U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe will play key roles in protecting Thomas Paine’s republic.

As they have often showed, the Maine senators’ common sense is needed more than ever in stopping an ill-conceived proposal: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has scheduled debate next week on the so-called defense of marriage constitutional amendment.

Gone are the days of Reagan-Goldwater federalism that supported state rights over the whims of distant, monolithic Washington.

Indeed, politics does make for strange bedfellows. On this controversial social issue, both moderate and conservative Republicans agree that the amendment is detrimental to the nation. Surprisingly, some of the most spirited opponents to it have been conservatives.

Former Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., told a hearing that the government “should have no say whatsoever in how a given faith chooses to recognize marriage … I am absolutely not a supporter of granting marriage rights for same-sex couples. … Yet, the Constitution is worth that lonely stand … we conservatives are exasperated by some of the over-the-top actions of the state courts. [That] does not, and should not, mean that we should do away with entire strata of our centuries-old legal system.”

He added: “As conservatives, we should be committed to the idea that people should, apart from collective needs such as national defense, be free to govern themselves as they see fit. State and local governments provide the easiest and most representative avenue to this ideal. Additionally, by diffusing power across the federal and state governments, we provide impersonal checks and balances that mitigate against the abuse of power.”

Amendment supporters have engaged in an election-year gimmick. It’s a sideshow that would impress P.T. Barnum, who coined the phrase, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” The loudest activists pushing for the amendment care more about President Bush’s re-election than the “sanctity” of marriage.

Several polls show that voters in some swing states are more inclined to cast a ballot due to this issue. Taxes, terrorism, a living wage and affordable health care become secondary issues.

All this marriage talk is done under the mantra of God and country, but it has little to do with either.

Rush Limbaugh wants a third divorce, a GOP Senate candidate recently left the race because he allegedly tried to force his wife to have public sex at clubs, and no amendment advocate supports repeal of no-fault divorce, which ends 50 percent of all heterosexual marriages.

Independent of President Bush’s support for the amendment is his push for marital counseling. He is promoting a $1.5 billion program to offer premarital counseling for parents on welfare. In short, if you’re poor and uneducated with relationship problems – you need help. But if you’re middle or upper class with relationship problems, the government won’t interfere. If marriage is so sacred, assuming it is government’s role to interfere, then why not urge all Americans, like the president’s brother, who is known for a hearty appetite for Asian women, to seek counseling before a divorce is considered?

The money, should this misguided measure pass, would be distributed through the president’s faith-based initiatives program. Hence, someone who does not subscribe to a particular denomination yet is in a vulnerable emotional state due to life’s pressures will be ripe for the picking by zealots forcing some kind of denominational conversion. Twenty years ago this would have been unthinkable.

Federal interference in the family is manifesting itself in several dangerous ways. Of course there is a double standard in the political application depending on which side of the spiritual, economic or ideological side you’re on.

Washington, never known for its virtue or common sense, is manipulating religion as a vehicle to pursue a perverted theocratic agenda that further divides the nation. Liberty, as so eloquently defined by Thomas Paine, is undermined by the same dogmatic religious vanity that now contributes to international instability.

The thought that Paine’s republic would be threatened in such a scurrilous manner by good-intentioned, misguided Americans would have been impossible under Reagan or Goldwater conservatism. It is hoped that Sens. Collins and Snowe will keep this in mind when casting their marriage amendment votes. Their leadership could make “one nation under God” meaningful once again.

The Right Rev. Paul Peter Jesep, an auxiliary bishop in the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church-Sobornopravna, is studying at Bangor Theological Seminary. The views expressed are his own and do not reflect the church’s position. He may be reached via VladykaPaulPeter@aol.com. Voices is a weekly commentary by five Maine columnists who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.