Bush is not always a radical

The Bush administration is not as socially conservative as many liberals think. The president supports a federal ban on gay marriage-which doesn't make sense because marriage in the United States is a state's issue. This also makes no sense since the Republicans are supposedly strong supporters of state's rights. But Bush's official position is that states have the right to allow civil unions among homosexuals. Civil unions would give homosexual couples almost all same rights under "marriage". According to some polls roughly 66 percent of Americans support some form of civil unions. So why is it that so many people are demanding homosexuals be allowed to marry before they achieve civil union status- considering the fact that in most states they have no legal status as a couple?

Social movements that attempt to change societies too fast almost always fail to achieve their goal. During the French Revolution many leaders attempted to radically change the structure of French society quickly-throwing the country in to chaos. This lead to a backlash by the populace, restoring the government power to the monarchy. Something similar occured to the homosexual movement when 1 state allowed gay marriage but 11 states have now decided to ban gay marriage. Many states went beyond marriage curtailing certain rights guranteed under civil unions. The vast majority of states will eventually ban gay marriage and I believe it is very likely that the Bush administration will be able ban gay marriage through a constitutional amendment. It would then be nearly impossible to reverse such a constitutional amendment.


Personally I believe that every state should decide if they will ban gay marriage and civil unions, ban gay marriage but allow full civil unions, or allow gays to marry. This would be in accordance with the Defense of Marriage Act signed by former President Bill Clinton, my idol. In fact, it is said that Bill Clinton called John Kerry to tell him that he should support the 11 initiatives to ban gay marriage. Is Bill Clinton against gay marriage? I think so. Is John Kerry against gay marriage? Yes, but he is in favor of civil unions. Now consider the fact that Kerry gained no votes from the position that he is against gay marriage. Most voters who are strongly against gay marriage favoring "traditional values" probably voted for Bush anyways. Dick Gephardt, whose daughter is a gay, is against gay marriage. These men have lead the more liberal Democratic party in the 1990's, but they are all against gay marriage because they know that such a drastic change to the traditional viewpoint of marriage would lead to a backlash among Americans. Did we just witnesses the first of many backlashes against gay marriage? I think so.