February 25, 2004 [LINK]
Bush urges marriage amendment
President Bush has called for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, which would thereby forbid any marriages of homosexual couples. In my opinion, tampering with the Constitution for such a purpose is almost as absurd as the notion of homosexual marriage itself. Established social institutions are not any more subject to legislation than they are to judicial or executive fiat, and the proposed amendment would probably backfire. To his credit, Governor Schwarzenegger, who followed Ralph Nader on Meet the Press last Sunday, made clear his opposition to the illegal "marriages" taking place up in Frisco, but he didn't seem to know what he was going to do to stop them. It turns out that Vice President Cheney's daughter Mary is openly lesbian, and gay rights groups are trying to persuade her to stand up for their cause. It reminds me that it no longer seems to be enough for gays to be merely tolerated; many are apparently so insecure about their lifestyle that they crave an explicit affirmative endorsement by society. In my view, "Live and let live" does not mean that we are obliged to approve of how other folks live.