Via a CalPundit commenter, I found another “wink wink nudge nudge” anniversary.
Last October (this was before the Goodridge decision in Massachusetts, bear in mind), President Bush declared the week of October 12 to October 18, 2003 “Marriage Protection Week”.
“Marriage Protection Week” began five years to the day after Matthew Shepard’s death.
One of groups that co-sponsored the push for “Marriage Protection Week” is the Family Research Council, which was the center of a controversy after Shepard’s brutal murder. Frank Rich wrote a NY Times column called “The Road to Laramie” which argued that anti-gay organizations bore part of the responsibility for Shepard’s death. He singled out the Family Research Council, since the group was announcing a TV ad campaign promoting gay conversion to heterosexuality on the day Shepard was attacked, and because they go in for a particularly hateful and offensive brand of gay bashing.
Heather Farish, a spokeswoman for the Family Research Council, responded “Don’t blame AA because a drunk was beat up.” (The Dallas Morning News, December 16, 1998).
The organizers of “Marriage Protection Week” did not choose that date by accident. It’s possible that no one in the administration knew its significance–I certainly hope that’s the case–but I really have to wonder.
It also coincided with Coming-Out Day, I believe. Trust me, my gay friends noticed, and if there’s anyone that thinks about gayness more than gay people, it’s the FRC and their lackeys.
Of course they didn’t. It’s four weeks before the election and this will probably be a winning issue for President Bush so it make sense to have this sort of event this close to the election.
It was last year, Thorley. And researching this made me understand why President Bush doesn’t seem all that eager about the marriage amendment either. One thing to oppose gay marriage and another to be standing side by side with Fred Phelps’ more respectable cousins.
Coinciding with National Coming Out Day almost makes it better; I tried to convince myself they picked it because of that and had forgotten the date of Shepard’s death.
But there’s no f**king way FRC forgot. “Don’t blame AA because a drunk was beat up.” Christ. I don’t have the words.
On the other hand Katherine, FRC certainly seems prolific with their foaming screeds.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you could find them spewing something on the dates of the anniversaries of Kitty Hawk, Bastille Day, and Liza and David’s wedding. Since they don’t seem like the type of group that would shut up for even a day, I’m sure coincidences abound.
It’s not that they issued a nasty press release that day–this would not have been surprising. It’s that they pushed for a “marriage protection week” to begin on that day, and the Bush administration agreed to it.
Correlation is not causality. Thank you… I’ll be here all week.
In all seriousness, I think you can cherry-pick incidents to your heart’s content and imagine a conflict if you’re conspiracy-minded enough. (And the connection between Matthew Shepard and “Marriage Protection Week” is tenuous at best. I’d buy it if it was declared “Bash Gays Week,” but that’s a year-round event for FRC.)
If you don’t think “Marriage Protection Week” was about gays, I have a bridge in Brooklyn yadda yadda. Here is the organizers’ statement of purpose, in its entirety:
http://www.marriageprotectionweek.com/purpose.asp
That’s nice, here’s the actual statement from the President (you know, the one that actually matters) regarding Marriage Protection Week:
Pretty radical stuff, eh? 😉
Looks like it is actually about shoring up support for his tax cuts, his new marriage promotion initiatives, and welfare reform by highlighting how they (a) promote and encourage marriage and (b) how marriage is generally a good thing. Like I said earlier, the timing seems more about the November elections and it seems to put three of his proposals front and center.
For the record, these sorts of proclamations don’t have the force of law in that they don’t make people do anything or prohibit people from doing anything nor appropriate sums of money. They’re purely symbolic in nature and it is invariably only people on the fringes of the political spectrum who get worked up about them one way or the other.
Thorley, I think the question those of us who are not gay-bashers are asking ourselves is:
If Bush actually means all that stuff (sample quote “We must support the institution of marriage and help parents build stronger families”) why isn’t he supporting the right of same-sex couples to get married? Same-sex couples have children too: don’t those children deserve to have married parents?
I’d believe that Bush meant what he said if he’d announced that because he supports the institution of marriage he believes that all couples who wish to get married – same sex and mixed sex – should be legally allowed to do so.
But he rather explicitly didn’t, so I conclude it’s all just hot air.
“Research has shown that, on average, children raised in households headed by married parents fare better than children who grow up in other family structures.”
What an insulting statement. How many single-parent homes are a result of illness or accidents? My mother died of cancer when I was in 8th grade, and my father fell into an alcoholic spiral. I can easily state that I fared better than most of the people in my graduating class, including the children in two-parent households.
How many “optimal” two-parent households have been reduced to one parent by the Iraq War?
“And as part of the welfare reform package I have proposed, we will do away with the rules that have made it more difficult for married couples to move out of poverty.”
Yeah, there were literally “rules” that stratified married couples.
This is typical “Bush”-speak. Use quasi-Liberal speech to cloak the promotion of traditinoal Conservative issues.
Conservatives fundamentally believe that a free market system is the only device necessary to move out of poverty. Work hard, play by the rules, and you’ll be a success. Accordingly, there is nothing in the free market system that should prevent married couples, or single individuals, from moving up the economic ladder. In addition, any type of guaranteed government assistance to move up the ladder is considered a “handout”.
Liberals, and pragmatic moderates, do believe that the system is tilted against those on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder, and there’s nothing wrong with offering support to any tax-paying American to work back up the ladder. Bush appeals to these voters with this empty rhetoric about assisting married families, even though it runs contrary to his political ideology.
And what exactly can the government do to prevent divorce? Are adulterers unaware that infidelity weakens a marriage? I doubt it. Marriages are failing because we are living in an increasingly narcissistic society in which there is no reason to find a middle ground in any dispute.
Voluntary government classes and faith-based pamphlets aren’t going to provide any rememdy to the perceived problems in marriage. If that was even possible, $1.5 Billion is not enough for an equally distributed national program. So this program is tilted against single parents, gay couples, AND it will be regionally biased towards communities with large numbers of families (i.e., urban families will be closer to these agencies than rural families).