I’ve heard tell (though none of the sources I’ve read has mentioned confirmation) that Rick Santorum will be bringing the Federal Marriage Amendment to a vote in the Senate sometime around July 12.
What do you think will happen at this point? Certainly the issue is a little less heated than even a few months ago. Many say that while the Amendment has some solid support in some circles, that it’s probably not going to garner enough, and that it’s being pushed at this point to spotlight the issue to the deteriment of Democrats (who’re having their National Convention not long after the vote). Has Massachusetts, Oregon, and California helped or hurt the Amendment’s chances? Who knows?
The Pubbies will bet that passing the measure will make the public feel they’re protecting them from those mean, evil homosexuals who are trying to get married at them. They’ll know that the amendment, whether it passes or not, will bring out the hatemongering religious wackos to vote for them. Some Dems will go along, for the aformentioned reasons. Some Pubbies will go against the bill. The only question is how the vote swings each way, but my money would be on passage, because a lot of Dems are going to flounder to polling on this one.
I’d like to say that this will galvanize the freedom loving, intelligent, tolerant segment of America to get out to the polls in November and oust the fuckwits who are behind this antedeluvian effort. But the simple truth is that that group is far smaller in this country than the aforementioned religious loons.
It probably won’t pass, since the Republicans seem much more fractured on the issue in this divided Senate than the Democrats, but that was never the point. The point was to land a wedge issue between Democratic incumbent candidates and their constituents at the prime time of the campaign season (mid to late summer). I’m honestly not sure it is working as effectively as the Republicans had hoped, given anecdotal evidence. Living in one of the large conservative bastions of Kentucky, most people just don’t seem to really care one way or another except to wish that the TV would show something a little more interesting. Except among the die-hard religious right, the whole furor and storm seems to be falling rather flat.
Yes, George! Do that thing! Talk nothing but gay marriage! From now until November!