The Democratic Party is determined to make this election as dirty a fight as possible. They mean to use every possible rumour to smear the President. They mean to interfere with the national defense for the sole purpose of putting their man in the White House. The Party of Treason must not be allowed to emerge victorious, whatever the cost. This means that we’re going to have to do what Howard Dean accuses us of: we’re going to have to fight a good part of this election on the issues of God, guns, and gays.

Now, what exactly does this have to do with Andrew Sullivan? Simple: we need to use the gay issue against the Democrats. Andrew Sullivan is among that tiny percentage of American voters who, presently, seemingly intend to vote for George W. Bush, but will vote the other way on gay issues. After all, as is increasingly clear, Andrew Sullivan and his ilk place their right to buggery before the security of the American Republic and the safety of the American people. I have a strong feeling that it is for fear of offending these people (and of being dubbed ‘homophobic’ by the media) that the President (and other senior Republicans) are holding back from fighting for the Federal Marriage Amendment.

Yoshida’s first law of politics is this: if you’re going to get blamed for something, then you might as well do it anyways. For example, if a new Republican Governor comes into power and needs to cut spending to balance the books, they might as well make a drastic cut in spending rather than a mild one, because the media, the Democrats, the unions, and everyone else are going to (successfully) accuse them of making “heartless” cuts and the media is going to fill up with stories about endangered school lunch programs even if the budget is balanced by simply cutting the rate of increase in spending.

Look, President Bush is going to have to endorse and campaign for the FMA sooner or later one way or another. Even if he endorses it in the mildest of terms and does so surrounded by supportive homosexuals, the media (and the left, and the homosexuals) is still going to respond to so much as a whisper by basically accusing the President of being responsible for the killing of Matthew Sheppard. In other words, if you’re going to get accused of ‘spreading homophobia’, then you might as well do it, because if you don’t you’re going to suffer the consequences of the accusations without the benefit of the act.

Remember last year, when Senator Rick Santorum caused a firestorm by telling the AP (prior to the ruling in Lawrence v. Texas) that, “If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything”? Well, guess what, after the nationwide controversy Santorum’s approval rating held steady and even ticked slightly upwards. More than that, he mobilized his conservative base with such remarks.

The President should take his first chance to make some similar remarks. The next time he faces the press, he should say something along exactly the same lines. It will make the media and the Democrats suffer a seizure. When that happens, he should shrug.

What the media forgets is that homosexuality is popular with the media, but not so popular with the American people (and especially unpopular in areas where the President needs to be strong in November). What won’t do the damage is so much the comment itself, as the reaction. Every national Democrat will scream loudly in support of the gays for at least a week or two. It will anger the Democratic base, but they’re already angry. And, in any case, since they’re already accusing those who oppose gay marriage of, essentially, condoning the murder of homosexuals, they can’t exactly get any angrier.

Andrew Sullivan is constantly (and gleefully) pointing to polls that her claims show that the Federal Marriage Amendment is supported (at best) by a bare majority of the people. Let’s be frank: I don’t believe that those polls are accurate. Because of the effect of popular culture, I believe that we’re seeing the “Wilder Effect” in action. Named for former Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder, it refers to a phenomenon where people being polled tell pollsters what they think is politically correct (IE that they’re going to vote for the black guy, in the case of Wilder) and then merrily do their own thing when they get into the voting booth. This has also been repeatedly seen in Louisiana over the years- with David Duke scoring far better in the actual elections for Governor and US Senator than he did in the polls and last year, when Bobby Jindal consistently held a lead in the polls and then lost.

On top of all of this, the case for the FMA has yet to be publicly made. I suspect that many of the people polled don’t understand the need for a Constitutional Amendment given that thirty-eight states and the Federal Government have laws against gay marriage. When they come to understand how the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution will force gay marriage upon all the states after legalization in a single state (and if you think that the left won’t find some judge to clear away all other obstacles, you’re fooling yourself).

I realize that a few weeks ago I spoke out against the FMA on the grounds that it wouldn’t pass: I’ve changed my mind. Frankly, I’d say that, if a strong enough fight is made, it has a better-than-even chance of passage. Even more, though, I think that the fight is needed.

If the President presses for the FMA, it will expose the insanity of the Democratic position on gay marriage which bears a strong resemblance to President Buchanan’s position on secession (“I’m strongly opposed to it, but I’m also strongly opposed to doing anything about it”). Naturally, the limp-wristed Republicans will fear such a battle on the grounds that it would be “divisive.” However, to them I say this: “good, that’s the whole idea.”

Look, in most of the country a majority of the people think that homosexual relations ought to be illegal: and that’s just what people tell the pollsters. On the whole, I think most people believe in ‘tolerance’ for gays, so long as they remain out of public view. The present mainstreaming of homosexual themes is an almost entirely new societal phenomenon and, I believe, on that will not stand up to a sustained assault.

Now, of course, I regret the probable loss of the support of Andrew Sullivan and others like him. Of course, I’m not sure how much I regret it at the moment since Mr. Sullivan seems to be undergoing an extended, to steal a phrase from a poster at Free Republic, David-Brockification and I’m pretty sure that he’s going to turn against the President some time before November anyways. Taking this measure also works to prevent him (and others like him) from choosing a particularly damaging time to turn against the President (IE a week before the election).

Is this “divisive” and “mean-spirited”? You bet it is. But Republicans are going to get called these things anyways, so we might as well be them. We must be willing to use any tactic, no matter how dirty, to save the Republic in this election.