Hate Amendment Can't Even Make it to Vote

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The Hate Amendment didn't even make it to a vote in the senate yesterday. Most of the headlines on online news sites are heartening (Bush's Push for Gay Ban Blocked By Senate) in that they clearly link the proposed constitutional amendment with Bush himself.

The measure only received 48 votes for cloture (60 required), meaning that less than half of the senate even wanted to vote on it. Had the measure gone to vote, the level of support would have been even lower because of a number of Republicans who opposed the amendment itself even though they supported taking it to vote. I doubt that the amendment would have gotten even 40 senate votes of 67 required.

While most everyone is painting this as a loss for Bush, I can't believe that they actually misjudged this so badly. Nobody expected this thing to pass, I think it was more to paint the Democrats into a "homo-loving" corner and to aggravate Bush's gay-hating base to get them out to vote.

Or maybe they really are as arrogant and stupid as this makes them look.

Culture | U.S. Law | United States

option 1
Submitted by poot (not verified) on 15 July, 2004 - 3:51pm.

It's definitely option #1.

I generally dislike SNL, but Will Ferrel's GWB was dead-on-balls when he gave us the following nugget:

"I don't give a rat's ass."

I genuinely think the high-ups in BushCo. simply do not care about this issue, all other things being equal. John Ashcroft is a possible exception, but he hasn't been very vocal about it.

Things, or more specifically various factions of the GOP coalition, are not equal, however. Grossly insulting GOP-supporting GLBTXYZ folk and GLBTXYZ-supporting folk costs BushCo. a tiny little bit politically, and it goes a long way towards placating and even mobilizing their Zealot brigade. The political calculus is clear, and the fact that they probably knew it would fail only made it easier to do. Nobody in the religious-right faction can reasonably blame the president for failing to make all those wicked senators play ball.

McCain's references to the proposed amendment being offensive to state's rights are pretty hollow; that's an intellectual position that can't really hold much sway in an intellect-free presidential race. Even Supreme Court Justices have been known to toss it to the wayside when it would produce a result that would conflict with their more deeply-held passions. See, for example, Bush v. Gore.

I'm really shocked that among the general public there's such a resistance to amending the Constitution despite the fact that the proposed amendment reflects the views of the national majority. Something about that level of political sophistication "on the streets" seems very wrong.