First off, my apologies to all....I'm currently on a business trip to Tidewater Virginia (the Norfolk area) and have had precious little time to blog of late. I'll be back in Texas next week; hopefully I'll be able to swing a bit more time over the next few days to provide updates and keep track of stories.
As I'd blogged previously, Texas's state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage barely made it out of committee mere weeks ago, held up there by language inserted by the chief homophobe we all know and love, Representative Warren Chisum (R-Pampa), who was trying to get civil unions and other legal arrangements banned as well in one fell swoop. That language fell out on the way to the House floor, but made it back in again on Monday -- and, as a result, the proposed amendment barely cleared the House, getting only one vote more than the minimum (100) required to pass an amendment to the Texas Constitution.
So what's to think? On the one hand, this is something over which I'm not exactly doing cartwheels, and if anything, am flat-out pissed-off, especially since I'm not in the state and unable to do too much about it directly. Distance does not preclude a few pointed phone calls and emails, though. (grin)
On the other, though, I've been thinking ever since the whole movement for an amendment started that it would be next to impossible to defeat such measures at the Legislature's level, and that our energies were best focused on the grassroots effort of turning back the amendment(s) at the ballot box. Quite frankly, I didn't expect the vote to be this close at the House level -- and the fact that it was this close, coupled with the questionable legality of the words that Representative Chisum inserted, makes me extremely optimistic that the amendment will fall short of the two-thirds vote needed in the Senate to clear it and will thus collapse (the amendment has no counterpart or sponsor in the Senate), as it is simply too late in the session for it to be resubmitted. This appears to be similar to what happened with the infamous attempt to ban glbts from being foster parents which, as Gay Orbit and Central Front report, is pretty much DOA in the Senate and fast becoming an embarrassment to even its own sponsor, Representative Robert Talton (R-Pasadena).
Is this a sign of a concerted strategy on the part of House leadership, allowing controversial measures to be added and defeated by the Senate? Possibly. Anyone who knows Chisum and Talton knows that these two are driven by relentless, raw hatred of gays that verges on being pathological. We are the evil in the world to them, and they are on a crusade to eliminate evil. The question is to what extent that crusade on their part is being used for purposes of political gamesmanship.
On the first, more-cynical hand, an amendment not passed is a potential opening to solicit antigay votes and try to drum up fear among voters who may not be antigay, but who have qualms about the potential of gay marriage and/or civil unions. This becomes doubly important going into an election year, as 2006 will be for the House, if your plans are to play on that fear. If this was the strategy, though, it was a rather silly maneuver -- the most-vulnerable Democrats, by and large, voted Yes, and I am quite certain that House leadership knew that they would.
The second argument, and the one towards which I lean, is that these votes are a means of neutralizing Talton and Chisum in a manner that provides political cover. There are several Republicans that I know personally that have confided what an embarrassment these two are, and that the argument they always make is that "leadership won't allow a vote on the issue". Having gotten the floor vote on the issue, that has ruined Chisum and Talton's argument for why they keep bringing these issues up and has added a new counter, "Why should we bring up something that the Senate will reject or has already rejected?" With these two legislators held in check, the House will continue on its halting, tenative journey to become more gay-friendly, if for no other reason than with these two shut up, it will be far less antigay.
Given that, hence the title of this post, "Revenge of the Sith". As it stands now, Talton and Chisum are getting their revenge, or so they think; however, I firmly believe that the seeds have been sown that will ultimately result in their downfall. In the meantime, we must be certain to let Texas Senators know the potential danger of the amendment as written (another round of copies of Cleveland Plain Dealer articles, anyone?) and that this amendment as written is something best left to die or put out of its misery, especially this late in the legislative calendar. In addition, we must also work on building those bridges, especially to people who are sick of or turned off by Chisum and Talton's blatant hatred and virulence. As we all know, that's the key to the defeat of the Empire. (grin)
Jedi Knight North Dallas Thirty signing out.......
No comments:
Post a Comment