Florida Marraige Amendment: The Politics Of Sanctity - The Gainesville Sun

[WillyT]

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Henry Flagler reinvented Florida long before Walt Disney reinvented Florida. Flagler came south in the waning years of the 19th century and began building railroads and fancy hotels all up and down our long, skinny peninsula. The politicians loved his generosity of ... er ... spirit. Let’s just say Flagler collected pols like a mail-order Sears Roebuck suit collected lint. Florida and Flagler were born for each other. A state on the make, and a tycoon here for the take.

One thing, though. Flagler left behind him in New York a wife who was, not to put too fine a point on it, insane. He wanted a divorce so he could marry a younger woman, and he expected his newly reinvented state to give it to him. Alas, Florida law didn’t deem insanity grounds for divorce. Right.

On April 9, 1901, a bill was quietly introduced in the Legislature declaring that “incurable insanity in either husband or wife shall be a ground for dissolution” of marriage. On April 25, Gov. William Sherman Jennings signed it into law without fuss or fanfare. Sixteen days. Had to be a record.

“Nobody is sure how many legislators Flagler purchased wholesale, but the vote on what everybody except those in state government called ‘the Flagler Divorce Bill’ wasn’t even close,” Diane Roberts wrote in her marvelous book about Florida, “Dream State.”

One lawmaker who voted for it was Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, a sometime gun runner turned populist. Flagler got his divorce. And Broward got himself elected governor. Whereupon, Roberts writes, Broward had the Flagler divorce bill repealed “with a maximum of righteous table-whacking and rococo speeches from legislators about the sanctity of marriage.”

Welcome to Florida, the Sometime Sanctity of Marriage State.

I only bring this story up because it helps to remember where we’ve been when we think about where we’re going. Part of Florida’s charm is that it was built by rascals. An unending succession of con men and land speculators, rum runners and gamblers, scallywags and politicians of easy virtue. Politicians who would serve up quickie divorces to billionaires with one hand while pounding the bully pulpit about the sacred status of marriage with the other.

So now we’re fixing to undergo yet another round of “righteous table-whacking and rococo speeches” about the sanctity of marriage in Florida. This time said sanctity allegedly being undermined, not by a ruthless land baron, but by the imminent threat of gay marriage.

What’s that you say? It’s already against the law for gays to get married in Florida. Oh pshaw.

On any given day the bleeding heart liberals who run the legislature and the courts could legalize gay weddings. Just like they’ve outlawed guns, abolished the death penalty and shoved secular humanism down our throats. Gotta nip that sort of thing in the bud. That’s why we’re all going to get to vote on the Florida Marriage Amendment in November. Before some latter-day, gay Henry Flagler comes down here and buys himself a bunch of politicians so he can get legally hitched at sunset on the dock in Key West.

Wait a minute. Is this campaign really necessary? What’s the real agenda here?

Here’s a hint. Mathew Staver, chair of the conservative political action group Liberty Counsel, predicts that a “tsunami of voters” will turn out in November to support the gay marriage ban. In other words, the Florida Marriage Amendment is less about protecting the sanctity of marriage than keeping Florida firmly in the “R” column.

“Let’s call this proposed state constitutional ban on gay marriage exactly what it is,” said an editorial in the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, “unneeded, divisive and a transparent attempt to get the ultra-conservative vote.”

The thing is that this is a monster election year. And the “ultra-conservative vote” isn’t all that excited about the prospect of a John McCain presidency. And this makes Republicans in the legislature and Florida’s congressional delegation very nervous indeed. What if the evangelical vote elects to stay home on election day? What if Barack Obama has coat-tails in Florida? What if W’s dismal approval numbers sink even lower?

Floridians might do the unthinkable and start electing Democrats again.

Hence the Florida Marriage Amendment. A little red meat to throw at the true believers. A little something to coax them off their pews and into the voting booth.

Florida pols have a tradition of dividing us against one another for maximum advantage. Sidney Catts got elected governor by demonizing Roman Catholics, and more than one of his successors held on to power by demonizing blacks. Back when they put the “English Only” amendment into the state constitution it served the useful purpose of capitalizing on public resentment against the influx of Hispanics. This being before Hispanics became an influential voting bloc in their own right.

The thing is, we are running out of easily demonized groups in this presumably more enlightened era. Gays may be the last easy target of opportunity left.

“Confusion to the enemy,” Ed Ball, another wheeler-dealer who reinvented Florida after Henry Flagler but before Walt Disney, used to say as he knocked back his whisky. Ball having had to go all the way to the Florida Supreme Court to secure his own divorce.

But make no mistake. The “enemy” that most worries promoters of the Florida Marriage Amendment isn’t the gay who dreams of shoes and rice.

It’s the Democrat who dreams of turning a red state back into a blue state.

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Link: http://www.gainesville.com/article/20080727/COLUMNISTS/132550070/1002/NEWS&title=The_politics_of_sanctity

Divide and conquer... the Republican way.

:shrug: