Bush may stumble in the culture wars too - more lies and contradictions:
(Washington Post)
This reluctance is not surprising, said Andrew Kohut, whose nonpartisan Pew Research Center has polled extensively about gay marriage. Recent polls, including a new Washington Post-ABC News survey, show majorities oppose gay marriage, but the public is divided on the need for a constitutional amendment.
It ranked 23rd out of 24 policy priorities in a January Pew poll. At the same time, Kohut said, "There are a fair number of swing voters who take a libertarian point of view, and if Republicans are seen as taking rights away, it's not a good thing."
Indeed, at a fundraiser Monday night, Bush vowed to "extend the frontiers of liberty." But 15 hours later, he threw his support behind an amendment that would be only the second in U.S. history other than Prohibition to curtail public freedoms. In the 2000 campaign, Bush himself opposed federal intervention on the subject, saying in a Feb. 15 interview with CNN's Larry King that states "can do what they want to do" on gay marriage. Vice President Cheney, similarly, said in 2000, "I don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area."
Republican pollster David Winston said Bush likely would have preferred to let the issue make its way through the courts, but the San Francisco gay marriages "forced his hand" by infuriating conservatives. Although Bush's opposition to gay marriage has the support of the "overwhelming majority of Americans," Winston said, such social issues can mutate in unpredictable ways. "It's a very difficult balance."
Already, some conservatives are pushing Bush to back an amendment that outlaws civil unions, too.
"In the last couple of months, the base has been hungry for moral leadership to come out of White House and was urging him to do something strong like he did today," said Robert Knight, director of Concerned Women for America's Culture and Family Institute.
But Knight said conservatives will balk if Bush sanctions an amendment allowing civil unions. "Creating counterfeits by any name hurts the real thing," he said. |
