The Rev. Louis Sheldon, head of the Traditional Values Coalition, told The New York Times after Bush’s announcement: “Call it same-sex marriage, civil unions or domestic partnership, it is all part of a carefully calculated campaign to provide the appearance of normalcy to homosexual behavior … It will be unmasked and defeated and President Bush’s leadership on this issue will make the difference.”

Nick Confessore at TAPPED, Josh Marshall, Noam Schrieber and Ryan Lizza at TNR and others have been discussing at great length the politics of the Banning of Gay Marriage Amendment and have pinpointed, I believe, the essential dilemma Bush faces and it’s good news for us.

First of all, the polls suggest that this will not be the wedge issue that various anonymous administration officials are telling the press it is. That is just fodder for the religious right dupes. The truth is that the genie is way, way out of the bottle on gay rights and even those with a brain the size of a peanut can see that.

For instance:

“Will and Grace,” a formulaic, middle of the road, entirely predictable sit-com that happens to feature two gay male characters in leading and recurring roles, is regularly a top-ten rated program. This is significant mainly because the median age of viewers is 46.2 years of age and garners the second highest national advertising rates on prime time at $414,500 a 30 second spot. Out there in the heartland, fat and happy Muricans are being entertained regularly by a couple of gay cosmopolitans and the faghags who love them and sponsors are willing to pay top dollar to get their message out to them. (On the other hand, if the three “Queer Eye For the Straight Guy” specials had been counted as a regular series last summer, it would have tied for the #5 rating of the summer in 18-49 age group. Young people aren’t threatened by the scourge of gayness, either.)

Why do I bring this up? Because this issue has been decided already. It’s over. Most Americans are past the idea that gay people are a threat and this is born out by the free market of popular entertainment. The Networks don’t show this stuff if it doesn’t make money and network shows don’t make money if they don’t hit a certain broadbased critical mass. People would not be inviting gay people into their homes if they weren’t comfortable with them. More than that, they wouldn’t watch in great numbers if they didn’t like them.

This gay marriage issue is actually the final battle in a war that’s already been won.

Karl Rove knows this, which is why he didn’t want to have Bush endorse a constitutional amendment. But, he had to and we Democrats really should have some sympathy for him because we’ve been in his shoes many, many times.

As Noam Schreiber points out in his article:

…this development calls into question Karl Rove’s entire meta-strategy of courting the conservative base for three years on the expectation that, by the fourth, he and Bush would have built up enough capital to move to the center. That’s the kind of thing that could work for a Democratic president, who’d have the benefit of dealing with a bunch of interest groups willing to be bought off. But, as we’ve seen now on immigration reform and gay marriage and spending and the deficit (e.g., the reaction to the aborted Mars mission and last fall’s Medicare reform bill), conservative politics don’t work that way … it doesn’t do them any good to win on 99 issues and lose on the hundredth. If you really think the outcome of that hundredth issue determines whether or not the country is going to hell, then you don’t take a whole lot of comfort from having won on the previous 99.

His thesis, basically, is that Republicans are temperamentally unable to compromise because they see things in black and white manichean terms — otherwise known as Yer-With-Us-Or-Agin-Us, My-Way-Or-The-Highway or the I’ll-Hold-My-Breath-Until-I-Turn-Blue philosophy of politics. He further explains that Democrats’ collection of interest groups means that activists who agitate for certain issues like gay rights or choice are more willing to compromise because they are usually personally affected by government and are therefore, more apt to feel the immediate consequences of incremental change. (Regardless of the motivation, it seems to me that Democrats are just more “into nuance” e.g. smarter.)

What he does not point out, however, is that if this description of the Republicans political viewpoint is correct it illustrates why they are fundamentally unqualified to govern in a democratic system. If one is unwilling to compromise then any kind of bipartisan consensus is impossible and rule by force becomes inevitable.

This is undoubtedly why we have seen a steady encroachment of the constitution in the last few years. First came the impeachment, the nuclear option of partisan warfare. Then we saw the Supreme Court intervene in a presidential election despite a clear constitutional roadmap for dealing with just such a situation. Now they are pre-emptively endorsing the radical idea of a constitutional amendment to remedy a supposed problem that has not even been decided by more than two state supreme courts and one act of civil disobedience in California. (And, if California is any guide, amending the constitution will shortly become the default strategy for all of the right wing’s pet causes.)

Karl Rove, however, has to win this election in a system that requires that his boy at least feint to the middle. His strategy, as Schreiber delieates above didn’t work. There is no pleasing the right wing and there is no room for compromise. And, he is learning, just as the centrist Dems learned in the 90’s when they tried to maintain a bipartisan consensus, that if you give these wing-nuts an inch, they’ll take a mile. The more you move to the right, the more they move to the right. There is no meeting half way.

Welcome to our nightmare, Mr Rove.

The good news is that this kind of politics always leads to the Republicans’ inevitable downfall: hubris. The hideous mug of Newt Gingrich became the symbol of GOP hubris when he shut down the government in 1995 and ensured Bill Clinton’s re-election the next year. Gingrich finally lost his job when they once again pushed too hard, impeached Clinton over a sexual indiscretion and the public repudiated them at the polls. That is the main reson why Junior hid all the congressional hacks at the RNC convention and ran as a “compassionate conservative,” after all. They’d been burned by their right wing.

The banning of gay marriage amendment will, I predict, end up the same way. Americans may not be “in favor” of gay marriage (the idea is quite recent to most people, after all), but neither are they intolerant of gay people or against gay rights. That bridge has been crossed and without mainstream homophobia the anti-gay marriage argument falls apart. “Will and Grace” being a top ten rated network show proves that mainstream America is perfectly comfortable with gay people in their lives.

Just as a majority of Americans pragmatically understood that married men are sometimes unfaithful, but that’s not a reason to shred the constitution, so too will they recognize that there is no good reason that a bunch of religious zealots and take-no-prisoners Republican fanatics should be allowed to use the constitution to discriminate against its own citizens.