Cleveland Plain Dealer TERRIFIC Editorial re: Gay Marriage

[Tesibria]

http://www.cleveland.com/editorials/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1098524055184170.xml

how they could possibly endorse Bush with editorials like this I don't know (and note that they haven't yet) ... but this is a truly terrific editorial.
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A bad marriage: Issue 1 seeks to defend an important social institution, but the voters must rise to defend the Constitution of Ohio

The ill-con ceived ballot drive to amend Ohio's Constitution to deny legal status to any consenting adult relationships outside the traditional bond of male-female marriage is a terrible idea.
...
A Constitution is the set of fundamental laws and principles that enumerate the functions, offices and especially the limits, of government, not the governed.

Insomuch as it speaks to individual citizens, it is as a guarantor, not a limiter, of their liberties. In Ohio's case, the seminal document's Bill of Rights lists some 20 individual freedoms, ending with this one: "This enumeration of rights shall not be construed to impair or deny others retained by the people; and all powers, not herein delegated, remain with the people."

To install in such a document language that not only defines a woman-man marriage as the only union valid in this state, but further bars from any legal recognition "relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effect of marriage," is to attempt to reverse more than two centuries of U.S. constitutional practice. It is an affront to the wisdom of the Founders, who properly understood the Constitution's limited role.

It is, however well-intentioned, an act of civic immorality ultimately as distressing to the body politic as the multitude of nontraditional relationships are to those who would enshrine it.
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and more ....

[Eric J in MN]

1. Editors want Kerry, Publisher wants Bush

From dailykos.com:

Update <2004-10-23 22:58:12 by DemFromCT>:
According to E&P

E&P has learned from several sources at the Cleveland Plain Dealer that the paper's nine-person editorial board decided earlier this week that it wanted to endorse Kerry but Publisher Alex Machaskee, who has final say, has decided on Bush. The paper backed Bush in 2000. This has caused consternation in some quarters at the Plain Dealer, with sources telling E&P that the endorsement editorial, which was expected to run Sunday, was put off.