Last night on "Hardball", Chris Matthews repeatedly and, quite rudely, asked a Massachusetts congressman and Kerry supported, "What is Kerry going to DO about the gay marriage issue?" The congressman responded that Kerry's position is that it is a state's rights issue. "What is he going to DO about it?"
Over and over again Matthews phrased the question that way. Truth be told, the congressman, who's name escapes me at the moment, did not handle the question well. What he should have pointed out is that neither Bush nor Kerry is going to "do" anything about the issue, because the office of the presidency has no power to do anything about it. It is a constitutional issue up to the courts, the states and Congress ONLY.
As you may recall, the process of amending the Constitution of the U. $. involves getting 2/3 of the congress to vote in favor of it and then 3/4 of the states to "ratify" it. End of story. The president has no role whatsoever. He cannot force congress to take up an amendment (only a congressman can put the amendment before the congress), he cannot prevent the congress from taking up an amendment, he does not have a vote in congress on the amendment, he cannot veto the amendment and he does not sign the amendment. The Prime Minister of Iceland probably has more to do with amending the U. $. Constitution than the President of the U. $. does. President Bush's "announcement" that he is in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is nothing more than a statement of his position, it is not an example of him "doing" anything.
Furthermore, given the facts that I have outlined above, his announcement is 110% about election year politics and zero percent about anything else. There is no reason why some similarly inclined congressman, somebody who would have actually been involved in the process, couldn't have simply put the amendment before congress, without Bush's three ring circus surrounding the issue.