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Brett A. McKenzie, Retriever Weekly Editor-in-Chief, published March 16, 2004
On the same day that President Bush distributed awards at the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality ceremony, members of the Kerry camp initiated an awards ceremony of their own — The Herbet Hoover Awards for holding the worst jobs record in America since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Not surprisingly, George W. Bush swept the "honors."
From 2001-03, almost three million Americans lost their jobs. Last month, the unemployment rate reached 5.6 percent.
If the Kerry campaign felt so inclined, they could also create the Lyndon B. Johnson or Richard M. Nixon Awards for going to war under false pretenses. The Bush Administration is reeling to repel accusations of knowingly going to war with Iraq, with shady characters popping up to admit that they provided exaggerated intelligence to the president regarding the presence of WMDs in the Middle East.
Bush has turned his back on the people of Haiti, vowing only 90 days of military commitment to a country that we know for certain is being overrun by violent fanatics. We’ve lost over 550 soldiers in Iraq, the majority of whom died after the conclusion of the war. And yet a nearby neighbor, Haiti, is not worth our attention.
The president, however, has decided to distract the country from the economic failings of his term and the disastrous outcome of the war in Iraq. His latest plan involves, as senator Ted Kennedy so eloquently said, is to "write discrimination back into the Constitution."
Bush’s last desperate attempt to garner special-interest, wealthy, extreme rightist support for a second term, comes in the form of a proposed amendment to prevent homosexual American citizens from getting married. Contrary to earlier promises made by the president and Vice President Dick Cheney, Bush has decided that leaving the decision on gay marriage to the states is no longer in his best interest.
This could be the nail in Bush’s coffin, come November.
As it so happens, Mr. President, the people of America are not ready to let you alter a document which protects and represents each of us and our rights to happiness. The Constitution affirms my right as a woman to vote, protects my freedom of speech, entitles me to a fair trial, and guarantees me life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; how can such a document be altered to prevent a large group of Americans from exchanging vows with someone they love?
Let’s think about this for a moment. Bush is afraid to allow gays to marry because it will "change the meaning of marriage" forever. Well 50 percent of heterosexual marriages today end in a divorce, including my parents’. I don’t think changing that would be such a terrible thing.
Church and state have been separate in this country for quite some time now. Yet this debate overwhelmingly pits Christianity and our government on the same side. I watched, on Larry King Live, as a pastor chided a homosexual actor for choosing a life of sin by "practicing" homosexuality. It reminded me of when in high school, a friend of mine, who attended a nearby all-boys’ Catholic school, came out. He was probably the first openly gay person I’d ever known. I saw how he struggled to be someone he was not, and that coming out had lifted a weight off his shoulders. A weight that Bush and his extremist, rightist, religious fanatic supporters have dumped right back onto gays everywhere.
How does it hurt you to afford them the privilege of Holy Matrimony, Mr. President? Really, how does it hurt any of us? If this decision is, in fact, motivated to protect the religious sanctity of marriage, then shouldn’t the ultimate judgment be left to God Himself? No one has any right to use God’s name to discriminate against other people, nor to make laws guessing what His will might be. In the Bibles I’ve read, Jesus asked people to love their neighbors as they would love themselves. I guess President Bush skipped over those chapters.
Fortunately, the American public, both homosexual and heterosexual, are fighting this violation of equality. As a heterosexual female, this proposed amendment infuriates me, not only because of the friends of mine who are being discriminated against, but because if Bush is allowed to toy with the Constitution, what is to stop him from taking my rights away? Religion is what fuels Bush’s decisions regarding women’s choice. I wonder how the president would react if one of his female loved ones were ever put in the terrifying and life-altering position of being raped and impregnated? Would he force them to keep that child?
A former group of Bush supporters, the Log Cabin Republicans, recently aired an ad attacking Bush and Cheney’s support of this proposed amendment. The Log Cabin Republicans are large group of homosexual Republicans who have been debating whether or not to support a president up for re-election who violated his promise of "let the states decide."
In November, when Bush realizes just how many Americans he’s isolated, perhaps he will also realize that the votes of a few wealthy fanatics weren’t worth the pain he caused to so many other Americans. Mr. President, when you lose the 2004 election this fall, you will have no one to blame but yourself.
Christopher Paul, published March 16, 2004
In rebuttal of McKenzie’s article, “Marriage ban…” is not an argument, but an attack without substance upon President Bush.
I support homosexual “civil unions.” This would be a new definition in the English language. “Marriage” is defined as a union between a man and a woman. By defining “marriage” to include homosexuals, corrupts the English language. The result is one word, with two different meanings creating a paradox. Language is very precise in its creation and usage. Therefore it cannot be defined as “marriage.”
Secondly, a Constitutional amendment would have to be carefully written to exclude polygamy, incest, homosexual adult/child marriages, and bestiality. The political right has a strong position of argumentation as this can become a slippery slope. For support, look at Sweden where this experiment has already been attempted. The outcome is it has failed miserably resulting in a total meltdown of the nucleus family which is important socially for the upbringing of children.
The first fallacy in McKenzie’s argument is attempting to argue from a position of strength by utilizing a religious argument. This argument fails because every religion on earth condemns homosexuality. Therefore, one must utilize a secular view and argue from the position of civil rights in order to argue from a position of strength.
The second fallacy is the argument of church and state. According to the philosophy of the law there is the Law of Man. On the other hand, there is also Natural Law and in the view of many judges takes precedence over man’s law. A judge providing their philosophy on their ruling could state one of two things on “Gay Marriage.” The judge could rule that not allowing one adult to marry the adult of their choosing would be a violation of one’s natural given civil rights. Yet on the other hand, they could also rule that the “union” of two creatures of the same sex is “unnatural” in nature, violating natural law, but on the other hand, because it does violate their civil rights, they could continue that, a contract may be drawn by the state providing the same benefits to same sex couples as is provided to opposite sex couples, by civil rights, but the two contracts cannot be defined by the exact same word, because legally they represent the same thing, but morally are different things.
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