Homestead mailing list

[Tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>]

House Defeats Constitutional Amendment Banning Gay Marriage

*By David Espo* The Associated Press
Published: Sep 30, 2004

        Advertisement
        

WASHINGTON (AP) - The House emphatically rejected a constitutional 
amendment banning gay marriage Thursday, the latest in a string of 
conservative pet causes advanced by Republican leaders in the run-up to 
Election Day.

The vote was 227-186, 49 votes shy of the two-thirds needed for approval 
of an amendment that President Bush backed but the Senate had previously 
scuttled.

"God created Adam and Eve, He didn't create Adam and Steve," said Rep. 
Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., on behalf of a measure that supporters said was 
designed to protect an institution as old as civilization itself.

Democrats countered that Republicans were motivated by election-year 
politics as much as anything, particularly since a Senate vote this year 
ended any immediate chance the amendment could be sent to the states for 
ratification.

Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the Democratic whip, accused GOP leaders 
of "raw political cynicism" and said they hoped to "create the fodder 
for a demagogic political ad."

Bush issued a statement expressing disappointment with the vote's outcome.

"Because activist judges and local officials in some parts of the 
country are seeking to redefine marriage for the rest of the country, we 
must remain vigilant in defending traditional marriage," the president 
said.

The measure drew the support of 191 Republicans and 36 Democrats. Voting 
against it were 158 Democrats, 27 Republicans and one independent.

The debate on the gay marriage amendment came a day after the House 
voted 250-171 to overturn a 28-year municipal ban on handgun ownership 
in the District of Columbia. And last week, Republicans forced a vote on 
legislation to protect the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance 
from court challenge. It passed, 247-173.

While both of those measures face uncertain prospects in the Senate, 
they - along with the gay marriage proposal - appeal to voting groups 
whose support Republicans are counting on in the Nov. 2 elections. 
Recent surveys in battleground states in the presidential race indicate 
roughly one-quarter of Bush's supporters say moral or family values are 
uppermost in their minds.

The gay marriage amendment said marriage in the United States "shall 
consist only of a man and a woman." It also would have required that 
neither the U.S. Constitution nor any state constitution "shall be 
construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be 
conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman."

Even among majority Republicans, the issue generated dissent.

Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, was the principal speaker on behalf 
of the measure, taking a role that is almost always reserved for the 
chairman of the committee with jurisdiction. In this case, though, the 
leadership bypassed the Judiciary Committee, and GOP officials said the 
panel's chairman, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., made clear he wanted 
no part of the debate. His spokesman did not immediately return a call 
for comment.

DeLay said the need for congressional action was "forced upon us by 
activist judges trying to legislate from the bench." He noted that under 
1996 legislation passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton, 
marriage is defined as between a man of a woman.

"One would think this would be the end of the story. But it is not," 
DeLay said. The law is "under an incessant and coordinated attack in the 
federal courts," where he said judges feel a greater "responsibility to 
their own political ideology than the Constitution."

"The limitations of traditional marriage rest not on an intent to 
discriminate, but on what is most beneficial for society and children as 
evidenced by volumes of social science research," added Rep. Marilyn 
Musgrave, R-Colo.

"Traditional marriage is worth preserving, because the nuclear family is 
far and away the best environment in which to raise children. Every 
child deserves both a father and a mother," said Musgrave, whose 
persistent advocacy for the measure has gained her national notice 
unusual for a first-term lawmaker.

Critics saw it differently.

"We feel love and we feel it in a way different than you," said Rep. 
Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is openly gay. "We feel it with someone of 
the same sex, male or female, and we look at your institution of 
marriage and we see the joy it brings. How do we hurt you when we share 
it?"

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. quoted Vice President Dick Cheney - who has a 
gay daughter - as saying, "The fact of the matter is that we live in a 
free society and freedom means freedom for everybody."

Public polls show strong opposition to gay marriage, but opinion is 
about evenly divided regarding a federal constitutional amendment to ban 
it.

At the same time, voters in 11 states will decide the fate of proposed 
amendments to their state constitutions this fall, and opponents of bans 
on gay marriage concede they will be difficult to stop.

The issue has gained prominence this year. Massachusetts residents have 
had first-in-the-nation rights to same sex marriages since May, the 
result of a ruling by the state's highest court. A judge in Washington 
recently struck down that state's ban on same-sex marriage.