FMA: Grasping at Straws?

As time goes on, naturally things progress and usually get better. People are arguably more enlightened than say 100 years ago (though this administration would like to stop that.) People, especially minorities (not just racial minorities), have more rights than before and they are getting more all the time. Unfortunately, conservatives (who want to conserve or regess) do not like this policy and want to go back to the heady days of white male landowners being in charge. That is a pithy swipe, but its true, and its evident in the desire to pass the FMA, or Federal Marriage Amendment, which aims to limit marriage to only unions between a man and a woman. They are trying to hold back societal progress; putting their finger in the dike, to use a very appropriate aphorism. They want to end the trend of recognizing civil unions between same sex partners. This once again illustrates my contention that conservatives are liars about their support of states rights.
The big question is why: Why do they want to end the practice of letting homosexuals marrying each other? The obvious reason is that conservatives do not support gay rights because according to conservative dogma, homosexuality is an aberration, unnatural and odious. However, they cannot use that as their public reason to oppose it; they can only use it when preaching to the choir. The Alliance for Marriage, a conservative group has been trying to get the FMA signed into law for a while. They made some headway during the Clinton administration (gasp!) with the Defense of Marriage Act. However, it was not enough. They want the whole thing. The FMA is a very short bill that states the following:
Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.
Ok, that’s all well and good (well its not, but I'm on a roll,) but what are the concrete reasons as to why allowing marriage between a man and a man or a woman and a woman or she male and she male and all points in between would be a bad thing? According to the Alliance for Marriage website, the reasons against such unions are many. Just as George II puts Iraq, Al Queda and 9/11 in the same sentence ever time he speaks to reiterate their ties (well, there aren't any, but he wants us to think so,) the Alliance for Marriage puts words such as violent crime, welfare dependency, divorce and childless fathers in its explanation of why America is in dire straits and gay marriages should be opposed. All of America's problems, according to the Alliance for Marriage, can be blamed upon "the disintegration of the family" unit, and gay marriage would only exacerbate the disintegration of the family unit, according to the Alliance. As a brief aside, wouldn't letting more people marry increase the number of families and people caring for children?
So then, who is to blame for all this anti-family rhetoric and lobbying? Well, they give no one main adversary, but blame many stealthy bugaboos, especially the ominous "courts." All this is occurring outside "the democratic progress and against the will of the American people" (quote from their website.) I have to hand it to the Alliance once again; they are very good at what they do. It is against the will of the American people. They are great at making this seem like an attack on all that is American and thus steeling the will of its members. The group employs the word America a lot in their reasons as to why this act should be supported. They also say that this act should be passed because people coming into the country could have come from a country that recognizes and grants same-sex marriages and therefore the "DOMA offers no protection against the potential for legal recognition of foreign same-sex marriages involving US citizens by American courts. More protection is required to keep the American people in charge of the definition of marriage in the United States." Look out; the foreigners are coming to subvert American moral standards!
The Alliance for Marriage also knows their supporters well. They make blatantly contradictory statements which are only noticeable to the enlightened like you and I. For example they call what the evil courts are doing "the subverting of democracy and undermining of marriage at a state level." This is obviously absurd. The people of Vermont and other states wanted the recognition of civil unions, so therefore they lobbied for it and got what they wanted. If that is not democracy in action, then I do not know what is. Another tactic used by this group is to use grandiose language and concepts that we all have heard of, but probably know nothing about. For example, they invoke such elements of the Constitution as the Free Exercise clause and the Full Faith and Credit clauses to confuse readers who probably do not know the first four amendments.
Lastly, and admittedly weakly, why support this amendment to the Constitution on the grounds that the other Amendments are so important? How can one compare the right to a fair and speedy trial, the right to free speech, and other important amendments that increase people’s rights, to one that is supported by an angry hateful group that wants to limit people’s freedoms? That’s not the spirit of America, and by invoking the very word America and its storied past in order to make gains in a sick, political stunt, just goes to show the depravity of these individuals.
One last note. The Alliance for Marriage is now touting the support of a "multi-cultural" group led by Rev. Fauntroy, a man who walked to Washington with Martin Luther King. He and the group should be embarrassed that they are invoking the name of a man who worked and died for his belief that all men are created equal, and that they are only bringing up his name as some sick way to show that somehow this is a valid effort on their part.