rebecca soble

I only watched yesterday’s state of the union address with one ear and one eye, my other sensory input devices focused on getting some work done. But at one point I looked up at the TV in shock, thinking “did I just hear what I think I heard?” This was on the subject of same-sex marriage:

“Activist judges … have begun redefining marriage by court order, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives. On an issue of such great consequence, the people’s voice must be heard. If judges insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process.”

I heard and read just a small amount of post-speech commentary last night and this morning, but didn’t hear any mention of what I consider to be the huge, glaring, stuff-both-feet-in-mouth contradiction inherent in this statement. Would George Bush consider the election of a president an issue of great consequence?? Didn’t that judicial decision go against the people’s voice (with help from our flawed electoral college system)? How come we can’t go back to the constitutional process to have that decision overridden? (Well hopefully we will - four years too late - in November.) And most interestingly, how come none of Dubya’s speech writers noticed how silly this sounded?