A Stitch in Haste

I really wouldn't want to be a young Republican member of the House of Representatives today.

The funny thing about the House is that very few politicians envision their political careers ending there. Granted, some rise to leadership positions and are content to stay, but most certainly see themselves, at first at least, progressing onward and upward as time goes by -- the Senate, high state office, etc.

And now those poor young Republicans are going to have to vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment, a vote they cannot win.

No I don't mean the FMA can't win (of course it can't). I mean the young Republicans can't.

They're damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they break ranks to vote their conscience (yes, even Republicans can have a conscience), then they suffer today as their record of party loyalty gets dinged. There go the choice committee assignments, staff budgets, even office allocations.

But if they vote in favor of FMA like the good little minions they're expected to be, then they will suffer down the road, when, perhaps 10 or 20 years later, they will be taken to task for their vote by a society which will certainly be less bigoted about gay rights than it is today (see this post).

Much the same happened in the wake of the Civil Rights movement. Some politicians were never able to recover fully from their pro-discrimination positions during the 1960's. The same day of reckoning may very well come in future years (and campaigns), for those who would just as soon not address a dead, and very bad, piece of legislation.

MAJOR UPDATE: The vote was 227-186, far short of the two-thirds majority required for passage. (I'm not sure how I feel about the Associated Press describing the amendment as being "emphatically defeated" -- after all, more people voted yea than nay. I'll chalk it up to semantics.)

Here are the 27 Republicans who voted against the FMA:
Bass, Biggert, Bono, Castle, Cox, Dreier, Foley, Frelinghuysen, Gerlach, Gibbons, Gilchrest, Greenwood, Hobson, Hostettler, Houghton, Johnson (CT), Kirk, Knollenberg, Kolbe, Leach, McInnis, Ose, Paul, Pryce (OH), Shays, Simmons, Sweeney

BoiFromTroy has some thoughts and links.

Related Posts:
Damn Right They're Bigots
Cheney the Teddy Bear?
FMA Supporter: "Good News: We Lost!"
Final (Maybe) Thoughts on FMA
Two FMA Thoughts

Law Dork is chronicling the quite intruiging escapades of a Senate bill apologizing for not banning lynching.

The theater around the apology bill is not from the vote itself -- it passed on a voice vote -- but rather how Senators did or did not trip over themselves to be co-sponsors of the bill. Apparently voting for the bill was not enough -- you needed to sponsor it in order not to be criticized.

Anyway, this comical episode (over a quite non-comical subject) reminded me of something I pondered a while back before the Federal Marriage Amendment was dead, dead, dead:

It must really be tough being a young Republican politician sometimes.

As I blogged previously:

They're damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they break ranks to vote their conscience (yes, even Republicans can have a conscience), then they suffer today as their record of party loyalty gets dinged. There go the choice committee assignments, staff budgets, even office allocations.

But if they vote in favor of FMA like the good little minions they're expected to be, then they will suffer down the road, when, perhaps 10 or 20 years later, they will be taken to task for their vote by a society which will certainly be less bigoted about gay rights than it is today.

Just as votes (or non-votes) on lynchings, or the Civil Rights Act, or other subjects that seemed controversial at the time later evolved into "well, duh" -- so too will votes against gay marriage and gay rights generally likely come back to haunt those who could not recognize where the right side of history lies.

Probably not in 2006, maybe not in 2008. But someday.