Though Iraq is in an uproar (and here) and Iran is threatening to disrupt oil supplies, President Bush will take time out of his schedule to renew his vow with the religious right.
Today’s Rose Garden ceremony will join together a desperate man and an alliance of Bible-thumpers in a push for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
But as CNN’s Jack Cafferty observed, for most Americans, same-sex marriage is the least of their concerns:
Guess what Monday is? Monday is the day President Bush will speak about an issue near and dear to his heart and the hearts of many conservatives. It's also the day before the Senate votes on the very same thing. Is it the war? Deficits? Health insurance? Immigration? Iran? North Korea?
Not even close. No, the president is going to talk about amending the Constitution in order to ban gay marriage. This is something that absolutely, positively has no chance of happening, nada, zippo, none. But that doesn't matter. Mr. Bush will take time to make a speech. The Senate will take time to talk and vote on it, because it's something that matters to the Republican base.
This is pure politics. It has nothing to do with whether or not you believe in gay marriage. It's blatant posturing by Republicans, who are increasingly desperate as the midterm elections approach. There's not a lot else to get people interested in voting on them, based on their record of the last five years.
But if you can appeal to the hatred, bigotry, or discrimination in some people, you might move them to the polls to vote against that big, bad gay married couple that one day might in down the street.
There are at least 2,475 reasons why these two should not be joined in an unholy alliance of pandering and intolerance.
