Not buying it this time

For the Won't Get Fooled Again file, here comes the desperate GOP, going to the gay-marriage well one more time, trying to gin up social and religious conservatives to turn out on the belief that voting Republican will keep the queers from getting hitched. Here's President Bush on the stump yesterday, commenting on the New Jersey Supreme Court's ruling:

“Yesterday in New Jersey, we had another activist court issue a ruling that raises doubts about the institution of marriage,” Mr. Bush said at a luncheon at the Iowa State Fairgrounds that raised $400,000 for Mr. Lamberti.

The president drew applause when he reiterated his long-held stance that marriage was “a union between a man and a woman,” adding, “I believe it’s a sacred institution that is critical to the health of our society and the well-being of families, and it must be defended.”

Oh, [expletive]. I too believe that traditional marriage is a sacred institution that is critical to the health of our society and the well-being of families, and that it must be defended. I believe that neither President Bush nor the Republican Party in Washington intends to do jack-squat about it, aside from trading on the gullibility of social and religious conservatives to believe them when they say they will. The only sure way to have defended marriage was to have pushed through a federal marriage amendment to the US Constitution. But after running on defending marriage in 2004, Bush and the GOP forgot all about it -- except for making a half-hearted feint toward passing the amendment, after it became obvious that the votes weren't there to get it through the Senate.

Bush might not have gotten it through the Senate after all -- but he didn't try. After winning a close re-election, arguably because the gay-marriage ballot initiatives in key states mobilized religious and social conservatives to turn out, Bush forgot about marriage. So now, coming back two weeks before an election the Republicans deserve to lose, it takes some gall to pretend to be a defender of traditional marriage. Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us.

People may say: "OK, so the Republicans folded on gay marriage when it counted. But is the answer to allow a party that has no problem with gay marriage take power?" To that I say: The Republicans have proven that they cannot be counted on to take a political risk to protect traditional marriage, that to them, it is only a sop to get religious and social conservatives to vote Republican. If we are going to get gay marriage declared by the courts anyway, at least by not falling for the Republican lie, we preserve our self-respect. And next time a Republican makes a promise like this, perhaps he'll have the sense to keep it, or at least make a good-faith effort to do so.