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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (20424)	6/7/2006 2:47:54 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Ignoring a danger to liberty by Alan Sears Townhall.com Jun 6, 2006 So, essentially, the argument in opposition to a federal marriage amendment comes down to this: sex trumps God. Sex trumps religious liberty. Sex trumps the well-being of children. Sex trumps personal conscience. Sex trumps the Constitution. By forcing court-ordered same-sex “marriage” on the rest of us, political activists pushing the homosexual agenda will compel the great majority of American citizens and religious groups to ignore their deepest spiritual convictions, and effectively embrace—at the point of a legal shotgun—a homosexual definition of matrimony. And, in doing so, these same advocates will force open the door for polygamy and countless other redefinitions of the term. Marriage, having ceased to become what it is, will effectively become nothing at all. Mission accomplished. Then, on to the next mission: search out and destroy any church or religious institution that doesn’t embrace homosexual behavior. Twenty-three years ago, the courts took away Bob Jones University’s tax exemptions, in response to school rules prohibiting interracial dating and marriage. It would be no great stretch for those same courts to de-exempt, say, a Bible college that outlaws homosexual dating and other behavior. Already, parents in Massachusetts who object to the teaching of pro-homosexual messages in their children’s public schools have been told they have no say. Same-sex “marriage” is legal in their state, a judge told them; why shouldn’t teachers promote it in the classroom? Scott Savage, a Quaker and librarian at Ohio State University, is only the latest in a long line of college faculty and staff members all over the country to find his job and reputation hanging by a thread, merely for questioning the politically-correct, pro-homosexual status quo. Does anyone really think judicially mandated same-sex “marriage” is going to lessen the number or kind of allegations (bigotry, sexual harassment) that Savage and other conscientious students and educators are being forced to endure? The Hobson’s choice made by Catholic Charities Boston (to discontinue its work, rather than arrange adoptions for same-sex couples) illustrates the kind of pressure more and more religious-based organizations will face once states hand over their legal keys to the homosexual activists. And the case of Pastor Ake Green—arrested in his native Sweden for daring to preach a sermon in his own church on what the Bible says about homosexual behavior—gives an ominous preview of coming attractions, once religious liberty falls afoul of the homosexual movement’s aggressive intolerance—an intolerance demanding religious liberty give way to the homosexual agenda. That intolerance is building like a tsunami, just off the shores of federal law. It’s all well and good for some United States senators to mount a high horse, wrap themselves in the flag, and sidestep their responsibilities, grandly announcing that marriage amendments should be handled at the state level. They know that no matter how many citizens approve such amendments, leftist federal judges—urged on by the ACLU and radical homosexual advocates—will continue to try to nullify the referendums. Furthermore, the precedent of federal protection of marriage is long established. Western states like Arizona and Utah had to proscribe polygamy in their constitutions to come into the union. This was in the 19th and 20th centuries, as part of the Republican national platform. Soon enough, what’s left of marriage will be engulfed by politically-correct edicts. It’s amazing to realize how much has come to hinge on this amendment, and in such a short time. Once, and not so long ago, religious freedom was understood as a priority – indeed, as the fundamental right protected by the Constitution. But that was back when Divine directives were acknowledged as both prescient and legal precedent; the horrors of persecution weren’t so far removed but that people—even judges—recognized how precious it is, this freedom to preach and pray. Even those who had no real intention of putting God before salacious satisfaction understood that, in sidestepping thousands of years of holy revelation and moral conviction, they were deliberately choosing “the dark side.” They recognized their hypocrisy, in Matthew Arnold’s famous phrase, as “the tribute vice pays to virtue.” These days, vice is widely regarded as the virtue, and it’s receiving tributes galore from judges, academes, actors, and even pastors too besotted with the glories of humanism to recognize the freedoms slipping fast through their fingers. The problems with same-sex “marriage” are myriad—the emotional implications for children, the permanent physical and psychological dangers for those engaging in homosexual behavior, the structural cracks in society, the precedent for government intrusion in profoundly personal arenas. But even the most sobering of these social ripples pales beside the very real threat that court-decreed homosexual “marriage” poses for the future of religious liberty in America. The couples themselves can talk all they like about love and benefits. But what they really want isn’t marriage at all. It’s a divorce of Americans from their most basic freedom. Alan Sears, a former federal prosecutor who held various posts in the departments of Justice and Interior during the Reagan Administration, is president and CEO of the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation. He is co-author with Craig Osten of the new book The ACLU vs. America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values. Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com townhall.com

To: Sully- who wrote (20424)	6/7/2006 4:07:19 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

The Senator who cried 'bigot' by Maggie Gallagher Townhall.com Jun 6, 2006 Sen. Ted Kennedy certainly let us know what he really thinks of Americans who support the Marriage Protection Amendment, defining marriage as the union of husband and wife: <<< "A vote for this amendment is a vote for bigotry, pure and simple." >>> According to Minority Leader Harry Reid, even suggesting the Constitution should protect marriage as the union of husband and wife constitutes something like hate speech: <<< "For me, it is clear the reason for this debate is to divide our society, to pit one against another," Reid said. "This is another one of the president's efforts to frighten, to distort, to distract and to confuse America." >>> Gay marriage activists published even more vitriolic denunciations. My personal favorite came from Paula Ettelbrick, the NYU law professor who heads something called the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, a U.S.-based organization. She called the Marriage Protection Amendment "an unquestioned violation of international treaties" and a "clear violation of international human rights." I was in the room on Monday when President Bush made his remarks in support of a constitutional amendment to protect marriage. I applauded with the rest of the crowd when he said: "Every American deserves to be treated with tolerance and respect and dignity. On an issue of this great significance, opinions are strong and emotions run deep. And all of us have a duty to conduct this discussion with civility and decency toward one another." I certainly believe that. But I have to wonder, do advocates for gay marriage also believe it? Will no one turn to Ted Kennedy and say, "Sir, have you no decency?" The six in 10 Americans who oppose gay marriage (and the majority who in the latest Gallup poll support a constitutional amendment to protect marriage) do not deserve to be denounced as bigots by their own elected officials. The "B" word is also fueling new fears about the ultimate consequences of gay marriage. As Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said on the floor of the Senate: <<< "Same-sex marriage proponents argue that sexual orientation is like race, and that opponents of same-sex marriage are therefore like bigots who oppose interracial marriage. Once same-sex marriage becomes law, that understanding is likely to be controlling." >>> Brownback pointed to a litany of potential negative consequences for traditional faiths: <<< "So in states with same-sex marriage, religiously affiliated schools, adoption agencies, psychological clinics, social workers, marital counselors, etc. will be forced to choose between violating their own deeply held beliefs and giving up government contracts, tax-exempt status, or even being denied the right to operate at all. ... It's already happening, as we've seen in Massachusetts with Boston's Catholic Charities being forced out of the adoption business entirely rather than violate church teaching on marriage and family." >>> Brownback was drawing on the conclusions of an impressive group of religious liberty scholars, brought together by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty to consider the implications of same-sex marriage. (You can read the paper yourself at www.becketfund.org/index.php/article/494.html.) For the foreseeable future, Americans are going to live with some deep moral disagreements on the marriage issue. Conducting this debate in a spirit of mutual respect and civility would be a lot easier if gay marriage advocates stopped pretending that only fear, hatred or bigotry is at the root of these disagreements. Maggie Gallagher is the author of three books on the marriage movement and a nationally syndicated columnist. Copyright © 2006 Universal Press Syndicate townhall.com

To: Sully- who wrote (20424)	6/7/2006 5:20:05 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

A baseless attack Power Line E.J. Dionne is irate that President Bush is pushing for a constitutional ban on gay marriage in an election year, and Dionne thinks Bush's "base" should be irate as well. It's hard to see why, though. Bush campaigned in favor of the amendment, but it was hardly the center-piece of his campaign, and no reasonable voter could have concluded that the amendment was among his highest priority agenda-items. Thus, it makes sense that he did not push for the amendment until the second year of his new term. Nor, on balance, can Bush be accused of stacking his second year initiatives in favor of issues that appeal to social conservatives. Bush is putting a huge amount of political capital behind an immigration reform package that most social conservatives I know hate. Although I disagree with Bush on the issue, it's clear that he is being far more principled than, say, Bill Clinton was. By the way, I don't recall Dionne scrutinizing Clinton's legislative timing for hints of opportunism. It's understandable that a rank Democratic partisan like Dionne is unhappy (a) that Bush's legislative agenda contains some elements that his base favors and (b) that Democrats may be forced to vote on the issue of same-sex marriage. But there's no reason why this should displease the conservative base. UPDATE: This lead by Shailagh Murray and Charles Babington captures the essence of Dionne's argument: <<< Republican voters, are you paying attention? Because this week's Senate agenda is all about you, with debates scheduled on same-sex marriage and a permanent repeal of the estate tax. >>> What an outrage! A Republican president and a Republican Congress are conspiring to pass legislations that Republican voters like. Meanwhile, however, Captain Ed finds merit in Dionne's rant. JOHN adds: I've been struck by how many news stories on the marriage amendment (not just opinion columns like Dionne's) have nakedly asserted, usually within the first paragraph or two, that the amendment is being offered to placate the Republicans' base and shore up the party's sagging poll numbers. Can you remember the last time a Democratic legislative initiative was greeted so cynically? I can't. Just once, I'd like to see a news lead like this: <<< This afternoon, Senate Democrats led by Ted Kennedy (D-Mass) offered, as they do every election year, a proposal to increase the minimum wage. The Democrats sought to boost their declining approval ratings, and to curry favor with low-wage workers and union members who are irate that the Democrats have abandoned their issues to concentrate, instead, on pacifism and social liberalism, and have sold them down the river by advocating open borders. >>> powerlineblog.com washingtonpost.com washingtonpost.com captainsquartersblog.com

To: Sully- who wrote (20424)	6/7/2006 6:54:25 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Wedlock amendment no breach of federalism By Jordan Lorence The Washington Times June 7, 2006 The proposed Marriage Protection Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not violate principles of federalism. The definition of marriage has never been left to the states. Some conservatives urge defeat of the amendment because, they say, the Constitution has traditionally left regulation of marriage to the states. But the proposed amendment does not address state power to regulate marriage; rather, it requires states to adopt a uniform definition of marriage of one man and one woman -- something Congress has imposed upon states seeking admission to the Union for 160 years. No concept of federalism has ever granted states the authority to define marriage any way they desire. Federalism only grants states the power to regulate marriage already defined as one man and one woman. For the first half-century of America's history governed by the U.S. Constitution, no one questioned this assumption that all states had to define marriage the same way. The question first arose in 1848, when Brigham Young and the Mormon polygamists of the Utah Territory sought statehood from Congress and insisted on their authority as a state to define legal marriage as including polygamy. Congress, however, refused to grant Utah statehood unless it banned polygamy in its state constitution. The Mormon-dominated territorial legislature of Utah objected to this condition for statehood for almost 50 years, triggering a great struggle between Congress and the citizens of Utah over state authority to redefine marriage, including several cases that came before the U.S. Supreme Court.(Utah finally gave up its demand for legalized polygamy and became a state in 1896). The Republican Party itself began as a party opposed to slavery and polygamy in the territories. In its first platform in 1856, the party saw no conflict with its positions on polygamy and state power to regulate marriage when it wrote that "it is both the right and the imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism -- Polygamy, and Slavery." So, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and other like-minded conservatives are simply wrong when they oppose the proposed Marriage Protection Amendment because, as Mr. McCain said in 2004 on the floor of the Senate, it is "antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans," because "it usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed." In fact, the Republican Party began as a party supporting congressional authority to impose a uniform definition of marriage on the states, even on states that wanted to define marriage differently. The threat of state legalization of polygamy compelled Congress to require at least some states to ban polygamy in their state constitutions as a condition of statehood. Interestingly, Congress required some states not only to ban polygamy but also to prohibit any efforts to eliminate those polygamy bans without permission of Congress. They did not view this as a violation of the principle of federalism. For example, Congress required Arizona to ban polygamy in its constitution when the territory became a state in 1912, and the Arizona Constitution further states that "no future constitutional amendment shall be made which in any manner changes or abrogates this ordinance in whole or in part without the consent of Congress (Arizona Constitution, Article 20, section 13). Mr. McCain, take note: The actions of Congress toward your own state demonstrate that, historically, federalism did not bar Congress from imposing a uniform definition of marriage on the states. Additionally, the Utah and New Mexico constitutions state that their respective bans on polygamy cannot be repealed without the consent of Congress. Clearly, Congress saw no violation of federalism in ordering some states not to change a marriage definition provision of their state constitutions without the consent of the federal government. In other words, federalism does not empower states to redefine marriage. The Supreme Court has written approvingly of congressional authority to condition statehood on a territory's adoption of a definition of marriage as one man and one woman. In the 1885 decision of Murphy v. Ramsey, the U.S. Supreme Court stated, "certainly no legislation can be supposed more wholesome and necessary in the founding of a free, self-governing commonwealth, fit to take rank as one of the coordinate States of the Union, than that which seeks to establish it on the basis of the idea of the family, as consisting in and springing from the union for life of one man and one woman in the holy estate of matrimony; the sure foundation of all that is stable and noble in our civilization." The court's language may be flowery, but its point is clear. Congress has the constitutional authority to require states to adopt a uniform definition of marriage. This is a separate issue from the question answered by the principle of federalism, which presupposes states regulate marriage but gives them no authority to redefine it. Members of the House and Senate should vote in favor of the proposed Marriage Protection Amendment without concern they are violating a long-held understanding of federalism. Instead, they are fulfilling the historical understanding of Congress' role in the interplay of federalism and the definition of marriage. Jordan Lorence is senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund in Scottsdale, Ariz. In 2004, he argued the case before the California Supreme Court in which it invalidated the marriage licenses issued by San Francisco to same-sex couples. washingtontimes.com

To: Sully- who wrote (20424)	6/10/2006 12:05:13 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Protecting marriage by Charles Krauthammer Townhall.com Jun 9, 2006 WASHINGTON -- On Wednesday, the Senate fell 18 votes short of the two-thirds majority required to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The mainstream media joined Sen. Edward Kennedy in calling the entire debate a distraction from the nation's business and a wedge with which to divide Americans. Since the main business of Congress is to devise ever more ingenious ways (earmarked and non-earmarked) to waste taxpayers' money, any distraction from the main business is welcome. As for dividing Americans, who came up with the idea of radically altering the most ancient of all social institutions in the first place? Until the last few years, every civilization known to man has defined marriage as between people of opposite sex. To charge with "divisiveness'' those who would do nothing more than resist a radical overturning of that norm is a sign of either gross partisanship or serious dimwittedness. And that partisanship and dimwittedness obscured the rather interesting substance of the recent Senate debate. It revolved around the two possible grounds for the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment: federalism and popular sovereignty. Federalism. When one state, such as Massachusetts, adopts gay marriage, the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution might reasonably be applied to require other states to recognize such marriages, and thus essentially force it upon the rest of the nation. Federalism, however, is meant to allow states the autonomy of social experimentation (as with Oregon's legalization of assisted suicide) from which other states can learn. It is not intended to force other states to follow. But it turns out that the Massachusetts experiment has not been forced on other states. No courts have required other states to recognize Massachusetts-performed gay marriages. Gay activists have not pushed it, wisely calculating that it would lead to a huge backlash. Moreover, Congress' Defense of Marriage Act explicitly prevents the state-to-state export of gay marriage. Should DOMA be overturned, that would justify a constitutional amendment to prevent one state from imposing its will on the other 49. But it has not been overturned. And under the current Supreme Court, it is unlikely to be. The Marriage Protection Amendment is therefore superfluous. That leaves justification No. 2: Popular Sovereignty. Gay marriage is a legitimate social issue to be decided democratically. The problem is that imperial judges are legislating their own personal preferences, striking down popular will and calling it constitutional law. Most notoriously, in Massachusetts a total of four judges out of seven decided that the time had come for gay marriage. More recently, in Georgia and Nebraska, judges have overturned anti-gay-marriage (state) constitutional amendments that had passed with more than 70 percent of the vote. This is a rerun of the abortion fiasco: judicial fiat that decades later leaves the issue roilingly unsettled and divisive. This is no way to set social policy in a democracy. So why not have a federal constitutional amendment and smite the arrogant solons of Massachusetts, Nebraska and Georgia, and those yet to come, all at once? Because it is an odd solution for a popular-sovereignty problem to take the gay marriage issue completely out of the hands of the people. Once the constitutional amendment is passed, should the current ethos about gay marriage change, no people in any state could ever permit gay marriage. The MPA actually ends up defeating the principle it sets out to uphold. The solution to judicial overreaching is to change the judiciary, not to undo every act of judicial arrogance with a policy-specific constitutional amendment. Where does it end? Yesterday it was school busing and abortion. Today it is flag-burning and gay marriage. It won't end until the Constitution becomes pockmarked with endless policy amendments. The Constitution was never intended to set social policy. Its purpose is to (a) establish the rules of governance and (b) secure for the individual citizen rights against the power of the state. It defaces the Constitution to turn it into a super-legislative policy document. In the short run, judicial arrogance is to be fought democratically with the means still available. Rewording and repassing the constitutional amendment in Georgia, for example. Appealing the Nebraska decision right up to the Supreme Court, which, given its current composition, is extremely likely to terminate with prejudice this outrageous example of judicial interposition. In the longer run, it means having Supreme Courts that routinely strike down such judicial imperialism. And that means electing presidents who nominate John Roberts and Sam Alito rather than Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. True, this does nothing about today's judicial usurpation in Massachusetts. But that is the problem of its good citizens. If they want to, they have the power to amend their own state constitution. In the meantime, Massachusetts remains quarantined by DOMA. Therefore, there is no need (yet) to disfigure the U.S. Constitution with a policy amendment. Charles Krauthammer is a 1987 Pulitzer Prize winner, 1984 National Magazine Award winner, and a columnist for The Washington Post since 1985. Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com townhall.com

To: Sully- who wrote (20424)	6/12/2006 10:28:04 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Bait and switch by Robert H. Knight Townhall.com Jun 12, 2006 The next time a liberal U.S. senator rises to talk about anything other than three topics—Iraq, gas prices or health care—conservatives should read them their statements during last week’s debate over the Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA). It makes no difference what legislation the liberals bring up. They could be talking about the space program, antitrust law, peanut subsidies or protecting Ted Kennedy’s Cape Cod home from ugly windmills. It doesn’t matter. When they begin to talk, they should be reminded that we should be discussing only Iraq, gas prices and health care. Nothing else is important. The liberal song this week was numbingly repetitive, like the end of Hey Jude, (“Nah, nah, nah, nah nah nah nah”) but without a catchy melody. Here’s the gist: “Why are we dealing with something as trivial as preserving marriage when we could be bashing the Bush administration? Iraq! Gas prices! Health care! All together now!” Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) was one of the few who actually talked about the MPA itself. He called any vote for the amendment “a vote for bigotry, pure and simple.” Well, that’s pretty straightforward. If Mr. Kennedy is correct, then about half the Senate, the president of the United States, the Pope, Billy Graham, the late Mother Teresa, Franklin Roosevelt, the Founding Fathers and a majority of the U.S. electorate are or were drooling, raving hatemongers. The amendment language itself was not an issue for Mr. Kennedy. It was the appalling idea of preserving marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Anyone who believes that a wedding needs a bride and a groom is in Mr. Kennedy’s Bigotry Hall of Shame. Even though Mr. Kennedy is undoubtedly an expert on creative expressions of marriage it would have been better for the country and even for him if he had spent more of his time talking about Iraq. Or gas prices. Or health care. Barbara Boxer (D-California) outdid herself in trying to tie Iraq to the marriage amendment. She went on about the high divorce rate among active military personnel and asked the plaintive question, which I’m slightly paraphrasing, How is denying stable, perfect, angelic, faithful, loving same-sex couples a marriage certificate going to help these women whose lives are falling apart because their husbands are deployed in Iraq? She even brought in the impact on the kids, as if conservatives were kicking them into the gutter and beating them about the ears with a rolled-up copy of the MPA. Now, the plight of military families is a worthy topic, but was their welfare really the point of Senator Boxer’s rant? Not hardly. Incredible as it may seem, we are still supposed to believe that, as a group, liberal U.S. senators passionately believe that marriage should be only the union of one man and one woman. We know because they all told us that before moving on to the Bush-bashing. They all “support our troops” in Iraq, too. That’s why they want to pull out immediately and then conduct war crime trials. When all was said and done, seven “maverick” (read: liberal) Republicans joined all but two Democrats in voting to kill the amendment. It was McCain (Arizona), Specter (Pennsylvania) and the New England Gang (Snowe and Collins of Maine, Sununu and Gregg of New Hampshire, and the ever-trendy Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island) against the rest of the country, or at least Red State America. Meanwhile, while senators were fiddling in Washington, the people in Alabama gave an 81 percent approval to their state’s constitutional amendment. Apparently, they didn’t get the memo that marriage isn’t supposed to be a big deal. Alabama is the 20th state to amend its constitution to protect marriage, with at least six more states—Idaho, South Dakota, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and Wisconsin—voting in November. Another whopper heard on the U.S. Senate floor was the contention that states are handling this just fine, so we don’t need a federal amendment. That would make sense if liberal judges weren’t trashing marriage laws from Massachusetts and Maryland, to Georgia, with Washington state and New Jersey judges poised to do the dirty deed, perhaps after the election in November. In Nebraska U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon last year struck down a constitutional amendment passed by 70 percent of the electorate. His reasoning? Passage of the amendment precludes a “class” of people from “petitioning their government for redress of grievances.” And what’s the grievance? The state’s voters don’t want to recognize anything other than man-woman unions as marriages. This means that people who want other arrangements, such as two guys; two girls; three girls; two guys and a girl; a guy, a girl and a mariachi band; etc. are being denied their First Amendment rights. The logic of this ruling is that anyone on the losing end of a constitutional amendment—federal or state—could claim that he is being denied the right to representational government. In the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Romer v. Evans (1996), Anthony Kennedy used the same logic while accusing the people of Colorado of hatred and bigotry. Perhaps he picked this stuff up while contemplating the meaning of the universe as he read the latest edition of a European law journal or a UFO magazine. There was one bright spot in the proceedings, and this was that the senators did not bloviate about immigration. That’s because they had already rammed through a wildly unpopular amnesty bill and had their ears burned by their constituents. I guess we should be grateful for small favors. Robert Knight is director of the Culture & Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America. Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com townhall.com

To: Sully- who wrote (20424)	6/12/2006 10:47:41 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Thanks E.J. Dionne, for explaining it all to me by Jennifer Roback Morse Townhall.com Jun 12, 2006 Thanks EJ Dionne, for explaining to me that I’ve been used again. The entire week surrounding the vote on the Marriage Amendment, social conservatives were treated to liberal commentary like yours claiming that Republicans were cynically distracting the country from more important issues, like Social Security and repealing the estate tax. According to you and your liberal colleagues, I shouldn’t care about social conservative issues, like gay marriage or abortion. I should really care about George Bush selling me out for issues like “privatizing Social Security and cutting taxes on rich people.” I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but we social conservatives know perfectly well what our interests are. We are capable of thinking beyond the next election cycle and of doing elementary arithmetic. We’ve known for some time that Social Security needs reform, and that Democrats have blocked every meaningful attempt at reform. And let me explain something else to you. I have no prospect of receiving a large inheritance. A lot of us don’t feel it necessary to attack the rich, because we have hopes of joining them someday. But even if I personally am unable to leave my children a dime, I could care less about Bush repealing the estate tax. I’m not worked up about the rich passing their wealth on to their children, because most of that wealth was already taxed as income. Even if the federal government took every last nickel from “The Rich” it wouldn’t be enough to pay the government’s bills. Let’s get something straight. We actually care about the issues you think are just “wedge issues.” I hear from ordinary Americans all the time, through e-mail, talk radio and the in-person talks I give. These working and middle class families are tired of the social experiments of the Life Style Left. Let me introduce you to the working man whose wife left him under no-fault divorce rules. He is now paying to support her and her boyfriend. He seldom gets to see his kids. The reluctantly divorced, men and women alike, are completely off your radar screen. Or let me introduce you to the unmarried mom, who listened to the siren songs of Hollywood and Feminism that glamorize single motherhood and denigrate marriage. She had no idea how difficult her life would be. She completely underestimated how much contact she would have with the father of her child, whom she didn’t like well enough to marry. Maybe you can relate to some of the unmarried women professionals who have joined our ranks. After all, they are well-educated, high-income people who don’t get dirty at work. But you might not realize how many of them are bitter at the lies of feminism. They thought they could postpone childbearing indefinitely. They may have had an abortion. Now their career satisfactions have peaked, and they are longing for a baby. But they have little prospect of finding a husband, and they’re running out of time. The pro-choice slogans of their youth sound hollow to them now. Perhaps you’d like to meet some stay at home mothers, who for your information, are the backbone of the pro-life, pro-family movement. They are tired of their husbands’ income being taxed away to pay for child care tax credits for two-earner households. They would like some respect for their contributions, instead of being sneered at for not really “working.” They are appalled at what is on TV and at what is taught in government schools. And, by the way, after having a couple of kids of their own, they’re pretty sure that the “products of conception” are more than blobs of tissue. What does this have to do with the marriage amendment? Same sex marriage is a massive social experiment, completely unprecedented in human history. American society has not recovered from the last round of social experimentation. These conservatives whom you think so little of and know so poorly, include many victims of the sexual revolution. They may not be able to articulate why they feel so sure that kids need a mom and a dad. They have an intuition that there is something deeply wrong with making marriage a gender neutral institution, which is what same sex marriage will do. They may not be able to put their finger on everything wrong with the idea. But they are not ready to put themselves and their children on the chopping block again. They get frustrated with the GOP leadership but they know they are completely invisible to the Democrats. If you want to woo us from the GOP, stop patronizing us and talk substantively about the issues that matter to us. Trust me: Social conservatives are not going to be talked out of supporting the Republican Party over the estate tax. Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D., is the author of 101 Tips for a Happier Marriage: (You can improve your marriage, even if your spouse doesn’t change a bit) which you can find at www.jennifer-roback-morse.com Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com townhall.com