This is not what’s hurting Jordan’s constituents

2:51 PM Friday, May 29, 2009

As wedge issues go, gay marriage certainly nears the top of the list of things that get conservatives worked up.

Of course if you’re out of work, don’t have health insurance or the bank is foreclosing on your house, it may not be even one of your top ten issues.

That’s certainly true if you live here and the gay marriage issue in question is about Washington, D.C.

That’s why it might leave local voters a bit puzzled to learn of Rep. Jim Jordan’s decision to make the Washington, D.C., fight against gay marriage his own.

Jordan, R-Urbana, whose two-term career so far has been that of a back-bencher who has created a slight legislative legacy, recently has been moved forward by his party as a spokesman.

He has a long record of being a social conservative, and his stance on gay marriage is no exception and in tune with the right wing of his party.

He is leading an effort to pass a law that defines a marriage in the District of Columbia as only being between a man and a woman. The D.C. City Council has voted 12-1 to recognize gay marriages from other states.

Jordan says that his position is about “affirming the ideal” of children having a mother and a father, Cox Washington correspondent Jessica Wehrman wrote in a recent column.

If marriage is all about children, does he oppose marriage between people who are infertile, past childbearing age or just don’t want kids?

Would he prevent mothers who are in abusive marriages from leaving their spouses so his ideal can be maintained?

Does this conservative lawmaker believe Washington, D.C., issues should be decided by a benevolent federal government?

More interestingly, has Jordan looked around his district and noticed the widespread pain caused by the economic crisis?

No one expects Jordan to abandon the Republican policies of the base that elected him.

But leading the charge against gay marriage in a place like the District of Columbia — where someone with his views never could have been elected — smacks of political opportunism.

It would say more for his ideals if he expended his energy to do something to help the people from his district who are suffering in a time of unparalleled trouble. Spending time reversing the D.C. City Council is just silly grandstanding.

Jim Jordan

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