Bob Filner: “Well, there they go again. The Commander in Chief has signalled the start of the culture wars, so they are here with…”

“Well, there they go again. The Commander in Chief has signalled the start of the culture wars, so they are here with their wedge politics, trying to divide us, trying to divide us as a Nation. Three million jobs lost since this President took office, a war in Iraq that we cannot seem to win, 545 of our bravest young men and women killed, more waiting as sitting ducks; but what we are going to talk about in this House is a constitutional amendment to preserve marriage. Talk about wedge politics at its finest. Talk about something to divide the Nation. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Indiana, and I assume all those who are going to come after him, should look at the history of the United States and the Constitution, the Constitution which represents for us expanding the rights of all Americans, expanding. We went from giving the right to citizenship to African Americans to giving the right to vote to women, always expanding what the American Dream was about, always expanding what America ought to be. But now we are going to pass an amendment that restricts rights. Now we are going to pass an amendment that says do not look at jobs, do not look at the war in Iraq, do not look at any of the things that bother the American people at their dinner table, their lack of health insurance, their lack of quality education. No, let us focus on this constitutional amendment. Mr. Speaker, the Commander in Chief has unleashed his Weapon of Mass Distraction.”