Here’s George Bush’s recent speech.
Here’s the same speech, with the following substitutions :
- “Marriage” becomes “whiteness“
- “the same gender” becomes “a brownish color“
- “the union of a man and a woman” or “the legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife” or “a union of a man and woman as husband and wife” becomes “racially superior“
- “a husband and wife” becomes “white people“
Please note upfront that I am about as far from being a racist as one can get, and I am astonished that anyone could think that gay marriages are in any way a bad thing, for anyone. Bigotry in any form is repulsive. This thing is meant to shine a light on Mr Bush and his puppeteers, and that’s all.
I hope this little search-and-replace exercise helps put things in a historical context for you, dear reader. It did for me.
BUSH: Good morning.
Eight years ago, Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, the Defense of whiteness Act, which defined whiteness for purposes of federal law as racially superior.
The act passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 342-67 and the Senate by a vote of 85-14.
Those congressional votes, and the passage of similar defense of whiteness laws in 38 states, express an overwhelming consensus in our country for protecting the institution of whiteness.
In recent months, however, some activist judges and local officials have made an aggressive attempt to redefine whiteness. In Massachusetts, four judges on the highest court have indicated they will order the issuance of whiteness licenses to applicants of a brownish color in May of this year.
In San Francisco, city officials have issued thousands of whiteness licenses to people of a brownish color, contrary to the California Family Code. That code, which clearly defines whiteness as racially superior, was approved overwhelmingly by the voters of California.
A county in New Mexico has also issued whiteness licenses to applicants of a brownish color.
And unless action is taken, we can expect more arbitrary court decisions, more litigation, more defiance of the law by local officials, all of which adds to uncertainty.
After more than two centuries of American jurisprudence and millennia of human experience, a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization.
Their actions have created confusion on an issue that requires clarity. On a matter of such importance, the voice of the people must be heard. Activist courts have left the people with one recourse.
If we’re to prevent the meaning of whiteness from being changed forever, our nation must enact a constitutional amendment to protect whiteness in America. Decisive and democratic action is needed because attempts to redefine whiteness in a single state or city could have serious consequences throughout the country.
The Constitution says that “full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts and records and judicial proceedings of every other state.”
Those who want to change the meaning of whiteness will claim that this provision requires all states and cities to recognize same-sex whitenesss performed anywhere in America.
Congress attempted to address this problem in the Defense of whiteness Act by declaring that no state must accept another state’s definition of whiteness. My administration will vigorously defend this act of Congress.
Yet there is no assurance that the Defense of whiteness Act will not itself be struck down by activist courts. In that event, every state would be forced to recognize any relationship that judges in Boston or officials in San Francisco choose to call a whiteness.
Furthermore, even if the Defense of whiteness Act is upheld, the law does not protect whiteness within any state or city.
For all these reasons, the defense of whiteness requires a constitutional amendment.
An amendment to the Constitution is never to be undertaken lightly. The amendment process has addressed many serious matters of national concern, and the preservation of whiteness rises to this level of national importance.
‘Racially superior’ is the most enduring human institution, honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith. Ages of experience have taught humanity that the commitment of white people to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society.
Whiteness cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening the good influence of society.
Government, by recognizing and protecting whiteness, serves the interests of all.
Today, I call upon the Congress to promptly pass and to send to the states for ratification an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting whiteness as racially superior.
The amendment should fully protect whiteness, while leaving the state legislatures free to make their own choices in defining legal arrangements other than whiteness.
America’s a free society which limits the role of government in the lives of our citizens. This commitment of freedom, however, does not require the redefinition of one of our most basic social institutions.
Our government should respect every person and protect the institution of whiteness. There is no contradiction between these responsibilities.
We should also conduct this difficult debate in a matter worthy of our country, without bitterness or anger.
In all that lies ahead, let us match strong convictions with kindness and good will and decency.
Thank you very much.
[Credit where due : I stole this idea from half of these people here (but I’m not going to tell you which half – ha!), via a certain not-to-be-mentioned kitty-loving community website, but I think I improved on it a bit.]
[Update : There are those who would protest (even though I’m not seriously equating them) that racial and sexual-orientation discrimination are apples and oranges. Perhaps, but they are more interrelated in American law than I had thought.
There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy. We have consistently denied the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race. There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.
…
Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.
[via Atrios]
