BY DAN
KENNEDY
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Thursday, February 05, 2004
Homework help for John
Kerry. As a public service to the Democratic front-runner, Media
Log has dug up some of his and his office's statements from 1996 on
the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Kerry showed some backbone that
year: of the 14 senators who were up for re-election, he was the only
one to vote against it, according to USA Today. (Granted, he
was also in the midst of a tough re-election fight against
then-governor Bill Weld, a favorite of the gay community.)
Despite Kerry's opposition, DOMA
passed and was signed into law by Bill Clinton. But Kerry's public
statements are instructive as we wait to see if he'll weigh in on the
current effort to amend the state constitution so that same-sex
marriages will be banned.
On June 24, 1996, the Boston
Globe reported that "Kerry intends to vote against the Defense of
Marriage Act because it 'does not seem to address any realistic
national legislative needs,' according to his campaign spokeswoman,
Jennifer Watson. Since no state currently recognizes gay marriage,
'this bill is premature at best; at worst, it is an attempt to divide
and play to people's fears,' Watson said."
Hmm. Not too promising. Watson left
her boss with far too much wiggle room, leaving open the possibility
that Kerry would have supported DOMA if there were actually a state
that recognized same-sex marriage.
But the senator himself was more
emphatic on September 5, 1996, when he told the Boston Herald,
"This bill is election-year pandering of the worst order, and I will
not be a party to legislative gay-bashing." Go get 'em, John! Now,
repeat after Media Log: The state constitutional amendment favored
by Governor Mitt Romney and House Speaker Tom Finneran is election
year pandering of the worst order, and I will not be a party to
legislative gay-bashing.
DOMA finally passed the Senate on
September 10. And Kerry was notably blunt in expressing his
opposition. According to the next day's Globe, Kerry called
DOMA "fundamentally ugly, fundamentally political, and fundamentally
flawed," adding: "The results of this bill will not be to preserve
anything, but will serve to attack a group of people out of various
motives and rationales and certainly out of a lack of
tolerance."
The Herald published this
Kerry sound bite: "This is an unconstitutional, unprecedented,
unnecessary, and mean-spirited bill."
Everything Kerry said in 1996
applies today. The amendment to the state constitution being pushed
by Romney, Finneran, State Representative Philip Travis, and others
is a nasty piece of work, designed to deny fundamental human rights
to a minority of citizens while doing absolutely nothing for anyone
else. I'm sure Kerry doesn't want to take a stand, but he's got to.
It goes with being a senator, and it most certainly goes with showing
the leadership expected of a presidential candidate.
If nothing else, Kerry could quote
Jon Stewart, who had this to say when asked about it by Fox News's
priggish bully-boy Sean Hannity: "The gay marriage thing scared me,
but that's only because I thought at first it was mandatory. Now that
I realize that it's only people that are gay, I'm much more
comfortable."
(Point of personal privilege: the
transcript quotes Stewart as saying, "I'm much more confident." But I
saw Stewart that night, and I think he said "comfortable." So
there.)
posted at 1:11 PM |
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
