Obviously, the FMA and the ugly state amendments will cause friction in the Democratic Party, especially with some minority voters. However, I wonder if Rove was banking on how many extremely ugly intraparty squabbles would break out - in an election year no less - within his own party? Do you think he and the others who banked on this as a must-have wedgie decided this would be a good purity test to energize "true believers", or did he actually believe that most Republicans would blindly pass this piece of garbage on without any problem?
As Murphy mentioned last night, a well-respected DC City Council member has left the DC Republican committee after making anti-Bush remarks and getting disinvited from the convention. Another respected Republican is boycotting the convention in protest.
http://www.washingtonblade.com/2004/5-28/news/breaking/dccouncil.cfm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61775-2004May27.html
In Arizona, the Senate president (who's eyeing the governor's office in 2006) decided to appease the AZ hate groups by calling a pro-FMA bill up for a vote even though he knew it would fail. One of the most respected GOP senators in the chamber, Carolyn Allen, resigned from her leadership position amid claims that he'd made a promise to her not to call a vote and then broke that promise so that bigots could have a "scorecard" to use for primary and general election races. The moderate and lunatic wings of the AZ GOP have been fighting all year and this was one of the most high-profile body blows yet. Meanwhile, the governor and Democrats in the legislature simply stay out of the way and let the majority party devour itself.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0527leg-quit27.html
http://www.azdailysun.com/non_sec/nav_includes/story.cfm?storyID=87952
Meanwhile, bigots in Arkansas say they have enough signatures to put an anti-benefits amendment on the November ballot. Yet, they still bitch about being called "homophobic" and being turned away at some churches. I couldn't believe that any Baptist churches in AR would turn this kind of petition away, but apparently the reason was that they were trying to get signatures while the churches were being used as polling centers.
http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2004/05/27/News/215887.html
Arkansas Equality and the Arkansas chapter of the ACLU are hopefully going to investigate whether or not this group violated Arkansas statutes by going too close to polling places. Wouldn't it be hilarious if these morons got their petition thrown out of court because of their own moaning and whining to the press?
http://www.arequality.net
BTW, Oregon's attorney general is going to court to overturn the verdict which said the marriage licensed issued in March and April were valid. If you want to keep up on this fight or see what you can do to help, go here
http://www.basicrights.org