huffingtonpost.com
Hilary Rosen
Karl Rove is a Busy Guy
If I were Karl Rove, I would worry about going to jail or at least start planning my public contrition for my role in a horrible assault on Valerie Plame and the subsequent events that have two reporters taking the brunt of the fall for my deceit.
But, I am not Karl Rove and the real one is busy. While we are hoping for some humane gestures or god forbid, the truth, on the above story, the real Karl Rove is working hard planting the seeds to secure the nomination of a Supreme Court judge by once again twisting gay and lesbian people's desire for stability and equality into a nasty, divisive political fight.
It is not by accident that the White House definition of an "activist" and therefore unacceptable judiciary revealed in Rove's recent meeting with the editors of the Washington Post centers around decisions that state courts have made to provide equal treatment in marriage rights for gay couples. The Post reported, "Rove said Bush seeks a nominee who will correct what the president sees as a widespread problem of judges who seek to make law rather than narrowly interpret it, citing as an example the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision last year permitting same-sex marriage."
The intensity of the debate will heat up around this issue you can be sure. They think this issue helped them in the election and it will help them once again. When all else fails to ignite the American people, gay marriage is still their bogeyman. Steven Fisher, the smart Communication Director of the Human Rights Campaign says that they are alreday getting calls from reporters prompted, he suspects, by a steady drumbeat from the radical right on the impact a new court will have on future decisions about marriage between same sex couples.
Activist judges making new law. That is their polled and tested line? Oh please. The double talk would be comical if real lives - like mine and my family's - weren't involved.
The President, Karl Rove and their friends on the right claim they need an amendment to the United States Constitution to stop same sex marriage. They failed in the Senate last year but they will renew their push again sometime soon. Doesn't that mean that these people believe that the Constitution currently protects the equal rights of same sex couples? Why else would they have to pass a new amendment? If President Bush nominates a jurist who will "strictly interpret the constitution" and not make new law, it is clear that any Bush nominee will determine that such Constitutional protection for gay and lesbian families exists today.
Yeah right.