Bush to Endorse Federal Marriage Amendment

The New York Times reports that he's almost there. It's just a matter of choosing the most politically propitious time.

In a sense, this was inevitable. Bush has angered the small government crowd by his enormous budget deficits and his attempt to blame (a Republican controlled) Congress for them. He can't afford to anger social and religious conservatives (who overlap with the former group). He also remembers what happened to his father when the party's conservative base deserted him. So he will come out in favor of the FMA. The only questions are when he will do it and whether he will emphasize it strongly in the upcoming campaign.

Bush may also be counting on the fact that most Americans oppose same sex marriage, and almost no Americans do who would otherwise vote for him (except perhaps for Andrew Sullivan). So it looks like an easy decision. On the other hand, as I noted in my previous post on this subject, there are real costs to this strategy. Many Americans don't want to think of themselves as intolerant, and if support for the FMA becomes tangled up in support for the religious right and opposition to gay rights generally, or is seen to be tangled up with those causes, Bush will lose the support of many moderate voters.