WITHERING HEIGHTS

HOLD IT, PARTNER

McCULLOUGH: Kerry-Edwards: The ambiguously 'gay' duo
By Kevin McCullough (kmc@wmca.com)
OPINION -- There is only one litmus test that a politician must pass these days to prove whether or not they are interested in protecting marriage from being redefined by activist judges:
“Do you support the President's call for a Constitutional Amendment to protect marriage?”
That’s it!
Marriage is under attack -- similarly to freedom -- and if you are not for protecting it, then you are for its destruction.
John Kerry and John Edwards have tried to sell a false impression to voters on marriage.
Both have said publicly that they oppose the idea of "same sex marriage". I have heard their advocates reaffirm this position. I have had extreme right-wingers try to tell me that they are no different than the President on the issue. But this facade is flimsy and should not be believed for even a moment.
Just this week the National Stonewall Democrats, a group that advocates on behalf of those who practice homosexuality, pronounced "Kerry/Edwards" as the "most pro-gay ticket in the history of presidential politics". The Human Rights Campaign, Washington's largest homosexual lobbying group, gave the two men a 100% rating on their voting records on issues of advancing homosexual issues, life, and marriage. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force referred to them as the most "gay-supportive" pairing in history.
This analysis by homosexual activist groups should surprise no one.
John Kerry has penned dozens of letters to his home state assembly in Massachusetts, as a sitting U.S. Senator, always urging passage of the pro-homosexual view of more than a dozen state level issues. And it is John Kerry's own Massachusetts Democratic Party that has pushed the "same sex marriage" to the very forefront of debate by aggressively seeking its legalization.

JOHN! NOT HERE. WE'LL GET A ROOM LATER.

John Edwards has also fought hard for the pro-homosexual initiatives. By compiling his various public statements, senate votes, and even the trial cases he has argued, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force gave him ratings on thirteen separate homosexual issues. On nine of the thirteen he scored "highly favorable".
But the Johns' inability to defend marriage has even been uttered from their own lips. In the series of primary debates from this spring the Johns were asked about support for the protection of marriage in America. Marriage after all, is that unique and sacred relationship between one man and one woman. Both were asked if they would support the President's call for a Constitutional Amendment to protect marriage. Both tried to reiterate what they had attempted to clarify before - that in principle they were opposed to "same sex marriage". However, both also believed there was "no pressing need" to take such dramatic action as to amend the Constitution.
Even more mind-boggling was that in those series of debates they both disputed the validity of the 1996 "Defense of Marriage Act", which allows states the right to define marriage by state. The two went as far on multiple occasions to insist that had they had the chance to vote on it now, both would vote against it. (Kerry in fact voted against it the first time - one of only 12 to do so)
Yet in spite of all the evidence of the Johns' cozy relationship with homosexual lobbyists, activists, and advocates Kerry/Edwards still try to make the straight-faced statement that they believe marriage should still exist exclusively between a man and a woman. What a farce!
In the war on terror President Bush made it clear from the beginning: you are with us (those who love freedom) or you are with the terrorists (those who wish to destroy it). The present war on marriage is similar. John Kerry and John Edwards wish to try to distinguish themselves as being against "same sex marriage" but have voted in favor of everything leading to it and have the highest approval rating in political history by those who seek it.

You don't have to thank me...yet.

By being unable to be for the Constitutional Amendment that would protect the institution of marriage, it doesn't really matter what else they say about it. And though John Kerry has a history of being "for certain things before he was against them," his inability to even be "for" protecting marriage is already telegraphing where he would be when the issue hits the courts and the halls of Congress in the days ahead.
As ambiguous as this duo may want to stay on the issue of "same sex marriage," the people of America deserve to know if their leaders will protect our families as strongly as they protect our freedoms.

This duo seems incapable on both counts.

Desire to beat Bush masks deep divisions within Democratic Party
By Steven Thomma
Knight Ridder Newspapers
BOSTON - If you watch the Democratic National Convention, you'll see the face of the party as Sen. John Kerry and party leaders want you to see it.
But there will be only about 5,700 delegates and other party members at Boston's Fleet Center, while there are about 48 million registered voters across the country who call themselves Democrats - and they don't always think the same as the people on the convention stage.
For now, Democrats are unified to an almost unprecedented degree by their intense desire to defeat President Bush. That could help Kerry win the White House.
But it obscures divisions among Democrats over issues such as the war in Iraq, leaves unsettled the definition of what it means to be a Democrat in 2004 and could make it difficult for Kerry to govern if he's elected, as he navigates between his party's vote base and the broader population. Bush faced the same problem after running in 2000 as a centrist, then governing as a hard-line partisan.
"There's a bit of a shell game going on," said Larry Gerston, a political scientist at San Jose State University in California. "What the candidates say and what they do are often very different. That creates alienation and confusion for voters."
The biggest disconnect between ordinary Democrats and their leaders - and between Democrats and the rest of the country - is over the Iraq war.

A sizable majority of rank-and-file Democrats think the war was a mistake - 68 percent in one recent CBS-New York Times poll. By comparison, 51 percent of independents and only 14 percent of Republicans think it was a mistake.
Yet Kerry, who voted to authorize the war, refuses to call it a mistake. Nor will he commit to withdrawing American troops anytime soon, as many antiwar Democrats urge.

Commander(s) In Chief?

"People of good will disagree about whether America should have gone to war in Iraq," the new party platform says. It also says the United States must remain in Iraq: "We cannot allow a failed state in Iraq that inevitably would become a haven for terrorists and a destabilizing force in the Middle East."
Another difference is over marriage for gays and lesbians, an issue put on the national agenda when the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that homosexuals should be allowed to marry. Gay couples in other states now are appealing to federal courts for legal recognition of their marriages.
Related Story:
QUEERLY BELOVED, WND.
Forty percent of Democrats think gay couples should be allowed to marry legally, a separate CBS-New York Times poll showed. While less than a majority, such a substantial minority again shows that the Democratic base is split on a deeply divisive issue that could complicate Kerry's handling of it. Kerry opposes gay marriage but favors "civil unions," an approach favored by only 27 percent of Democrats nationally.

You are so sweet!

Kerry also opposes a proposed constitutional amendment that would block national recognition of gay marriage, and would leave it to states to decide.
On most other issues, Democrats are more in sync with Kerry and their party's leaders. They all tend to support legal abortion, raising taxes on those making more than $200,000, increasing federal spending on health care and education, and regulating business more aggressively to protect the environment.

Democrats trace much of their thinking back to the New Deal of the 1930s and the Great Society of the 1960s, when their party championed redistributing wealth and expanding federal help for the poor. And many of their stands on social issues, and skepticism about the use of U.S. military power, stem from clashes over cultural values and the war in Vietnam during the 1960s and 1970s, according to Andy Kohut, the director of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.
Former President Clinton underscored the point during a recent appearance promoting his new autobiography.
" If you look back on the '60s and, on balance, you think there was more good than harm, then you're probably a Democrat," Clinton said. "If you think there was more harm than good, then you're probably a Republican."
Demographically, the party on display in Boston reflects the rank and file. Nationwide, the Democratic Party is slightly more female than male, and disproportionately minority, older and less than wealthy.
In a benchmark survey last year, the Pew Research Center found that the ranks of self-identified Democrats include:
-36 percent of women and 27 percent of men.
-64 percent of blacks and 36 percent of Hispanics.
-38 percent of those 65 and older, the most solidly Democratic age group.
-36 percent of those with less than a high school education, the most solidly Democratic group by education, and 33 percent of those with a postgraduate college education, the second most Democratic group.
-39 percent of those making less than $20,000 a year, the most Democratic income group.
-27 percent of those making more than $75,000, the least Democratic income group.
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(The CBS/New York Times Poll of 1,053 adults on Iraq was conducted June 23-27 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The CBS/New York Times poll of 955 adults on gay marriage was conducted July 11-15 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The Pew survey of 1,866 registered voters was conducted July 14-Aug. 5, 2003, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.)