Posted on 05/14/2006 5:03:17 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
The lesbian daughter of US Vice President Dick Cheney hit out at President George W. Bush's support for a constitutional amendment proscribing gay marriage.
Mary Cheney, 37, told Fox News Sunday that the idea, which was backed strongly by Bush's Republican Party during his 2004 re-election campaign and continues to be promoted by many conservatives today, was "a bad piece of legislation".
"I think that is what the federal marriage amendment is, it is writing discrimination into the constitution.
"It is writing discrimination into the constitution and, as I say, it is fundamentally wrong."
"I would also hope that no one would think about trying to amend the constitution as a political strategy," she added.
Cheney, who worked on her father's campaign staff in 2004, said she very nearly quit the reelection effort over the issue.
In the wake of controversial moves to make same-sex marriage legal in California and other states, conservatives pushed strongly to have the constitution amended to define marriage as strictly between a man and a woman.
The effort failed in mid-2004, but a number of individual states passed their own initiatives to restrict marriage to traditional male-female couples.
Cheney, who has just published a book, "It's My Turn", covering in part her experience during the campaign, said she was troubled by the stance of the party she was backing.
"President Bush obviously feels very strongly about this issue ... Quite honestly, it was an issue I had some trouble with, as I talk about in the book. I came very close to quitting my job on the re-election campaign over this very issue."
But she said she was also "very angry" when Bush and Dick Cheney's opponents in the campaign, Senators John Kerry and John Edwards, challenged the Bush stance by publicly pointing out that Mary Cheney was a lesbian.
"It was a cheap and blatant political ploy" when Edwards used her as an example in debating the issue with her father, Mary Cheney said.
Speaking separately on Fox News Sunday, Bush's wife Laura noted the issue of gay marriage still sparked debate across the country.
"I don't think it should be used as a campaign tool, obviously," she said.
"But I do think it's something that people in the United States want to debate. And it requires a lot of sensitivity to talk about the issue, a lot of sensitivity."
Wrong. You do not vote for legislation, your elected state representatives do...
Article. IV.Section. 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,...
Article. V.
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress;...
Article. VI.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution;...
Hehehe...let me try.
if the voters of a state decide to grant same sex marriages the right slavery, then there should be no article in the Constitution that restricts that state from doing so.
if the voters of a state decide to grant same sex marriages the right not to bear arms, then there should be no article in the Constitution that restricts that state from doing so.
I understand your concern about federal control. But gay "marriage" isn't exactly something that states and other jurisdictions (before there was even a United States of America) have debated for thousands of years. Gay "marriage" is something that historically has been universally opposed, and has never once been approved via a popular referendum.
Someone mentioned the Prohibition Amendment earlier, as an example of federal intrusion. But that issue was one that people had been divided over for centuries, if not millennia. You could travel across America in 1916 and pass through a dry county, then a wet county, then another dry county, etc.
Gay "marriage" is nothing like that. It's not an issue where half the country feels one way and half the other, where for decades or centuries local elected bodies have come down sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other. The idea that you can only marry someone of the opposite sex has historically been universal. The reason for all these recent state constitutional amendments to limit marriage to a man and a woman isn't because limiting marriage to a man and a woman is a new idea. It's because gay "marriage" is such a freakish idea that no state ever thought it would be necessary to constitutionally prohibit it until recently.
And what happened recently? Judges began taking it upon themselves to overthrow not only our laws, but our institutions that date back thousands of years. A federal marriage amendment is simply a defense against aggression by unelected judges and arrogant officials.
A pair of gays have moved next door to my Mom who lives in a very nice area of older retirees. What these guys have done with their landscaping makes the rest of the neighorhood look project-ty. :o) Fountains everywhere.
This is not a democracy... see #101...
Which is EXACTLY why leaving even a "glass half full GOP congress" is essential. We need conservative judges that will interpret the Constitution as narrowly as possible.
I agree with you on that.
Vandalism is your mother's only recourse. Spray paint, dark clothing, soot for the face. An Alpha Team of six or seven senior citizens in the middle of the night should be sufficient.
You are absolutely correct. Oops.
But my overall point is still applicable. The closer people are to home, the better I will be represented.
In addition, I AM able to vote for various propositions. Which is a term I should have used.
I agree that it is frightening to not do this top down. Freakishly frightening if it were.
But to be honest, I think we should trust the American public and the American system to do the right thing.
If we are not divided on this issue as you say, then we have nothing to fear.
And again, I am 100% gay marriage and to be honest, even domestic partnerships.
BTW, I think reforming the tax code would go a LONG way to completely erasing this issue.
You are correct. It defines what the government will recognize as marriage. It does not restrict what any individual does.
No, it is not... see #101...
It is worth noting this amendment also affects polygamy.
In order for Utah to become a state the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT required utah define marriage as one man and one woman.
There is precident for the feds to do this. It is only the Mass SC Judge woman who wants to follow the ABA's model code which has marriage based on a sex act alone.
That is why we have a House of Representatives in the Congress, elected by district and apportioned to the population...
To be fair, a federal marriage amendment WOULD restrict states and voters in theory. I say in theory because there's not a single state where the voters would want to sanction gay "marriage". However, in THEORY, the voters of (for example) Colorado currently could pass a state constitutional amendment sanctioning gay "marriage". A federal marriage amendment wouldn't allow them to do that.
The issue, as I see it, is twofold.
First, we're currently on a trajectory which will almost certainly lead to gay "marriage" being imposed on the states by federal judicial fiat. State control of this issue will at that point cease to be an option. The only way to stop it is with a federal amendment limiting marriage to one man and one woman. That amendment will restrict states and their voters, but only to the extent that the states and their voters sanction the amendment in the first place. In other words, the people of the fifty states don't want gay "marriage", so it isn't like states or the people are being robbed of a desired policy.
If they amended the Constitution tomorrow to prohibit states from sanctioning human-animal marriages, it wouldn't affect any popular state laws since not one state sanctions such marriages. You could argue that such an amendment is currently unnecessary, but that's only because no one is currently trying to legalize such marriages. No one was trying to legalize gay "marriages" for the past 6,000 years, but that's recently changed. We now have a well-financed movement to sanction such "marriages". It doesn't have popular support, but it has money, media backing, and friends in high appointed places. That's a good combination for steamrolling over public opinion.
We can either block them with a federal amendment, or they'll roll over the states with a judicial fiat which, unlike the proposed federal marriage amendment, isn't supported by the people, the states, or history and tradition.
The second problem is the constant drilling of pro-gay "marriage" ideas into people's heads by the media. Years ago, a gay activist said that the majority would never be convinced that homosexuality is a good thing, but with the right programming they could be taught that it's no big deal, just a "lifestyle" which we should all sanction and "tolerate".
What will happen if they succeed at this? We'll lose a lot of freedom. Freedom of association, of speech, of religion. We'll lose more property rights and voting rights as issue after issue is taken over by the courts. A federal marriage amendment will help stem this, though of course the homosexual movement has long and numerous tentacles.
#####If we are not divided on this issue as you say, then we have nothing to fear#####
Nothing to fear from the voters. But we do have a lot to fear from the courts.
You have to learn to read first...
Article. VI.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
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