It was, in fact, the sound of Lawrence v. Texas exploding into politics. The Supreme Court’s decision, a sweeping defense of privacy rights for gays and lesbians, has created the first new hot-button issue of the ‘04 campaign. Frist, now the Republican Senate leader, was seeking to win points with the GOP’s Bible belt cultural base, for whom cutting taxes and waging war do not eclipse the importance of their view of family values.
Without an amendment, leading conservatives argue, all states will be forced to recognize the validity of homosexual marriages performed in any state that approves them. (Massachusetts may soon be the first.) With no-fingerprints support from the White House, Frist was sharpening another cultural “wedge issue” with which to divide the already beleaguered Democrats. Most of the party’s presidential candidates support some kind of “partnership” benefits and “civil unions.” But even aggressive gay-rights supporters–such as Dr. Howard Dean–have studiously avoided approving full legal recognition of gay or lesbian marriage.
At a forum next week sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign (the leading gay and lesbian political group), contenders will be pressed for their view of the group’s chief cause: marriage rights. It’s an unpopular idea, and the leading candidates will probably say no. But conservatives will then insist that backing this amendment is the only way for the Democrats to prove their true allegiance to traditional family values.
Wedges, however, can cut both ways. While conservatives like Gary Bauer promise to push the constitutional initiative, the “big tent” GOP doesn’t want to seem churlish or hopelessly uncool–and it has a libertarian wing centered on Wall Street. The Cheneys have an activist lesbian daughter. So while Frist stroked the right and took the heat, the president declined to back the amendment–for now. “I don’t know if its necessary yet,” he said. Lawyers, he added, would need time to study the matter. So, too, would his political advisers, to see if Frist’s words alone would do the trick.
