Senator Wayne Allard, the main sponsor of the amendment, continued: "There is a master plan out there from those who want to destroy the institution of marriage." A master-plan? To destroy an institution gay couples merely want to join? In private, the rhetoric was even stronger. One of the leading religious right supporters of the president, James Dobson, wrote to his followers earlier this month: "Barring a miracle, the family as it has been known for more than five millennia will crumble, presaging the fall of Western civilization itself."

...The religious right has therefore achieved what they set out to achieve. The have used this issue to galvanize parts of the evangelical base, just as president Bush's political master-mind, Kark Rove, intended.

...The answer, alas, is that this president has decided it will help him politically to tear us apart. His base is restless over spending and Iraq, and this is a means to placate and energize them. If that means turning a tiny minority into a lethal threat to civilization, so be it. If that minority's sole crime is to seek to live up to the same responsibilities as everyone else, to uphold the family, to support responsibility, then that also is beside the point. In this battle, the president has shown his true colors. He is a divider, not a uniter.