Editorial: Mean-spirited Bush

Thursday, July 15, 2004 | 8:44 a.m.

On Wednesday an effort to ban same-sex marriage could only muster the support of 48 U.S. senators on a procedural vote to keep it alive, ensuring its demise this year. There never was any expectation that this proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution would receive the two-thirds vote necessary for passage in the Senate. But amendment supporters, including President Bush and Republican congressional leaders, were relentless in seeking a vote for one reason and one reason only: partisan politics in an election year.

Bush wanted to please right-wing Republicans, who make up that party's base, even though the amendment would infringe on the power of states to regulate marriage. These Republican leaders, who ardently support states' rights, have a convenient case of amnesia when the issue involves gay Americans. It also should be noted that with the exception of Prohibition -- and we all know what a rousing success that was -- amendments to the Constitution have been adopted to expand rights, not take them away.

While polling has shown that a majority of Americans oppose same-sex marriage, many still oppose amending the U.S. Constitution to ban it. Nevertheless, Republican leaders were willing to run the risk of alienating moderate voters who will view this as what it really was, a mean-spirited appeal to the party's base. It's also shameful that the Republican-controlled Congress and the president would waste their time on this nonsense, when there are so many other issues -- the war, education and health care -- that they could have been working on and making a real impact on people's lives.