Feb 24 2004
The Hate Amendment
WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 — It is a cardinal rule of politics, all the more so for a president who saw his father defeated largely because he failed to heed it fully: Pay attention to the party’s base.
In recent weeks, on a variety of fronts, President Bush has done just that, trying to allay the concerns and stoke the spirits of his restive conservative base. His impassioned endorsement on Tuesday of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, after weeks of intensive lobbying by social conservatives, was the culmination of this rapprochement.
But will he pay a price with the centrist voters who so often decide presidential elections, as the Democrats hope? Or is the country at such an ideologically polarized point that the middle simply matters less?
Almost no one suggests that Mr. Bush is operating solely on the basis of political calculations. In his remarks on Tuesday, he emphasized that “an amendment to the Constitution is never to be undertaken lightly,” and closed his remarks with a plea to “conduct this difficult debate in a manner worthy of our country, without bitterness or anger.”
But as David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, put it, “neither is it fair to say that the politics of it aren’t important.”
The administration clearly recognized in recent weeks that it faced political unrest on its right, after what Mr. Keene described as “a short period of denying the problem existed.” The soaring deficits, the growth in government, and most particularly the passage of a Medicare bill that amounted to the biggest expansion of that entitlement program in 38 years, all led to growing discontent among economic conservatives. Other conservatives were dismayed by the administration’s immigration proposal, granting temporary work permits to illegal immigrants.
At the same time, in the wake of a Massachusetts court ruling declaring marriage a basic right that could not be denied to gay people, social conservatives were pushing hard for the president to embrace a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to heterosexuals. Still others were frustrated in the face of Senate filibusters of some conservative judicial nominees.
Mr. Bush began to respond. In a classic exercise of presidential muscle, he bypassed the Senate and installed two conservatives in federal judgeships, positions long denied them by Democrats on Capitol Hill. He issued a veto threat against a $318 billion highway and mass transit bill, cheering economic conservatives who have long demanded a harder line on spending.
Finally, after a long period of edging up to the amendment with qualifications and reservations, and after days of news dominated by gay couples getting marriage licenses in San Francisco, Mr. Bush made his intentions clear on Tuesday.
Many are calling it “The Hate Amendment.” I do not know if the desire to amend our Constitution in this manner is based on hate or just a misplaced sense of moral superiority, but I do know that it is the wrong thing to do.
Our Constitution was written to define and limit the powers of government and to further the liberties and rights of individual citizens. It was not written to champion discrimination or to forever relegate a portion of our country’s population to second class citizenship. It is sad that the leaders of our country, up to and including our president, do not understand this.
