RESPONDING TO a grave and gathering danger to the American family, President Bush reportedly has decided to back a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Thank the Lord. We are blessed to have a president who has the courage and wisdom to set right what the drafters of our Constitution got so grievously wrong.

I must confess, though, that I am a bit disillusioned. I just don't understand how the Founding Fathers could have failed to defend the sanctity of marriage.

Maybe they had a hidden agenda. They did seem to be dandies of sorts who liked to spend a lot of time in the company of other men. Have historians considered this angle?

Whatever the case, I'm grateful for the president's willingness to bring this constitutional shortcoming to the nation's attention, even if the whole thing will be tough on the Old Dominion. Will we still be able to hold famous Virginians James Madison and George Mason--the main architects of our Constitution and Bill of Rights--in high esteem?

At least Virginians have the consolation of knowing that such tenacious defenders of the family as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell dwell among us.

Those who are out to destroy the family are currently making a slick pitch to mainstream America. The leading homosexual lobbying group, the Human Rights Campaign, is saying that the marriage amendment, if ratified, would be the first one in the Constitution "that would deny rights to a group of Americans."

"Since the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791, the Constitution has only been amended 17 times," the group says. "Those amendments have overwhelmingly been used to expand rights."

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No one needs a civics lesson at this critical juncture in our nation's history. We need to focus on preventing homosexuals from gaining special treatment, such as having guaranteed equal access to health insurance, parenting privileges, and Social Security survivor benefits.

Some family-haters have suggested that the president's support for a marriage amendment would be yet another example of his pandering to the fundamentalist right.

It may be true (as Kevin Phillips notes in his new book) that about 40 percent of the votes cast for Bush in 2000 came from the Religious Right, but the president himself is a committed Christian. So when he does something like visit Bob Jones University to give his candidacy a little boost, or appoint a faith healer to a Food and Drug Administration committee on reproductive health, or nominate for an AIDS advisory panel a man who once called the disease a "gay plague," he simply is acting out of conviction.

I guess elitist, anti-Christian liberals just can't stand that fact.

I do have one piece of advice for the president: Consider the international dimension of this struggle to defend the American family.

Just think about where most of this weirdness concerning gay rights is taking place in our country (excluding California, because California is pathologically weird). It's going on in Vermont, where they allow civil unions for gay couples; in New Hampshire, where they have an openly gay Episcopal bishop; and in Massachusetts, where an activist court is trying to force gay marriage on a fearful public.

Now think about what country is up there near those three states. That's right--Canada. The same Canada where gays can legally marry.

I urge the president to form a coalition of the God-willing to fight the growing international homosexual conspiracy. We could start with the Vatican and maybe some of our Muslim friends--like Saudi Arabia. Maybe we can also encourage a few allies from the New Europe--for example, Bulgaria and Latvia--to line up with us against decadent Old Europe nations such as France.

Meanwhile, let's see if we can't scare up some intelligence showing that those madmen in Ottawa are involved in weapons of mass destruction-related program activities.

Oh, Canada, you'll make a lovely 51st state.

RICK MERCIER is an editor and writer for The Free Lance-Star.

Copyright The Free Lance-Star Publishing Company.

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