{"id":7449,"date":"2006-05-18T13:57:43","date_gmt":"2006-05-18T17:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7449"},"modified":"2006-05-18T13:57:43","modified_gmt":"2006-05-18T17:57:43","slug":"anti-gay-amendment-already-making-waves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/anti-gay-amendment-already-making-waves\/","title":{"rendered":"Anti-gay amendment already making waves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over a year ago, the [tag]president[\/tag] said that he had no interest<\/a> in encouraging the Senate to approve a [tag]constitutional[\/tag] [tag]amendment[\/tag] to [tag]ban[\/tag] [tag]gay marriage[\/tag]. More recently, [tag]Laura Bush[\/tag] weighed in<\/a> on the subject, stating her belief that Republicans should not politicize the issue, while [tag]Mary Cheney[\/tag] explained that she nearly quit<\/a> working on the [tag]Bush[\/tag]-[tag]Cheney[\/tag] campaign in 2004 because of the president’s position on gay marriage.<\/p>\n

All of this seems to have driven the far-right a little batty<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Social conservatives say President Bush must work harder before next month’s scheduled Senate vote to pass the [tag]Federal Marriage Amendment[\/tag] that would define marriage as between a man and a woman, and some even say the White House is sending all the wrong signals on the issue.<\/p>\n

“The only thing we’re hearing now from the administration are either comments that are totally opposed to the amendment or those that appear to be opposed to the amendment,” said [tag]Tony Perkins[\/tag], president of the Family Research Council. “The president needs to speak to the issue just as passionately as he did in the campaign.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mr. Perkins is clearly confused. He doesn’t understand that Bush spoke “passionately” about the issue during the campaign because he needed to cynically pander for conservative votes. The president, almost immediately after the election, said he no longer cared<\/a> to emphasize the issue.<\/p>\n

At this point, the amendment is a political mess for Bush either way. [tag]Gary Bauer[\/tag] told the Washington Times<\/a> the White House will benefit significantly if they get behind an initiative with broad Republican support. But if the president pushes hard for an amendment that clearly doesn’t have the votes to pass, he sets himself up for another embarrassing failure. If he doesn’t push hard, the GOP base continues to threaten to stay home in November. Wedge politics sure can be tricky.<\/p>\n

And speaking of the amendment — it passed the Senate Judiciary Committee today, but not before Arlen Specter and Russ [tag]Feingold[\/tag] traded a few interesting shots<\/a> at one another.
\n<\/p>\n

A Senate committee approved a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage Thursday, after a shouting match that ended when one Democrat strode out and the Republican chairman bid him “good riddance.”<\/p>\n

“I don’t need to be lectured by you. You are no more a protector of the Constitution than am I,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen [tag]Specter[\/tag], R-Pennsylvania, shouted after Sen. Russ Feingold declared his opposition to the amendment, his affinity for the Constitution and his intention to leave the meeting.<\/p>\n

“If you want to leave, good riddance,” Specter finished.<\/p>\n

“I’ve enjoyed your lecture, too, Mr. Chairman,” replied Feingold, D-Wisconsin, who is considering a run for president in 2008. “See ya.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Can’t you just feel the Election-Year warmth?<\/p>\n

By the way, the vote on this nonsense is just three weeks away. Bill Frist has scheduled a vote on for the week of June 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over a year ago, the [tag]president[\/tag] said that he had no interest in encouraging the Senate to approve a [tag]constitutional[\/tag] [tag]amendment[\/tag] to [tag]ban[\/tag] [tag]gay marriage[\/tag]. More recently, [tag]Laura Bush[\/tag] weighed in on the subject, stating her belief that Republicans should not politicize the issue, while [tag]Mary Cheney[\/tag] explained that she nearly quit working on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}