President Bush's renewed declaration of support for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage ("Bush Revives Gay Marriage Ban" - Washington Post) points to the vacuum of moral leadership at the highest levels of our government. It's an election year, the president's popularity is at historic lows, and his supporters are afraid they will lose control of the Congress. What shall be done?
Well, let's dust off an idea that has not a wit of a chance of being approved, but will stir the juices of the conservative base. Never mind that it will drive another huge wedge through the heart of the country and stir angry controversy in a time that can ill afford it. Never mind that it plays with the hearts and souls of many people who yearn for an open and searching dialogue about this delicate issue. A leader with depth and true compassion would refuse to allow something this important to be kicked around as a political football. But instead we get this nonsense, an attempt to redirect the political debate away from war and peace, massive deficits, and a broken health care system. The cynicism of those who offer that kind of leadership is shameful.
This post is not about taking a position on gay marriage--that's for another time. Instead it is simply a call for leaders who understand the issue and who create a process that is worthy of the moral complexities and personal sensitivities at stake. But no, all that is put at risk so political hacks can keep their cushy jobs and avoid accountability for their failures.
The problem is worsened by the evidence that Mr. Bush seems not to be personally invested in this agenda. He has not made it a priority except when it needs to be lifted up as a political club. His vice-president also is reluctant to get into the issue, no doubt in part because it has a human face in his own family. But like good soldiers they lay aside their own ambivalence and become shills of partisan demagoguery.
It would be wonderful if Mr. Bush would use his remaining two plus years to try to heal the festering wounds that his war-making and budget-breaking presidency has inflicted on our nation. But the evidence is that he will go out the way he came in--a decider who decides wrongly, a unifier who divides, and a "compassionate conservative" who is compassionate toward a few but seems not to give a damn for the most vulnerable of people in our land.
If I sound angry it's because I am. We deserve more from our leaders. We should demand that those whose voices speak to the world on our behalf are bold voices of wisdom and courage, not small-minded, pandering voices of fear and division.
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I have thought the same thing ever since I heard about this issue on the news again this morning.
ReplyDeleteThere's not a chinaman's chance of passing such a thing but leave it to this administration to bring it up to stir up the conservative Christians.
Anything to try to save the mid term elections. I, for one, intend to vote against every candidate that supports this president. We need to turn congress over this year to try to salvage something of the nation before it goes into complete bankruptcy....both fiscal and moral bankruptcy...although it may be too late for that.
This issue is probably the most divisive he could come up with. I constantly wonder how on earth homosexual marriage could harm heterosexual marriage. How could it possibly harm it any more then the heterosexuals have with over one in every two marriages ending in divorce?
As a gay Christian I really feel like a pawn of this administration. I'm fairly patiently waiting for the country, and christianity to have a reasoned discussion on these issues that determine my freedoms, and I hate that deliberation being hijacked for political distraction. I pray that even Bush's base can see through this ruse.
ReplyDeleteHi Grant!
ReplyDeleteYou are soooo missed! I am thrilled to see you are still supporting those that are marginalized by society. Maybe one day we will all be able to look back on this type of nonsense amd it will all be over.
At this point I think Bush has shot himself in the foot and is grasping at straws. Like a friend of mine said: "I don't think there is a political person in the nation that wants to be the first to write discrimination into the Amercian Constitution."
God Bless you...It's good seeing you on the net! :)
Joanne
I wish I were as sure this issue will not go far as the rest of you seem to be. I get scared silly when I am up against people who are defending God and morality. It was not god that invented hanging chads. If hanging chads can elect a president, there is no telling what a bunch of legislators can do. I hope you are right but I am worried.
ReplyDeleteYou had me rolling on the floor with your comments. I love the way you make it sound like you are really serious. What's funny is people believe what you're writing. You have a gift for making the ridiculous seem reasonable. By the way I know you secretly like Mr. Bush. He'll go down in history as one of the greatest presidents. Thanks again for the humor.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think he will go down in history as one of the worst. He misled us into a war and created the largest deficit in history and put us in debt to Red China as well as all our allies.
ReplyDeleteThe way to world peace can never be through war.
There has never been a war that was not fought for all the wrong reasons....mainly because war itself is wrong. It makes rich armament dealers richer. This president will leave office far richer then he came to it.
And I am a lifelong registered Republican.
Grant, sometimes I wished you had felt a little more at liberty to talk this way at the pulpit. ;)
ReplyDeleteMargie,
ReplyDeleteA few posts back you complained about the so-called experts spouting off about FEMA without understanding the reality of its role etc., a topic with which you seem to have more accurate first-hand knowledge. I couldn't agree more.
So now why would you make the assertion that "This president will leave office far richer then he came to it."? Do you have first-hand evidence for that assertion? Or are you relying on another set of "experts" who willingly report any kind of rumors (and with no sanctions for being blatantly wrong), despite the sources of these stories having clear political motives (think Michael Moore).
Just as Grant said about having the explanation of the truth about the guy the BBC mistakenly interviewed kind of took away some of the fun/charm of the story, much of the garbage that fills the newspapers and airwaves are simply stories that are "too good to check for accuracy."
The sad part is that the vast majority of people then take it as gospel truth and repeat the nonsense so many times they take it as accepted fact. It isn't. They are bald-faced lies created by lazy or duplicitous reporters, allowed to pass by editors and eagerly consumed by a public anxious to believe anything that supports their pre-conceived ideas about people and events.
You can't have it both ways...