The American Spectator

Campaign Crawlers

Only 14 senators voted against Bill Clinton's Defense of Marriage Act. John Kerry was one of them. Kerry, once proud of that vote, now says, "I'm against gay marriage. Everybody knows that."

As Kerry beats a hasty retreat from his home state's homosexual radicalism, it is worth remembering that homosexual activists in Massachusetts supported Kerry in his 1996 senate race with William Weld even though Weld was a very loud supporter of homosexual causes. Homosexual activists sided with Kerry because they knew that Kerry was even more in the tank for them than Weld. They knew that Kerry would accelerate their agenda and wouldn't put up any serious resistance to the most radical items on their agenda, including homosexual marriage. (On his campaign website, where he appeals to homosexual voters, Kerry notes that he opposed Clinton's marriage bill during an "election year." Not mentioned is that he was basically in a bidding war with William Weld for the homosexual vote.)

As governor, Weld had given the homosexual community everything it wanted -- a Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, a homosexual student rights bill, funding for a program to instruct state employees on how to buck up the spirits of homosexual teens, "hate crime" laws, judicial appointments to homosexuals, etc. He was perhaps the most radical governor on homosexual issues in the country. But Kerry still won the support of homosexual activists. They determined that he would be more reliably radical than Weld.

"John Kerry has been there from the beginning for our community," said Gary Daffin, one of the heads of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, to the Boston press. The Gay & Lesbian Labor Activist Network also supported Kerry over Weld, as did the Lesbian & Gay Political Alliance of Massachusetts. "We will do everything we can to help Kerry hold on to his seat," it said.

Kerry earned their support through a record as radical as Barney Frank's. One of Kerry's first acts as a senator in the 1980s was to sponsor the federal Gay & Lesbian Civil Rights Bill. (But like most pieces of legislation he sponsored, it died in committee.)

Kerry brags on his campaign website about his 100% rating from the homosexual group the Human Rights Campaign, and takes pride in his opposition to Clinton's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. The policy, Kerry felt, was too conservative.

Kerry made a point of pushing for homosexuals in the military, using his Vietnam Vet credentials to burnish his case. "What is at stake here is the freedom in this country to be who you are, what you are born as," he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee, according to the Boston Globe. "A country that can defeat Hitler is a country that can deal with people holding hands on a base."

Kerry these days is hoping voters forget these comments and this record. Where he once wanted people to know that he was one of the 14 votes against Clinton's defense of marriage bill, now he assures everyone that he will defend marriage. But recall that last year when Pope John Paul II called on Catholic politicians like Kerry to oppose the legalization of homosexual marriage, Kerry rebuked him. "I believe in the church and I care about it enormously," he said. "But I think that it's important to not have the church instructing politicians. That is an inappropriate crossing of the line in America. President Kennedy drew that line very clearly in 1960, and I believe we need to stand up for that line today."

Kerry complains that Republicans are "distorting" his record on homosexual issues. No, they are just reporting it. A pol with a 100% rating from homosexual groups can't persuasively disassociate himself from his home state court's homosexual agenda. It's a safe bet that these judges (like Massachusetts' chief justice, the wife of former New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis) give Americans a clear forecast of the judges Kerry would appoint to the Supreme Court.

Kerry says "everybody knows" he is opposed to homosexual marriage. But he had his chance in the Senate to oppose homosexual marriage and he didn't. He says he is in the mainstream. But he rejected the mainstream position of the Senate on the grounds that it represented "gay bashing," this even when the Senate is to the left of the mainstream of the country.

A Democrat to the left of Bill Clinton on homosexual issues can't object if Americans doubt the sincerity of his stated opposition to homosexual marriage. The homosexual activists who supported Kerry over Weld in 1996 also knew he "opposed" homosexual marriage. They also knew that he didn't really mean it.

topics:
Bill Clinton, Law, Supreme Court, Military, NATO