SAN FRANCISCO -- Chaos was the order of the day as thousands of married heterosexuals left their spouses in order to take advantage of this city's controversial new policy of allowing same-sex marriages. Wives and mothers left their suburban families sitting at the dinner table hungry as they threw down their aprons and ran off to elope with their girlfriends. Meanwhile, hundreds of husbands and fathers all over the nation called to leave messages for their wives as they gathered hand-in-hand with their beer buddies to stand in line at city hall for their chance to exchange rings and kisses.
"We knew this would happen as soon as same-sex marriages were allowed anywhere in the nation," religious conservatives announced at press conferences in major cities. "It was clear to us experts for a long time that equal marriage rights would destroy marriages and families everywhere, because obviously the laws allowing only opposite-sex couples to marry were the only thing keeping these individuals in their heterosexual unions."
"Hi, Honey," one groom-to-be shouted happily as the television cameras focused on him and his fiance. "It's been a great 15 years, but now that I'm allowed to marry a guy, it's over between us. I'm sure you understand, and hey, give my best to the kids!"
Didn't happen; ain't gonna happen. If there is an existing healthy heterosexual marriage, or even a salvageable heterosexual marriage, anywhere in this nation that is the least bit threatened by equal marriage rights for same-sex couples, it sure hasn't made the news: not before the current titular head of the Party of Lincoln announced that he wants to write bias into the Constitution, not after, either.
And even before the first 24-hour news cycle was up, the media machine was already getting bored with the constitutional amendment story: those things aren't easy to get approved, as correspondents pointed out as soon as Mr. Bush announced his pre-emptive plan to ensure that only some will have equal protection under the law.
So what was that all about? Did Republican strategists become concerned that their party's most conservative voters might stray -- and vote for Kerry or Nader -- if Bush didn't take a hardline stand against gay marriage? Or did they take a look at the latest poll numbers and conclude that their man could win without the support of gay and lesbian Republicans, or gay and lesbian swing voters, or even just conservative voters who don't believe the Constitution needs a rewrite, period, let alone the first rewrite that would take away rights? Bush lost a LOT of votes in throwing his support behind the homophobia amendment. Did he gain any votes anywhere, and if so, which candidate were those voters considering supporting?
I believe it was an act of desperation. As Bush himself explained yesterday, "There is no assurance that the Defense of Marriage Act will not itself be struck down." Nor is there assurance that it will be, but if it is, then Bush can tell his conservative followers that he tried his best. Except -- couldn't he have told them that anyway?
¶ 5:51 PM |
"Second-day lede" is journalistic jargon for putting a new spin on a story for a second or subsequent news cycle. A 'lede" is the lead sentence of an article, deliberately misspelled to make it more easily recognizable as jargon. Once upon a time, news moved in daily cycles, but now it has become a constant flow of rewrites and "second-day ledes."
Second-Day Lede is also the name of this blog, where you'll find commentary on the news, and especially on the industry that cultivates, harvests, processes, packages, distributes and delivers it to us.
Who's writing this stuff?
A veteran of more news cycles than she'd care to admit, Janet Dagley Dagley entered the profession of journalism as a teenager, covering local government meetings at night for the Dayton Daily News in Ohio, becoming a full-time staff writer at 18 and later moving on to the Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times (Orange County Edition). Over the years she has worked as a freelance writer, editor, and radio producer in the U.S. and Europe. Although she has won numerous awards, she lost both times major metropolitan dailies submitted her work for the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing, and also lost on Jeopardy! (though she did win a trip to Hawaii). Most recently, she was editor of AIRSPACE, the journal of the Association of Independents in Radio, a U.S.-based group of public-radio producers, and a member of the AIR Board of Directors. She has been blogging independently at The Dagley Dagley Daily since February, 2003.
