Emily and I have been sending out letters announcing our marriage to friends and family lately. They include a snarky opening in which we attempt to bridge the partisan divide by supporting John Kerry's advocation of universal health care, but also demonstrating that George Bush's drive to get straight people married for no particular reason is good too. This was, of course, not so much bridge-building as it was a shot at Bush. In today's New York Times, Barbara Ehrenreich takes the same shot is a more classy, intellectual way:
Opponents of gay marriage claim that there is some consistency here, in that gay marriages must be stopped before they undermine the straight ones. How the married gays will go about wrecking heterosexual marriages is not entirely clear: by moving in next door, inviting themselves over and doing a devastating critique of the interior decorating?
It is equally unclear how marriage will cure poor women's No. 1 problem, which is poverty � unless, of course, the plan is to draft C.E.O.'s to marry recipients of T.A.N.F. (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families). Left to themselves, most women end up marrying men of the same social class as their own, meaning � in the case of poverty-stricken women � blue-collar men. But that demographic group has seen a tragic decline in earnings in the last couple of decades. So I have been endeavoring to calculate just how many blue-collar men a T.A.N.F. recipient needs to marry to lift her family out of poverty.
The answer turns out to be approximately 2.3, which is, strangely enough, illegal.
The Bush Administration seems to like to fall back on its ultra-conservative social stances whenever issues like the war, the economy or years-long patterns of deception turn sour. The thing is, it never seems to quite work, and it's not going to work here. This gay-bashing Amendment is going to die in the Senate, and they're going to look like idiots campaigning on how much the Democrats love those homos. The general public of most states is just not homophobic enough to want such bigotry added to the Constitution.
Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra ::: 2004:07:11:12:45