Editorial
© 2007 Philadelphia Gay News

Hate and loathing in the White House

President Bush is getting all sorts of press this news cycle, particularly after his decision to commute the prison sentence of Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

While that decision speaks to his propensity to contravene executive oversight (think: domestic wire-tapping, torture memos, Guantanamo Bay), another presidential move speaks to his commitment to erode the rights of same-sex couples and pander to religious conservatives.

Last week, Bush issued a veto threat for a government appropriations bill passed by the House of Representatives. The reason for the veto threat? It did not contain language barring the funds from being used for the District of Columbia’s domestic-partnership registry.

At first glance, one might say OK, the president disagrees with same-sex marriage and doesn’t want to support any union that might be construed as such.

But at second glace, one would realize this: The appropriations bill doesn’t fund D.C.’s domestic-partnership registry anyway. The registry is funded through local taxes.

Thus, the language Bush wanted, which had been a longstanding Republican inclusion, was added as an amendment and representatives passed the bill.

Now, a version of the bill is in the Senate, without the domestic-partnership registry language.

While the anti-gay language is redundant, the president’s action is deplorable.

The registry allows same-sex couples to register their partnerships and gain basic rights including hospital and nursing-home visitations, medical decisions and inheritance rights.

Interestingly, Mary Cheney, the vice president’s daughter, and her partner Heather Poe had their baby in Washington, D.C. The very city that Bush wants to (unnecessarily) restrict funding for domestic partnerships.

As a second aside, Bush has publicly stated that he didn’t think people should be denied civil unions or a legal arrangement if that is what the state decided to enact, though he did not support full marriage rights. Perhaps because D.C. is not a state, it is subject to different Bush opinions. Or perhaps Bush has changed his mind.

Either way, at a time when the president’s approval ratings are scraping the bottom of the barrel, the war in Iraq is going poorly, the national debt is $4.9 trillion and 18,000 people die each year from lack of healthcare, doesn’t Bush have more pressing concerns than adding a superfluous statement about domestic partnerships into a funding bill?