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June 05, 2006

Pro-Gay Groups: Offer Your Own Amendment

By Dennis Byrne

Here's a suggestion: If pro-gay groups don't like the Marriage Protection Amendment--declaring that marriage in America shall consist solely of a union of a man and a woman--they should offer one of their own that will settle the issue once and for all.

The amendment would be as simple as the long-debated and failed Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, with the addition of one word and a small change to another:

"Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sexual orientation."

Then, let's see where the chips fall.

This is the best way to settle this fight, because the Sexual Orientation Protection Amendment (SOP) is exactly where the LesBiGayTransgender lobby wants to take us. Let's just stop tap dancing around same-sex marriage issue, and go to the real thing: The GayEtc. lobby wants equal rights not just in marriage, but also in e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. SOP will let us have a real debate, while cutting through all the crap.

Of course, it'll never happen because the GayEtc. lobby won't go for it. For them, it's a sure loser. So, someone will have to do it for them.

Like the Protect Marriage Illinois campaign, which a few weeks ago filed 421,000 signatures calling for an Illinois constitutional amendment that would declare that "marriage between a man and a woman is the only legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State."

That was a strategic mistake. Instead, they should have gathered signatures to have a fall referendum on the Sexual Orientation Protection Amendment. Then they could have stood back and listened while the GayEtc. Lobby tried to defend their "equal rights" demands to a resistant public. And watched while the lobby got its butt whipped at the polls.

The GayEtc. lobby knows that, so it would never gather a petition for such a constitutional amendment. Instead, it would fight the referendum tooth and nail in the courts, taking the odd position that the public can't express its opinion on the matter. It has no other choice. The lobby has no recourse, but to side-step the legislature, referenda and other expressions of the people's will, and turn to their only allies: magisterial judges whose idea of separation of powers is the beheading of the legislative and executive branches of government.

So, this is what I think that President George W. Bush should do on Monday when he holds his scheduled White House news conference in the Rose Garden. Forget his expected renewal of his support for the Marriage Protection Amendment. Instead, say: "Today I am announcing that I am throwing my full weight--not behind the marriage protection act, as everyone assumed--but behind an amendment that will guarantee gays and other sexual minorities full and equal rights. I am asking the sponsors of the Marriage Protection Amendment, when it comes to a vote this week, to submit a substitute act, called the Sexual Orientation Protection Amendment. If it wins the approval of Congress and the states, so be it. If it doesn't, then that's it. We'll move on. We've already wasted enough time on this baloney."

Bush would be declared a political genius, or a complete fool. Liberals wouldn't know whether to evacuate or go blind. It would flummox his critics and perhaps, however briefly, shut up Molly Ivins.

Best of all, it would shift the burden of rhetoric from pro-family advocates to the GayEtc. lobby. Pro-family advocates need to know that they are losing the rhetorical battle. Amendments to the Constitution historically have been in the direction of creating more rights for more people. Freedom for slaves; equal voting rights; women's suffrage. The GayEtc. lobby has successfully used this to portray pro-family groups as troglodytes, or worse, right wing Christians. The Marriage Protection Amendment only makes it appear that pro-family groups are for restricting or rolling back certain rights.

Of course, objectively speaking, that's nonsense. You can't restrict or roll back a right that never existed. But you can create a right, and pro-family groups and conservatives ought to just step back and let gay advocates try to make a case for carving their "rights" into federal and state laws and constitutions.

This is not a fight that pro-family groups sought. They didn't suddenly say, "Let's pass a law making same sex marriage illegal." They responded they only way they could to an issue that was imposed on them, in opposition. By definition, opposition is negative.

Thus, came a brick storm of vile, nasty criticism. Pro-family groups were portrayed in negative terms, such as mean-spirited homophobes. In Indianapolis, the Jesus Metropolitan Community Church--a church, of all things--is paying for a $55,000 ad campaign that features Klansmen around a burning cross. The church senior pastor equated people who oppose gay marriage on religious grounds to those who supported slavery, opposed women's suffrage and favored laws against interracial marriage.

Massachusetts' chief justice asked if voters could take away the "freedom" for gays to marry, then what's stopping them from reinstituting slavery?

Putting those kinds of labels on opponents of gay marriage is as bad as calling someone a fagot. Yet, the GayEtc. lobby has succeeded in this slander with barely a peep with the media. In effect, the lobby is getting away with calling three-quarters of Americans homophobes, racists and slavery sympathizers.

Marriage protection referenda haven't lost in a single state, having passed usually by 70 percent or more in 17 states. Another 18 states have enacted laws. Georgia passed its referendum by 76 percent, a number that presumably exceeds the number of Georgia homophobes and right-wing fanatics. Naturally, a court struck it down, on a technicality. Where the U.S. Supreme Court will go, even under new, conservative management, is anyone's guess.

At some point in a democracy, the will of the people should count for something. Unless you are so cynical that you believe the will of the people is so fatally flawed that Americans might vote to bring back slavery.

So, if you don't like my suggestion for a Sexual Orientation Protection Amendment, here's another: Pro-family activists will stop campaigning for the supposedly unnecessary federal and state constitutional amendments and referenda to protect traditional marriage if pro-gay groups will stop asking the courts to impose homosexual marriages on America.

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