THE DEMOCRATIC Party announced last week that Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine will deliver the party’s official response to President Bush’s "State of the Union" address later this month. A statement issued by the party praised Kaine, just one week on the job, for being "a champion for working families, putting their priorities above the needs of the special interests."

That description will surprise the "working families" of Virginia headed up by gay and lesbian couples. Because the same day Kaine debuted as "the new face" of the Democratic Party, the Blade reported that he supports and will sign onto the ballot an amendment to the Virginia Constitution that not only bans gay marriage and civil unions, but domestic partnerships as well, and may even deprive gay couples the protection of domestic violence laws.

After the Blade story hit the fan, a Kaine spokesperson telephoned to "clarify" his position. It turns out the governor does, as reported, support a constitutional ban on gay marriage and civil unions, but he opposes the rest of the amendment, which prohibits the state or local governments from giving any legal recognition whatsoever to gay and unmarried straight couples, and also blocks the state from recognizing similar efforts by other states or local governments.

Not only would Virginia’s gay couples be blocked from any legal recognition, so too would a married gay couple visiting the state from Massachusetts, or a civil unioned couple from Vermont, or domestic partners from neighboring Washington, D.C. Should they encounter a medical emergency, their home-state recognition would be stripped and they’d have no right to make medical decisions or hospital visits.

What a relief that these gay "working families" must feel at Kaine’s "clarified" position, opposing such unprecedented bigotry! Not so fast.

It also turns out that although Kaine isn’t "comfortable" with the extraordinary broad language, which would be the most punitive ever adopted by any state, this "champion for working families" decided not to expend any political capital limiting its scope and will sign onto the ballot.

With champions like this, who needs enemies?

NOT TO WORRY, gay Virginians (and those who might visit them). You still have plenty of leverage here because Kaine is a Democrat and has aspirations to higher public office.

Given the influence gay Democratic groups have within the party, pressure will surely be brought to bear on such an abject betrayal of an important constituency, not to mention the party’s historical commitment to civil rights.

But alas, gay Democratic activists ought to be called "Democratic activists who happen to be gay," as they so clearly are Democrats first and gay second (and activists very, very third).

Josh Israel, president of the Virginia Partisans Gay & Lesbian Democratic Club, which endorsed Kaine’s election, refused to call on Kaine to veto the bill that puts the amendment on the ballot.

With gay rights activists like that, who needs party hacks?

It will come as a bitter irony to gay Virginians, and gays nationwide who should be appalled by Kaine’s selection as the party’s new poster boy, that just across the Potomac River, a Republican governor is proposing to extend the very rights the Democrat in Virginia would permanently ban.

Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich has introduced legislation to allow gay and unmarried straight couples to sign an official government registry ensuring they can make medical decisions for each other in time of emergency.

The National Stonewall Democrats, based in Washington, reacted to Ehrlich’s proposal by attacking the Republican and not even mentioning the "new face" Democrat in Virginia.

"A bridal registry at Target would offer same-sex couples more benefits than this watered-down, election-year ploy by Governor Ehrlich," said Eric Stern, the Stonewall Democrats’ executive director.

Maybe so, but the Democrat in Richmond is poised to sign a ballot measure that would amend the state’s constitution to forever ban even a "watered-down" registry like the one proposed by Ehrlich, and it would probably take the bridal book at Target down with it.

Give the Stonewall Dems credit for eventually calling on Kaine not to sign the marriage amendment, even as the Virginia Partisans and apologists like Adam Ebbin, the state’s first openly gay legislator, worked the phones to defend Kaine rather than their gay constituents.

Gay Democrats aren’t the only ones to buy into the dogma that the party is always a higher priority than gay rights, for the perverse reason that helping the party is supposed to, some day, help gay rights, too.

Log Cabin Republicans have been smoking their own dope for at least as long, and just this week failed to oppose the horrific nomination of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court. Of course, the gay Democrats who run our national gay rights groups have also refused to lobby party leaders to filibuster, the only hope of blocking the nomination. Only the National Center for Lesbian Rights has shown the courage to join abortion and women’s rights groups on that front.

BUT THIS TIME around, the issue couldn’t be clearer for gay Democratic leaders and the national gay groups. The party that enjoys our votes and our money, and that claims to cherish civil rights, has selected as its "new face" a governor who won’t lift a finger to stop the most punitive anti-gay constitutional amendment since Colorado adopted Amendment 2.

They should join together to call on Kaine to act and act now, and if he won’t he should be stripped from his new role as party spokesmodel.

Kaine’s political cowardice isn’t just bad for gay "working families," it’s bad for Democrats. James Carville and Paul Begala, two leading Clinton-era warriors, went on "Meet the Press" on Sunday to hawk their new book, "Take it Back," which offers a tough prescription for what ails the party.

"The problem with the Democratic Party is not ideological, it’s anatomical," they wrote. "We lack a backbone. Consider this book an attempt at a spinal transplant."

It couldn’t come soon enough for Tim Kaine. If Howard Dean and other party leaders truly believe Kaine is a "champion for working families who puts their priorities above the needs of the special interests," then we can only conclude that the Democratic Party now views the civil rights of our working families as "special interests" to be sacrificed on Election Day.

Tim Kaine may be the new face for Democrats, but he certainly isn’t their spine.

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