Yesterday President Bush bestowed upon the American public and the White House press corps the honor of a press conference - his first in nearly five months.
Among other eyebrow-raising items, Bush announced that his administration is working on codifying the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Though to be fair, he tried to say it in an inclusive way:
"I am mindful that we're all sinners," the president said, and borrowing from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, added:"And I caution those who may try to take the speck out of their neighbor's eye when they got a log in their own."
Oh yes, he really said that. Then he said this:
"On the other hand, that does not mean that somebody like me needs to compromise on issues such as marriage. And that's really where the issue is headed here in Washington, and that is the definition of marriage. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman, and I believe we ought to codify that one way or the other and we have lawyers looking at the best way to do that." (New York Times)
These statements are wrong on any number of levels, but, for the sake of argument, let's just take three:
1. What ever happened to the whole separation of church and state thing?
2. Queers are here to stay, Mr. Bush. They're going to get married in Canada, come back and raise families, move in next door and infiltrate the Pentagon (sneaky queers being what they are). And they deserve more than to be merely tolerated.
3. A U.S. law to define marriage ALREADY EXISTS. It's called the Defense of Marriage Act, and Clinton, god help him, signed it.* (This fact helpfully pointed out by William Eskridge Jr., professor at Yale Law School, as interviewed by the intrepid New York Times.)
#3 is a probably a good example of why Bush has only held nine news conferences in his two and a half years as President. If it isn't scripted, it's a total embarrassment.
*To his credit, this was before Will & Grace.
In an embarrassing/funny sort of way I felt sorry for Bush as he stumbled over many of the questions posed to him. The manner in which he avoided questions from the media over the use of fabricated "stories" as justification for going to war seemed to always be answered with, "Listen, Saddam is bad." His speech was a joke and I can't understand how the conservatives can look at it as a positive step forward.
Posted by: Ed on July 31, 2003 11:14 AMWhat fabricated stories?? I assume your referring to the Uranium from Africa? Just because one piece of evidence proved false doesn't mean the entire thing is false. Both the US and UK are sticking by it...because there is other evidence supporting it.
Jessica Lynch? Go look at the new stories. That whole thing was fabricated by the media. You'll noticed the Pentagon was very tight-lipped about the whole thing.
Posted by: Kevin on August 2, 2003 02:21 PM
