Politics: Bush leads Right's attack on gay marriage

An amendment to the constitution of the United States is a difficult thing to achieve. The bill must pass both chambers of Congress by a two-thirds majority. Afterwards, a three-fourths majority of the states must ratify it. Most efforts, such as the Equal Rights Amendment, have failed. So, the chances the Right will prevail in its efforts to make marriage mean only the union of a man and a woman are not promising. However, the conservatives have quite a pitcher on the mound. George W. Bush is leading the assault on gay marriage.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush says legalizing gay marriage would redefine the most fundamental institution of civilization and that a constitutional amendment is needed to protect it.

. . .Leading the chorus of support for an amendment, Bush said, ``If courts create their own arbitrary definition of marriage as a mere legal contract, and cut marriage off from its cultural, religious and natural roots, then the meaning of marriage is lost and the institution is weakened.''

His remarks follow the opening of Senate debate Friday on a constitutional amendment effectively banning gay marriage.

The difficulty of the amendment process is a bulwark against amending the Constitution lightly. A revisitation of the national exercise in hypocrisy known as Prohibition is unlikely because of it.

The so far Right she must walk crooked legal columnist at WorldNetDaily, Jane Chastain, agrees with me about the unlikelihood of Congress passing the amendment barring gay marriage.

I take no pleasure in telling you that the vote on the constitutional amendment designed to protect the sanctity of marriage between a man and woman will fail next week in the U.S. Senate.

Chastain's reason for believing the amendment will fail is quite different from mine. I believe the issue of gay marriage is not of such magnitude that it needs to be addressed by the Constitution. We already have the Fourteenth Amendment. States already have similar protections in their constitutions. They can take if from there. If the resolution denies equal protection in some states, the judicial process is the next step. Chastain says the amendment will fail because her bogeymen of choice, gay activists, have poisoned the well. Her views are remarkable for their extremism.

While we were sleeping in the 1980s, gay activists took control of the National Education Association – the teachers union – and began plotting a strategy to get their agenda in the nation's public schools.

While we were sleeping in the 1990s, the NEA began running candidates committed to teaching our children that homosexuality is a normal, immutable characteristic. We blindly voted for these candidates or we didn't vote at all.

. . .homosexual activists were invited into our classrooms under the guise of "AIDS education." Then, textbooks were rewritten to begin mainstreaming the homosexual lifestyle.

I believe the amendment will fail in Congress. Not because the NEA has been infiltrated by gays, or, has assumed the same powerful status as the NRA. Not because gay activists have taken over the schools and indoctrinated a generation. Because the Constitution is designed to be difficult to amend.

'Compassionate conservative' George W. Bush and screeching homophobe Jane Chastain are on the same team. This time around their team will lose the game.

News: Bush snubs NAACP

In a show of the kind of ineptitude his critics would pay him for if he did not act willingly, the current occupant of the White House has refused to attend the convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Throughout the group's history as the most recognized advocacy organization for equal rights, presidential candidates and presidents have spoken at its national conventions.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has the details.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - President Bush declined an invitation to speak at the NAACP's annual convention, the group said.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People expects more than 8,000 people to attend the convention opening Saturday.

Democratic challenger John Kerry accepted an invitation to speak next Thursday on the final day of the convention, the NAACP said.

. . .Bush spoke at the 2000 NAACP convention in Baltimore when he was a candidate. But he has declined invitations to speak in each year of his presidency, the first president since Herbert Hoover not to attend an NAACP convention, John White, a spokesman or the group, said Wednesday.

The excuse offered was 'scheduling conflicts.' The snub of the nation's largest and most effective civil rights organization sends a message of indifference, if not hostility, to those who support equality. It also reconfirms the Southern Strategy of making gestures that imply approval of racism. Though not as striking as visiting a Mississippi town where three civil rights workers were murdered to kick off one's campaign,as Ronald Reagan did, the gesture conveys comfort to the bigots of the country.

Meanwhile, the Democrats have announced almost half of delegates to their national convention will be minorities. The contrast between the two parties in regard to diversity is remarkable.

What's the art?

Photographs of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman, the three civil rights workers murdered in Neshoba County in 1964. Reagan initiated his campaign there in 1980, with a speech hailing state's rights.

Commentary: A tale of two parties

Part of being a blogger in the very conservative blogosphere is responding to remarks such as these from one of my favorite specimens of unadulterated backwardness, Tom Bux of Tom's Nap Room.

So I guess they aren't black unless they are American hating NAACP supporters such as yourself who would sooner blame whitey for keeping you down than getting off your duffs and achieving success?

And what me clarify: Read Bill Cosby's comments. If you are functionally illiterate, don't blame anyone but yourself for not getting that management job.

If you are a veteran reader of Silver Rights, you know that is mild for Bux. He only insulted several million people and did not mention his fourteen guns. Still, the comment documents how far away from having any real insight into the reasons conservative politics gets little support from minorities the far Right is. Bux abuses the civil rights organization that has done more to bring about equality than any other in history and has the support of most African-Africans. He then tries to hoist Bill Cosby, who was rightfully condemned for his ignorant remarks blaming the victims of discrimination for its existence, up on a pedestal. These blunders occurred in the context of our representative of Right-think claiming Republicans, including the Bush administration, support civil rights.

In stark contrast to the image of the GOP presented by Bux and his compatriots is good news from the Democrats. The New York Times reports that nearly half of delegates to the Democratic convention, July 26-29, will be people of color.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Minorities will be represented in record numbers among the delegates to this month's Democratic National Convention in Boston, convention organizers said Wednesday.

Nearly 40 percent of the more than 4,300 delegates are of a minority background, including record numbers of blacks, Asians, American Indians and Hispanics, the Democratic National Convention Committee said.

. . .``This will be the most successful convention ever in terms of diversity,'' said Alice Germond, secretary of the Democratic National Committee.

People like Tom Bux are clueless about why minorities are alienated by the Republicans. They either don't know about the sorry civil rights record of the contemporary GOP or they ignore it. Even more telling, they apparently believe they can attract people of color to the GOP through a combination of paternalism and abuse. As long as the face of the GOP is folks like Bux, the Democrats, despite their imperfections, will remain the party of diversity.