They have a saying for this in Tennessee

President Bush is looking out for us. Even though the FMA is “dead”, our president believes that this issue must continue. Consider his statement from yesterday:

“Activist judges and local officials in some parts of the country are not letting up in their efforts to redefine marriage for the rest of America and neither should defenders of traditional marriage flag in their efforts,” he added.

“It is important for our country to continue the debate on this important issue, and I urge the House of Representatives to pass this amendment,” the president said.

Pass this amendment, even though the Senate has already shown that sufficient support doesn’t exist? As opposed to focusing on real issues like national security? Worry not, though. Anyone who is fretting that Republicans don’t have an alternate plan, they do. It’s called HR 3313 IH, and it passed the House Judiciary Committee yesterday. It states:

`No court created by Act of Congress shall have any jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court shall have no appellate jurisdiction, to hear or determine any question pertaining to the interpretation of section 1738c of this title or of this section. Neither the Supreme Court nor any court created by Act of Congress shall have any appellate jurisdiction to hear or determine any question pertaining to the interpretation of section 7 of title 1.’.

Do you read that text the same way I do? Let me offer a statement that sums up my interpretation:

“This simply defers to the states,” said Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

This is hypocritical. While promoting a Constitutional Amendment, Republican leaders have stated that we, the right-thinking Americans, can’t trust state-level “activist judges” to continue defining marriage correctly. By extension, they claim that the Defense of Marriage Act isn’t safe. Yet, now that the FMA is on life support, Republicans wish to eliminate all federal jurisdiction over marriage? What about those “activist judges”? Won’t they do exactly what we’ve been told they’ll do?

Oh, wait… I know why… They’re using HR 3313 IH to remove any association of the “full faith and credit” clause with marriage. It’s good to know that they’re looking out for me. This will be a great precedent that Congress can abolish the federal judiciary from considering any argument I might make that one state won’t honor a contract entered into in another. Good idea.

Given the obvious fallacy of this legislation, I suspect it will not hold up. I guess I should be cheering, but I’m not. Congress is playing politics with our law. While this is not new, it’s hard to recall such a blatant attempt to redefine American democracy into something less than itself. That is my fundamental problem with the way our leaders are undertaking this “debate”. This is shameful, but it’s not going away.

Consider:

Republican officials also said it was possible they would stage other votes on gay marriage before the fall elections.

In addition, several officials said a constitutional amendment may be brought to the floor in the fall, closer to the election.

At least this issue is not politically motivated, as critics have suggested.

One thought on “They have a saying for this in Tennessee”

  1. Maybe”Whoopi” could give them a heads up. She has such a “way”with words.

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