Bookman in AJC: For GA GOP, gay marriage is the "issue that keeps on giving"

Gay marriage: Politics still drive the fight | Jay Bookman at ajc.com: "Two years ago, as Georgia conservatives were rushing a constitutional amendment through the Legislature to define marriage and bar recognition of same-sex civil unions, they were warned repeatedly that the measure was fatally flawed, that it was so badly written that the courts would have to overrule it.

'It will be thrown out and then some people will wail that those activist judges have overruled the will of the people,' state Rep. Tom Bordeaux (D-Savannah) told his colleagues in urging the bill be redrafted.

In fact, Bordeaux suggested, the language might be flawed on purpose, so that Georgia Republicans could twice reap the benefits of putting such a volatile issue on the ballot.

'... two years from now, or maybe three years from now, many of us will be back again, debating the same issue, trying to draft new language, to appease those violently activist liberal federal judges," Bordeaux said, calling the issue "the gift that keeps on giving.'

And thus it has come to pass."