Thursday, January 22, 2004

what did he say

Excerpts from today's New York Times article, Conservative Groups Differ on Bush Words on Marriage by David D. Kirkpatrick:

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said Mr. Bush's failure to ask Congress to get to work on an amendment negated his other initiatives.

"If we throw out 6,000 years of human history that says marriage is between a man and a woman, then the rest of that doesn't matter," Mr. Perkins said.

Congress needed to act within a few weeks, he said, so that the debate over an amendment could begin before the next election and before "you have same-sex marriages sprinkled all over the country."

...

Some gay Republicans said the president had gone too far.

"We will not stand with anyone who is willing to write discrimination into the Constitution," said Patrick Guerriero, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans.

But Charles Francis, chairman of the Republican Unity Coalition and a family friend of President Bush, said he was not yet ready to break ranks. He emphasized that the president had not mentioned an amendment and that his comments about the "constitutional process" remained conditional, although he acknowledged, "He has come about as close as he can get."

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