The move to protect the traditional definition of marriage within the U.S. Constitution took another step forward Nov. 25 when the Federal Marriage Amendment was introduced in the Senate.
Sen. Wayne Allard, R.-Colo., introduced the amendment on the Senate floor exactly one week after the highest court in Massachusetts legalized same-sex “marriage” in that state. The court granted a 180-day stay to give the state legislature time to act.
While several senators had expressed support for an amendment in recent months, it had yet to be introduced officially.
“This union is sacred and must remain so,” Allard said, according to the Rocky Mountain News.
The marriage protection proposal has four co-sponsors: Sam Brownback of Kansas; Jim Bunning of Kentucky; Jeff Sessions of Alabama; and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma.
The proposal now goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
This summer Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R.-Colo., introduced the amendment in the House, where it has 107 co-sponsors. It needs passage of two-thirds of both the House and Senate and ratification of three-fourths of the states.
But so far Democrats have been cold to the idea, and on Nov. 23 Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D.-S.D., said he is opposed to an amendment.
The Democratic National Committee’s Web site has an entire section on “gay and lesbian” issues where it asserts that an amendment would “force states to discriminate against groups of their own citizens.”
Two polls released since the ruling show that more than 60 percent of Americans oppose same-sex “marriage.” Additionally, three major polls this year- all taken before Massachusetts ruling- showed that between 54 and 58 percent of Americans support a constitutional amendment.
The Constitution provides a second method for adopting an amendment that would bypass Congress, although it has never succeeded. In this method two-thirds of the states would call a constitutional convention, where support from three-fourths of the states would be required for an amendment’s ratification.
The proposed amendment reads: “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.”
(BP)
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