic of her statements, and full of hope and optimism, start his run towards the ball. Only to end up flat on his back, staring at the sky above, fooled again.

Which brings us to the proposed anti gay marriage amendment to the United States Constitution. The Gallup poll recently discovered that only three out of the thousand Americans polled had the issue of gay marriage on their radar screens as a problem facing the country. So it was inevitable that with the real problems of America and the world facing Congress, the Republicans who control both houses of Congress, including the United States Senate, the greatest deliberative body in the world (their historians claim), will not be addressing the issue of the Iraq War and how to end it. They won’t be crafting an energy policy to put America on a path of self sufficiency that will reduce fuel costs. Deal with global warming? No way. How about cutting the deficit, now ballooning over $400 billion annually, or paying down a national debt which has jumped from $6 trillion to $9 trillion during the Bush presidency? Nope, not on the agenda. Or coping with the looming crisis in Medicare, which will go bankrupt in a decade, and the problems of 45 million uninsured Americans? Sorry, not important enough.

On Monday, June 5, 2006, President George W. Bush and Senate Majority leader Bill Frist, (R. Tennessee), devoted their precious time and energy to promoting an amendment to the United States Constitution which would if enacted, for the first time in history, discriminate against a specific group of people. An amendment which has exactly zero chance of getting the two thirds majority it needs in each house of Congress to be sent out to the States for the required three fourths (38) to ratify.

What President Bush actually said Monday to his audience of handpicked fundamentalist bigots in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, as breathlessly reported by the White House website (applause moments included!) was:

““Marriage is the most fundamental institution of civilization, and it should not be redefined by activist judges. (Applause.) You are here because you strongly support a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a union of a man and a woman, and I am proud to stand with you. (Applause.)

This week, the Senate begins debate on the Marriage Protection Amendment, and I call on the Congress to pass this amendment, send it to the states for ratification so we can take this issue out of the hands of over-reaching judges and put it back where it belongs -- in the hands of the American people. (Applause.)

What Bush really meant, if you could hold him down long enough to inject him with truth serum, is that he and the Republicans in control of both branches of Congress are scared, genuinely scared, that they will be losing power in a scant seven months. Scared that they are about to lose their opportunity to control the levers of government, to write in ear marked legislation to benefit the special interests that provide them with hookers and poker parties at the Watergate. (What, you haven’t heard of Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, Porter Goss’s number 3 guy at the CIA who resigned in disgrace just before Goss bolted out of the top job? Foggo, Duke Cunningham, and other so-far unnamed Republican Congressmen were caught partying with hookers at Watergate poker parties.)

So the “morally superior, family values” Republican Party is using the bait of a gay marriage ban to appeal to their right wing, red meat, base of conservative Republicans- the 20 percent who still think Dick Cheney is a wonderful Vice President and that victory is just around the corner in Iraq. And just like Lucy, they will once again pull the football away, and their ever shrinking constituency will be disappointed that somewhere, some place in America, two happy people of the same sex might be able to tie the knot and enter into a loving relationship sanctioned by the State. They won’t care that American servicemen are continuing to return from Iraq in caskets or missing limbs, that poor children are going without health care, that genocide is taking place in Darfur, or that we may lose a few thousand miles of beaches and several major coastal cities after global warming melts the polar ice caps. Because if someway, somehow, two human beings can unite in love, then that will someway, somehow, impact on their own happiness and their own marriage. Sick, homophobic bastards.

Two Republican senators had opposing views on the necessity of wasting the nation’s time with this bigotry, the Washington Post reported on Monday:

“Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) defended the effort. "Marriage is under attack," he said at a news conference. "The Constitution will be amended whether we pass this amendment or not. The only question is whether it will be amended through the amendment process or by unelected activist judges."

But another Republican -- Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (Pa.) -- spoke against the amendment, calling it "a solution in search of a problem." Like Reid and some other senators, Specter said he opposes same-sex marriage but feels states can handle the issue.”

Hey there Republican right wing- how about a game of football? I’ll hold, you kick.