AJC: Gay marriage brouhaha is "shameless posturing"

Shameless posturing--Atlanta Journal Constitution lead editorial: "The problem in Georgia government is not too many 'activist' judges, as Gov. Sonny Perdue and other lawmakers contend.

It's too few activist politicians.

Where are the courageous men and women in the Legislature who will stand up and insist that the state should not waste time and money demonizing gay marriage while its schools struggle, its rural communities languish and its underclass deepens?

Who in the General Assembly will say that it's unconscionable to hold a special legislative session on gay marriage this summer at a cost to taxpayers of $40,000 a day, while only allotting Georgia high schools $98 per student for books, lab fees and supplies?

And who will confess that the gay marriage ban was never anything more than a political lever to jack up the conservative turnout at the polls, since Georgia law already limits marriage to a man and a woman and prohibits the acknowledgment of same-sex marriages performed in other states?

Who can summon the moral strength to remind Georgians that the popular cause is not always the right cause, and that the South should know that better than any other region of the country?

Apparently, no one.

Instead, Democrats and Republicans are tripping over one another to denounce the ruling last week by Fulton Superior Court Judge Constance Russell that the amendment to ban gay marriage in Georgia was presented incorrectly to voters, more than 76 percent of whom endorsed it two years ago.

In an election year when politicians hunger for a wedge issue to spur turnout, Russell's ruling had the effect of spilling a pound bag of M&Ms on a nursery school floor. All bystanders can do in the resulting melee is jump back and hold their ears."