Posted on 07/14/2004 9:50:28 AM PDT by 11th Earl of Mar
Edited on 07/14/2004 10:13:18 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
WASHINGTON - The Senate dealt an election-year defeat Wednesday to a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, rejecting pleas from President Bush (news - web sites) and fellow conservatives that the measure was needed to safeguard an institution that has flourished for thousands of years.
The vote was 48-50, 12 short of the 60 needed to keep the measure alive.
"I would argue that the future of our country hangs in the balance because the future of marriage hangs in the balance," said Sen. Rick Santorum, a leader in the fight to approve the measure. "Isn't that the ultimate homeland security, standing up and defending marriage?"
But Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle said there was no "urgent need" to amend the Constitution. "Marriage is a sacred union between men and women. That is what the vast majority of Americans believe. It's what virtually all South Dakotans believe. It's what I believe."
"In South Dakota, we've never had a single same sex marriage and we won't have any," he said. "It's prohibited by South Dakota law as it is now in 38 other states. There is no confusion. There is no ambiguity."
Supporters conceded in advance they would fail to win the support needed to advance the measure, and vowed to renew their efforts.
"I don't think it's going away after this vote," Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said Tuesday on the eve of the test vote. "I think the issue will remain alive," he added.
Whatever its future in Congress, there also were signs that supporters of the amendment intended to use it in the campaign already unfolding.
"The institution of marriage is under fire from extremist groups in Washington, politicians, even judges who have made it clear that they are willing to run over any state law defining marriage," Republican senatorial candidate John Thune says in a radio commercial airing in South Dakota. "They have done it in Massachusetts and they can do it here," adds Thune, who is challenging Daschle for his seat.
"Thune's ad suggests that some are using this amendment more to protect the Republican majority than to protect marriage," said Dan Pfeiffer, a spokesman for Daschle's campaign.
At issue was an amendment providing that marriage within the United States "shall consist only of a man and a woman."
A second sentence said that neither the federal 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." Some critics argue that the effect of that provision would be to ban civil unions, and its inclusion in the amendment complicated efforts by GOP leaders to gain support from wavering Republicans.
Bush urged the Republican-controlled Congress last February to approve a constitutional amendment, saying it was needed to stop judges from changing the definition of the "most enduring human institution."
Bush's fall rival, Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) of Massachusetts, opposes the amendment, as does his vice presidential running mate, Sen. John Edwards (news - web sites) of North Carolina. Both men skipped the vote.
The odds have never favored passage in the current Congress, in part because many Democrats oppose it, but also because numerous conservatives are hesitant to overrule state prerogatives on the issue.
At the same time, Republican strategists contend the issue could present a difficult political choice to Democrats, who could be pulled in one direction by polls showing that a majority of voters oppose gay marriage, and pulled in the other by homosexual voters and social liberals who support it. An Associated Press-Ipsos poll taken in March showed about four in 10 support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, and half oppose it.
Democrats said that Bush and Republicans were using the issue to distract attention from the war in Iraq (news - web sites) and the economy.
"The issue is not ripe. It is not needed. It's a waste of our time. We should be dealing with other issues," said Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut.
But Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee said a decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court had thrust the matter upon the Senate. The ruling opened the way for same sex marriages in the state, and Frist predicted the impact would eventually be far broader.
"Same-sex marriage will be exported to all 50 states. The question is no longer whether the Constitution will be amended. The only question is who will amend it and how will it be amended," he added.
He said the choice was "activist judges" on the one hand and lawmakers on the other.
Really, at least throw in some words to maintain a pretense that "the common good" isn't just being tossed in as a complete non sequitur.
In any case, it was recognized by the Founders that the common good is not a prerequisite for liberty -- hence the phrase "the pursuit of happiness" rather than simply "happiness". You can fail to catch up to happiness, in which case "the common good" would not be satisfied but you would nevertheless be free.
I keep wondering, how will gay polygamist marriage, civil unions, or even just mere tolerance of homosexuality polygamy, stop heterosexual people from finding each other, and producing offspring?
Do you accept your line of reasoning when it comes to other forms of marriage?
The US policy on marriage can be one of two things: 1) all marriage between consenting participants must be allowed; or 2) only marriage between a man and a woman shall be recognized by the state.
birthrates for western peoples are already imploding. acceptance will lead to increased number of gays through indoctrination in the schools, further depressing formation of families capable of having children. unless you are advocating we setup some programs to match gay married male couples with lesbain couples, so they can "team up" and have kids. maybe you'd like to see a tax credit for that. perhaps not you, but I guarantee you, once we head down this road, the gay groups will petition congress for programs exactly like that.
FMA or no FMA, they're already being taught tolerance. Just like when I was a kid, we were taught to tolerate people of different religious views. When my teacher in 3rd grade tried to get other kids from making slurs against a Jewish boy, was she promoting Judaism?
Sorry, all the slippery slope stuff doesn't wash with me. It certainly hasn't made any difference to the mushy middle. I don't see any more support for goat marriage in 2004 than I saw in 1969. Just because acceptance of adults engaging in consenting behavior with each other has increased in that 35 years did not have any influence on acceptance of bestiality, polygamy, or incest.
Not only is the Amendment dead, it was never breathing to begin with. It is at least 19 votes short, and probably 25 votes short in reality, when you consider that (at a minimum) 5 or 6 "yea" voting Senators would be unwilling to be the 67th vote to put it over the top. That kind of swing has never occurred.
Gay marriage in some form has been likely since "Roemer v. Evans" was handed down in 1996 and inevitable since "Lawrence v. Texas" was handed down in 2003.
Justice Stevens has given every indication that he will never retire while a Republican is in office, and he's the only superannuated Justice among the Roemer and Lawrence majority. In any event, Chuck Schumer will filibuster to stop any appointments of Justices who would vote to reverse the trend ... and Republicans are 7 votes away from breaking any filibusters. If Bush were to be re-elected on the Electoral College while losing the popular vote again (an ever-increasing probability, in my opinion), Schumer will probably filibuster any Bush Supreme Court appointee no matter what.
Rather than belittling marriage for the sake of political funding from the fetish groups, why not put all our efforts into strengthening traditional marriage?
The argument is marriage is a flop anyway, but that's due to liberalism.
If we all work toward strengthening heterosexual marriage, then our nation will prosper immensely, and the children will grow up to be strong and mentally stable.
Why add to the moral decline and the spread of deadly diseases? It seems as though people would be begging to save marriage from the weirdos in our society.
tolerance is not acceptance or advocacy. there is a huge difference.
Well, for one thing, marriage has been redefined throughout history. It used to be a simple property contract where a man or his family traded property to a woman's family, for permission to marry her. It's evolved to an institution where people of different heritages can marry, childless couples can marry (without social pressure to have kids), and the marital status can be flipped on or off, like a switch, through no-fault divorce. All of this was accomplished without gay rights advocates.
Do you really think that the lack of an FMA constitutes "permission" for people to be homosexual? I remember the days when nobody talked about homosexuality (except to describe it as sin in a religious text), and gays were given near zero tolerance. If that wasn't "lack of permission" what would be? Yet, there were closeted gay people. They've always been in every society, they just get more mention in some than in others.
If you really want to fix heterosexual marriage, and in-wedlock birth rates, why is targeting homosexuals part of the solution?
well said
you are giving up way to easily. there are plenty of confirmable justice candidates out there who would not be fillibustered, who would vote differently on gay marriage issues then some of the current court members.
So you're saying it's ok for someone to go ahead and marry their car, their goat, or the neighbors dog if they want to? If not, you're a bigot.
Do they , although smaller in number, not have the same right to marry as a homosexual if they're engaging in some kind of kinky sex, and the car/goat/dog do not object??
its valid. It is a whole nexus of things. No marriage makes our values the same and WILL increase the need for welfare as people will have no need to work to keep thier unfamilies together
who is targeting gays? it is they who are pushing this agenda to target what we now know of as marriage?
That would require having a mature, sincere approach to political success.
again, beastiality is legal in sweden. this action is up so much in western europe, some of the afflicted are considering laws against it.
Why add a dysfunctional sex fetish as a solution? Wouldn't that be teaching the children to go the wrong way? Shouldn't we be reinforcing normal heterosexual behavior to strengthen marriage rather than belittling it and turning it into nothing but a bath house orgy?
What almost amuses me is how the media is acting like this was a defeat for the proposed amendment itself. The vote was only for cloture, in order to bring the question to the floor for a vote.
Well, 50 Senators were sufficiently afraid of the question to vote nay on cloture. Fine, says I! Let us continue the debate on the chamber floor. Let those opposed to the historical definition of marriage hold forth on why two persons with the same genitalia should be allowed the benefits of matrimony. Or better yet, why polygamy should remain outlawed. Or why two men and a llama should not enjoy conubial bliss without governmental interference.
But then, the DemocRats are the party that doesn't know what the definition of 'is' is. Or that oral sex is sex. Or the the Constitution is the Founding document, not some 'living, breathing' thing that they can take out to slaughter and skin for their amusement.
Sorry, I ramble on...
Show me any place in America besides the deserts of Utah and Nevada where women are willing to act as servile idiots for some lazy lump of a man who wants to see how many kids he can father, and I'll agree that polygamy as an "other form of marriage" is a potential problem. Even the "free love" communes of the sixties did not inject polygamy into our society. Liberals don't even practice it, unless you count getting divorced and remarried repeatedly.
The US policy on marriage can be one of two things: 1) all marriage between consenting participants must be allowed...
What about this for a concept: You only have one of yourself to give to another. You are allowed to give that one indivisible self to another who can freely consent to give their one indivisible self to you. There's your logical, practical, and moral argument against polygamy, bestiality, adult-child marriage, and marrying an inanimate object (shoes were mentioned earlier).
Oops. Correction: Nelson (NE) voted Yea, so he's OK.
What about Monica and Clinton's other serville women, like hillary.
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