In his State of the Union address last night, President Bush delighted his conservative base by reaffirming his stance that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, thereby undermining the legitimacy of same-sex marriages.

Bush’s remark can be seen as a response to the decision handed down by the Massachusetts supreme court ruled in late 2003 that ruled that gay marriages are not unconstitutional. While Bush has not yet enacted a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriages on a national scale — thereby overruling the Massachusetts court’s decision —, he did make clear that he is emphatically against gay marriages. Bush declared last night that If necessary, I will support a constitutional amendment which would honor marriage between a man and a woman, codify that.”

Bush’s stance against gay marriages should be seen in the context of his support for “healthy marriages,” a cause for which he has earmarked $1.5 billion to be spent on training and counseling for lower-class heterosexual couples.  

While American news agencies such as CNN covered the story in relatively bland tones, across the Atlantic the BBC used particularly stringent language to describe Bush’s stance. The BBC stated: “To those fighting for the rights of homosexuals, the president’s election-year remarks formed part of an aggressively homophobic agenda which seeks to push US gays and lesbians to the fringes of society.”

While gay marriages have received the legal blessing of the state of Massachusetts, the gay community was certainly handed a pointed snub, if not an outright defeat, in last night’s address.

Mimi Hanaoka