One more question for Senator Fitzgerald

There is something I forgot to mention the other day when I debunked this essay from Wisconsin state senator Scott Fitzgerald about the Hate Amendment that would write a ban on gay marriage and civil unions of all sorts into our state constitution.

Fitzgerald wrote,

Marriage is one of the fundamental bedrocks of our society and deserves to be preserved as a union between one man and one woman. The people of Wisconsin have spoken through their state legislators that they want traditional marriage protected.

So, here's my question, Senator Fitzgerald: Given that Republicans in the legislature could easily have taken up the Hate Amendment in January of this year, after the new legislature was seated, and could really have had it passed and on the ballot for voters in April of this year; and give your insistence that "traditional marriage" needs protecting and how urgent the matter is given the perilously liberal state of our courts; what does it say about your committment to protecting marriage that you are delaying this until November 2006?

In other words, Senator Fitzgerald, what's more important to you, protecting marriage, or the political advantage to Republicans of having this amendment share the ballot with the governor's race? Because it sure looks like your urgency is phony, and I'm not sure that an honest answer--that Republicans are playing politics with this vital moral question--would sit well with your base.