Pay no attention to that man behind the curtainGeorge W. Bush is not the first leader to discover that war and the threat of terrorism will distract the electorate from a bad economy and widespread unemployment. But our president is breaking new ground by using gay marriage as a distraction from a bad economy and a war that is not going well.

Gay marriage is a classic wedge issue and the president used it like a club in his press conference last Wednesday. The president said he’s asking aides to explore legal steps to define marriage as a union between man and woman.

When this matter came up some years ago, a member of Congress proclaimed that his marriage was threatened by the concept of homosexuals marrying. That observation was reiterated last week when the Rev. Franklin Graham applauded Bush and said: “If he doesn’t take leadership in this area, we could lose marriage in this country as we know it.”

Hmmm. What is marriage as we know it? Isn’t the divorce rate among heterosexual couples high? Isn’t the number of children in single-parent homes climbing? That phenomenon has occurred without any “threat” from gay marriages.

President Bush and Rev. Graham look at marriage as a religious institution, and it is for many Americans. For many other couples, however, marriage is an intimate relationship within the confines of civil law alone. The journalist and curmudgeon H.L. Mencken said that marriage was, above all else, an economic arrangement. Money consistently ranks as the primary or secondary reason for divorce.

Stability is what most of us seek in marriage or a long-term relationship. Gays are no different in their aspirations. The Oregonian recently profiled a gay couple that had been together for 50 years.

Social trends are moving toward a greater accommodation of gays. Major corporations are recognizing the reality of longterm relationships among their gay employees. Newspapers such as The New York Times are publishing announcements of same-sex commitment ceremonies. Within the broader society, there is much less anxiety about gay marriage than there is among religious fundamentalists or within the hierarchy of the Catholic church.

Mr. Bush will reap gains among his core constituency of the religious right by standing firm against gay marriage. But it is only a useful gimmick. With a lingering war and a bad economy, playing the demagogue on gay marriage will fool some Americans some of the time.