Meaningless internet-poll–related activities.
Oh, go kick some homophobic wingnut ass, would you?
Andew Sullivan also has some interesting numbers for the currently faint of heart. (This is what it’s come to: I now stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Andew Sullivan. The mind reels.)
And der Gropenfuhrer’s veiled threats of riots and blood in the streets aside, look at it this way: whoever supports such an amendment—whether it would nuke all civil unions and partnership benefits currently negotiated piecemeal in states and municipalities across the country, like Musgrave’s grossly misrepresented proposal, or whether it scales back to merely mandate groin checks before the issuance of first-class marriage licenses—now has to walk up to very specific people and say, “You aren’t married anymore. I’m destroying your family.” This is much, much harder to do; then, the abstract’s always easier than the concrete.
Also, via Atrios: the Fidelity Pledge.
Mars tanked; this will tank. (Remember Mars? We were gonna go to Mars. In a rocketship. Zoom!) —There might be a brief plateau in the plunging polls, but there won’t be a bounce; that’s all this is for, after all: a toehold, a chance to catch a breath on the way down. A bit of red meat for the slavering hordes, but get real: who the hell else are the slavering hordes gonna vote for? (Run, Roy, run!) It might pass the House—the perennial flag-burning amendment always does—but it won’t pass the Senate, not in its current form: and if that famous second sentence is stripped out or rewritten to allow faggots and dykes the rights to marriage in all but name, well, you won’t end up making anyone at all happy with that, now, will you? And if it or something like it does pass, we merely have to hold the line in thirteen states for seven years to keep it out of the constitution. Or less—I’d lay money that if the Senate did pass this, it’d be with a hellishly tight ratification deadline. If the people want it, they want it now, right? (Otherwise, they’ll just keep getting married in Massachusetts and San Francisco while solons natter…)
The rat’s cornered. The scales are finally falling from too many purblind eyes; whole divisions of his reserves are packing up and melting away by dark of night. His hardliners have pushed him into a rash and ill-advised kulturkrieg, but we can contain him. We haven’t won yet, but we will.
Today’s half-assed declaration was an act of rank desperation, and everybody can smell it.
I'm both ecstatic and appalled by Bush's dogmatism on this issue. I'm appalled for obvious reasons; how could he possibly see this as an issue worthy of a Constitutional amendment? I'm ecstatic because I think (and hope) it's the beginning of the end. When I first heard about it, I turned to my wife and said, "Bush has just lost the election." And I believe that. In order to please his rabid supporters, he's sacrificed the support of many others closer to the center. I can't wait to see his next job approval figures.