SOTU 3 By Donnel Jones, January 21, 2004	Home   Search   Forum   Terms

Bush's State of the Union was a huge disappointment. Not only in terms of being anti-climatic and backward looking but disturbing in Bush's apparent turn toward the far Right. He is beginning to be as comfortable with ideologues as Dean and Clark have been. Not good.

I was certain he wouldn't mess with the WMD question in Iraq. He did. He actually used the term "weapons of mass murder" (WMM?) as if to deflate the gaff in intelligence concerning their existence. How different from last year's SOTU when Bush was certain Saddam had them. He can always say that Gaddafi gave up his WMD when he saw what happened to Saddam. True. I'm not talking about the rightness of removing a brutal dictator and its necessity in the overall strategy of this war. My concern is the way Bush presented his case. WMD, the certainly that Saddam had them, was the main buttress of his going to war. How much has Bush's doctrine of pre-emption been weakened as a result? My concerns are pro-war, not anti-war.

So Bush did mention the "W" word, and now the carping Dems will have their Thanksgiving feast. Yet, no WMD in Iraq is largely yesterday's political battle if things go well in Iraq. Bush seemed committed last night to staying the course. That much was reassuring. He also mentioned Iran again in a negative light by simply saying he would not tolerate one of the most dangerous countries on earth having nuclear weapons. All very sensible and straightforward as far as the war talk goes.

On domestic issues Bush is somewhere else. Bush is a big spender who claims he can cut the deficit in half in five years (another term) simply through tax cuts. Would love to have him prove I'm wrong to be skeptical. Renewing the Patriot Act? With some serious modifications to draw a fine line between a real need for law enforcement and Orwellian excess. Drug testing for kids? In one way I agree with it but it seems so intrusive. I would prefer families to teach their kids to stay off drugs just as I would prefer the family to teach their kids not to be racists. Leave it out of the classroom. Abstinence? Another good idea but it shouldn't be the only one. It's true that abstinence is the best way to prevent STDs and pregnancy. But how realistic is it? Again, I say it should go to the family to deal with this. Should the state be involved in our personal lives? As little as possible. Yet one can argue that drug abuse, unwanted pregnancies (abortion), and STDs are public problems whose solutions cannot be limited in scope to the personal sphere. That may well be true but I don't like the state getting in on it.

Which brings me to the most disturbing (for me) part of Bush's SOTU: his near support (not quite explicit) for a constitutional amendment outlawing any possibility for state-sanctioned marriage between two people of the same sex. As a gay man I understand that people have problems with the idea of two men or two women getting married. Fair enough. But we already have the Defense of Marriage Act (or DOMA, passed by that queer-basher Clinton in 1996) to keep states from having to recognize the legal status of a same sex marriage conducted in another state. DOMA may not stand under legal scrutiny but an amendment to change the very fabric of our Constitution?

Why Bush's embrace of something so draconian? Because an amendment would do far more than outlaw gay marriage in toto. It would make null and void any and all parallel civil arrangements in a relationship between two gay persons. In other words, the far Right wants to bury gays in their closet. It is a piece of social engineering every bit as cruel and unnecessary as the worst excesses of Left wing ideology. Not to mention it is outright anti-Federalist. Conservative commentators have spoken out against introducing such an amendment on conservative grounds. But that's the whole point. The far Right is not conservative any more then the Left is liberal. They are ideologues.

The closet? A life of shame? A shadow existence that Bush described so eloquently last night when speaking about amnesty for illegal immigrants? I have one thing to say to the far Right about this and it is the same response I would give to the Islamists: you'll have to kill me first. At least here, the Islamists are more honest and consistent. The Hebrew bible demands death to homosexuals caught in the act of (what? Being in a healthy relationship?), but the Christian biblical literalists, who swoon over the Word they deem God dictated yet conveniently overlook when it comes to eating shrimp, won't go that far. No lethal injection for the likes of me. At least Osama bin Laden is true to his word on this subject. Though his method would probably be the sword and not the needle or the chair.

As it stands, there is not a groundswell of support for a constitutional amendment outlawing gay marriage. Andrew Sullivan points out it is currently at 20%. Most people who oppose gay marriage, to date, do not support an amendment. We all know how difficult it is for an amendment to pass. Here's hoping it doesn't. I will have to roll my dice and hope for the best because—

. . . what pains me most is that the Democrats are more enlightened on some social issues than the far Right yet the liberal party cannot be trusted with prosecuting the war of civilization against barbarism. I guess I have become a single-issue voter. Not a good place for a citizen. I wish I could say I'm an unabashed supporter of Bush but given the extreme peril we continue to be in, and the surety our enemies will not stop to try to attack us, or attack us, until they are destroyed and democracy begins to take root in the Middle East, I have no choice but to endorse him.