Governor Perry’s anti-gay marriage amendment

QUESTION: How did four GOP candidates for US president manage to shoot themselves in the foot – using the same bullet? [Five candidates, if you count Tim Pawlenty who has withdrawn from the race.]

ANSWER: All of them signed the [Anti-Gay Marriage] Pledge** written by the National Organization for Marriage. That “same bullet” I referred to above was their willingness to sign the Pledge as worded by NOM instead of signing a version in their own words. Their personalized pledge(s) would have spared them the deadly consequences that await once the more astute among us tell the rest of the electorate exactly what this Pledge means.

For instance, item #4:

I, ___, pledge to the American people that if elected President, I will: Four, establish a presidential commission on religious liberty to investigate and document reports of Americans who have been harassed or threatened for exercising key civil rights to organize, to speak, to donate or to vote for marriage and to propose new protections, if needed.

If citizens have been “harassed or threatened” for any reason, there are already laws on the books to protect them. We don’t need to “establish a presidential commission.” That is, we don’t need to unless Perry et al want to spend hard-earned taxpayer dollars to needlessly duplicate existing institutions.

But I guess the GOP frontrunners aren’t as interested in saving money, allowing current laws to provide the “protections…needed,” or in resisting the temptation to pass new (& unnecessary laws) to increase our “protection” as they are in pleasing the ever-voracious base.

For instance, item #2:

I, ___, pledge to the American people that if elected President, I will: Two, nominate to the U.S. Supreme Court and federal bench judges who are committed to restraint and to applying the original meaning of the Constitution, appoint an attorney general similarly committed, and thus reject the idea our Founding Fathers inserted a right to gay marriage into our Constitution.

What is meant by “committed to restraint and to applying the original meaning?” What is it our judges should restrain themselves from doing? The pledge should have used these words instead, “committed to applying the original meaning of the Constitution.”

Question: Why was the word “restraint” inserted?

Answer: There was no good reason. If judges were to apply “the original meaning of the Constitution,” then we would not need to worry ourselves about “restraint.”

What about “the idea our Founding Fathers inserted a right to gay marriage into our Constitution?” Nobody is claiming the Founders did any such thing. And I don’t see how any presidential candidate could sign his name to a pledge containing such a silly assertion. By the way, there’s no mention of marriage anywhere in the Constitution. So are we, then, to assume that marriage is unconstitutional? Of course not, as a casual glance at the Ninth Amendment reveals:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

The people have a right to marry, even though that right is not explicitly stated in the Law of the Land.

For instance, item #5:

I, ___, pledge to the American people that if elected President, I will: Five, advance legislation to return to the people of the District of Columbia their right to vote on marriage.

This is assailable two ways: Item #5 claims the people of DC have a “right to vote on marriage.” But item #1 seeks to take away that right:

I, ___, pledge to the American people that if elected President, I will: One, support sending a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the states for ratification.

So much for the “right” of the people of DC to determine the standards suitable for their community. I thought the GOP wasn’t in favor of the feds running our lives. Oh wait, I forgot: We can’t ignore the power of pressure-groups like NOM, now can we? Makes me wonder: What other pressure-groups will make their demands known?

The second assailable way: This issue of the right of the people of DC to vote on marriage has already been decided – in court. According to Wikipedia*:

QUOTE:

Bishop Harry R. Jackson, Jr… sued the District after the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics refused to approve a ballot initiative on the issue of same-sex marriage. The Board stated that such an initiative would violate D.C.'s Human Rights Act. In January 2010, the D.C. Superior Court upheld the board's decision.

On May 4, 2010, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals heard an appeal of the Superior Court decision. … On July 15, 2010, the Court of Appeals upheld the Superior Court's decision in a 5-4 decision.

The United States Supreme Court on January 18, 2011, rejected Jackson's appeal without comment.

:UNQUOTE.

Perry et al don’t care about the rights of the people of DC. Sounds to me like this GOP Gang of Four wants Congress to pass a law overriding the law enacted by the duly-elected representatives of the people of DC. And if such a law were to be passed and, supposing, the people of DC would vote to accept gay marriage, President Perry would cackle: “It won’t matter what the people of DC want, once we get our Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment on the books.”

Conclusion

This Pledge signed by the Gang of Four consists of only 158 words. That’s it! If the four leading candidates for the GOP nod can stumble so badly by having blindly signed on without even thinking – without even considering signing their own, more carefully-worded version – why shouldn’t We-the-People question their basic intelligence?

Steven Searle for US President in 2012

Founder of The Independent Contractors’ Party

“The willingness of the leading GOP contenders to march in lockstep according to the dictates of some pressure-group is highly disturbing but not entirely unexpected.”

Contact me at bpa_cinc@yahoo.com

   *  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_the_District_of_Columbia#Legal_challenges

   ** Word-for-word, here’s the entire 158-word Pledge as it appears on NOM’s website:

QUOTE:

I, ___, pledge to the American people that if elected President, I will:

One, support sending a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the states for ratification.

Two, nominate to the U.S. Supreme Court and federal bench judges who are committed to restraint and to applying the original meaning of the Constitution, appoint an attorney general similarly committed, and thus reject the idea our Founding Fathers inserted a right to gay marriage into our Constitution.

Three, defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act vigorously in court.

Four, establish a presidential commission on religious liberty to investigate and document reports of Americans who have been harassed or threatened for exercising key civil rights to organize, to speak, to donate or to vote for marriage and to propose new protections, if needed.

Five, advance legislation to return to the people of the District of Columbia their right to vote on marriage.

:UNQUOTE.