“A Question of Values,” My Ass

Surveys show that same-sex marriage is no longer a lightning rod for voter attention and anger, the way it was a mere two years ago when 11 states elected to bar gay couples from being wed. And only 42 percent of Americans (according to a recent ABC News poll) say that same-sex marriage should be forbidden by a Republican-endorsed constitutional amendment. Yet the GOP, going into the deep end of next week’s midterm elections with the anchor of George W. Bush’s failed Iraq war wrapped tightly around its neck, is looking for something--anything--to change the voters from its multitude of scandals involving sex and corruption.

So, in response to last week’s New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that gay couples in the Garden State are entitled to the same rights as heterosexuals, Bush and his fellow Republican’ts are trying to drum up widespread rage against same-sex marriage once more. Talk about a stale subject! And an obvious effort to distract voters from what they say are their principal concerns this election cycle: the war in Iraq, government overspending, gas prices, and health care costs. One place where the GOP is hoping to focus that anti-gay marriage ire is in Colorado, where voters next week will be asked to turn thumbs up or down on Amendment 43, a ballot measure that would change the Colorado Bill of Rights to “state clearly that same-sex marriage is and will be forever illegal in the state,” according to Wikipedia. “The change in the constitutional language states that marriage is to be between ‘one man and one woman’ only.”

As the TV ad featured below makes clear, however, this amendment is unnecessary and mean-spirited, intended only to draw voter attention away other issues: