Column: Bush amendment suppresses rights

Tosha Rae Long
Staff Writer
Mar. 4, 2004, Page 6

The Constitution of the United States has been amended 17 times.
The amendments give or preserve Americans rights. On Feb. 24, that standard was threatened.
On that day, President Bush called for an amendment to the Constitution that would define and protect marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
In reality, it is bigotry in disguise.
Bush’s call for a Constitutional amendment came shortly after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s decision to grant marriage rights to same-sex couples.
This act, combined with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples, enticed Bush to stop this supposed defamation of a historical institution.
Bush says that Americans must protect the meaning of marriage from being changed. He sees the actions of local courts and authorities as arbitrary and unlawful. Bush argues that same-sex marriage is a national issue requiring a Constitutional solution defending marriage.
What exactly is Bush trying to defend? Marriage isn’t under attack. It is not being abolished, simply reconstructed to fit the needs of everyone. His decision to see marriage in the context of only a man and a woman is primitive. The notion suggests that our country has not grown in the last 200 years. Bush thinks his beliefs should be everyone’s beliefs, a characteristic of a dictatorship rather than a democracy.
Bush needs to keep in mind that not everyone agrees with his set of family values.
Bush leaves some leeway for the notion of civil unions, a term coined to define a homosexual relationship in a marital context, by providing that state legislatures make their own decisions.
But, civil unions segregate same-sex couples. This proposal takes away a basic right for gays and lesbians.
Civil unions simply aren’t good enough. All Americans are created equal and guaranteed equal rights under the Constitution. That, above all else, should be the prevailing law.
States such as Massachusetts and cities such as San Francisco set the example that Americans can challenge the system and fight suppression.