Quote of the day: Russ Feingold makes the "procedural" case against the no-gay-marriage amendment, but first defines the issue right

It's a creepy spectacle, this GOP "F--k Gay Marriage" Panderthon now playing out in the Senate. To make it worse, as Rachel Maddow has been noting on her Air America Radio show, Democrats will be arguing against it, not on its merit, but with "procedural" arguments: that we don't need an amendment because after all we've got the Defense of Marriage Act to protect us against the scourge of gay marriage, and besides we shouldn't go constitutionally ballistic—we've got lots of other, more suitable venues like the state legislatures in which we can keep them gays in line.

This morning Rachel was pleased to note that one Democrat broke ranks. Yesterday on the Senate floor Sen. Russ Feingold, although he eventually made all the appropriate procedural anti-amendment arguments (after all, we shouldn't be using the amendment process for the purpose of denying civil rights or to punish behavior that certain people disapprove of), began by framing the issue neatly:

"This is pure politics, an election year gambit. Mr. President, we should not play politics with the Constitution. Nor should we play politics with the lives of gay and lesbian Americans who correctly see this constitutional amendment as an effort to make them permanent second-class citizens."

(Note: Senator Feingold did also say later: "I happen to believe that two adults who love each other and want to make a lifelong commitment to each other, with all of the responsibilities that that entails, should be able to do so, regardless of their sex." But this wasn't his argument against the amendment. It was more a demonstration of the debate that he was arguing should take place in those other, more suitable venues. Still, it's not a sentiment you hear a lot in Senate debate.)


9AM UPDATE: BUSH'S ANTI-GAY AMENDMENT FAILS

As expected, the Republican anti-gay amendment failed. Authored by hate-filled extremist maniac Wayne Allard (R-CO), one of the Senate's very worst, the amendment went down even harder than expected when the vote to cut off debate ("cloture") was soundly defeated, not even garnering a bare majority, let alone the 60% it would have required to pass. Under scrutiny and immense pressure from Ned Lamont, Lieberman abandoned his normal tactic of voting with the GOP for cloture in these kinds of procedural matters. The only Democrats joining Bush, Allard and Frist to codify the second class citizenship of gay people were Robert Byrd and, predictably, Ben Nelson (who has the most Republican voting record of any Democrat in the Senate). Two cowardly Democrats chose not to vote, Rockefeller and Dodd. The Republicans giving Bush and the radical right the middle finger were Snowe, Collins, McCain, Sununu, Chafee, Gregg and Specter.

"This is not a priority for the American people," said Dick Durbin (D-IL), citing a Gallup poll that showed same-sex marriage at number 33 in a ranking of Americans' priorities. "This is not so much a debate about preserving marriage as it is about preserving a majority [in Congress]... This does not merit inclusion in the most important document that guides American democracy."


MORE: JOHN STEWART KNOCKS BILL BENNETT'S HEAD OUT OF THE PARK

CROOKS AND LIARS has John Stewart's amazing slapdown of uber-hypocritical asshole Bill Bennett last night. If you want to see the bankruptcy of right wing "intellectual" thought on this key issue of their hate-filled agenda, this awesome video is a good place to start.