FEMA not FMA

While the radical right flavor of the month, a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, appears to be heading south in the Senate, the fact that the "family values" scam foisted upon us, more than a decade ago, by Newt Gingrich, and his "Contract for America" has a longer shelf life than the average garden variety cockroach is nothing less than a flawed camouflage for the licentousness of the likes of Jack Abramoff, I. Scooter Libby and, dare I say it, Karl Rove.

In a post-Katrina world, with global warming, more hurricanes and earthquakes on the horizon, this is a time when the government should be thinking more about bolstering resources for the Federal Emergency Management Agency instead of deflecting attention away from our ongoing national unpreparedness by cooking up a Federal Marriage Amendment. We need to protect the environment not marriage. As the divorce rate indicates, not even an amendment to the Constitution can do that!

If this administration, and this president, showed half as much concern for the First Amendment as they pretend to for the sanctity of the family, we would never witness a grand jury subpoena being served, or a member of the press being led away in handcuffs, again.