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.
Oh for godssakes, Rick, quit being such a drama queen. The actual military and economic defense of this country dwarfs the prospect of a couple of gays getting married. Get to the eminent business of the people and stop fussing over this non-issue. If worse comes to worse, let the states make up their own minds.
Yes, but that's as a result of moving from agricultural societies to either industrial or information societies. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation, or the tolerance of non-heterosexual orietations.
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.
No need, its already there. Just as a heterosexual couple can get a child credit, a single individual adopting or artificially inseminating can get the same credit. There wasn't a religious test adopted in the tax code for who gets the credit, even though it was designed to produce votes for the Republicans from the folks on the religious right who have larger families.
It's a good argument. I've called for acceptance of the concept of covenant marriage, that would be only for couples who have, or intend to have children. I'd withdraw the status upon the last kid leaving the nest, but those couples who stayed together for the sake of their kids might be expected to break up when that job was done.
I got married last year, and my wife and I were out of the baby-making game a long time ago. Why should we get benefits that people raising the next generation really need?
Why stop with one? That would discriminate against those who choose 7. Who are you to choose? If homosexuals can marry, why not anything? Are you making some kind of moral judgment against the other people who wish to "give" themselves to something else? Why discriminate against the other fetishes? Is that fair to them?
You see? If homosexuals can choose based on their fetish, it's only fair everyone else can choose based on their chosen fetish.
Homosexuals wouldn't dare to try to take the moral high ground over the other dysfunctionals. They'd be laughed off stage! LOL.
It has been shown on other freeper threads that he birthrate implosion follows the socialist state, amoral, permissive curve.
Our birthrate has held up better than europe because we had been falling down this curve at a slower rate.
I'll agree, advocacy is something else entirely, and while I've read some horror stories here on FR, I do wonder how many of them are true, or only "Internet legends".
But I am puzzled, what is the difference between tolerance and acceptance, to you? Is one grudgingly given, while the other is actively given?
I am reminded of an old Herblock cartoon of some politician or other lifting a paper cutout of a huge weight labeled "Balanced Budget Amendment", with an actual huge weight labeled "Actual Balanced Budget" off to the side, ignored.
The same applies here, with the paper cutout labeled "Homosexuals" and the real weight labeled "Divorce".
And, more importantly, knock off the boy-who-cried-wolf invocation of "Homeland Security"[tm] for sideshow non-issues. It degrades the effectiveness of actual homeland security warnings (and thus just might tip the balance between getting thousands of us killed, or not).
In other words, do I believe in majority rule? Sure, if we ever get to the point where enough Amercians want to marry their cars, I guess they can change the law to do so. Just don't make me pay alimony to my 1976 Gremlin, OK?
Seriously, something happened to homosexuals in this country in the last twenty or so years. They saw a lot of their own die from AIDS, and had to deal with the problems of hospital visitation, and hostile relatives upon death. Lesbians acquired children through artificial insemination, and have to deal with the problems of being parents. These problems were never faced by goat humpers, car worshippers, or one-night-stand threesomes. The respect that our society accords marriage has become appealing to some of them. Enough people know, or are at least acquainted with someone in a committed gay relationship to empathize with them. I don't know anybody who really is suffering because they can't marry their Mazda.
We CAN, as a society, draw distinctions between expressions of sexuality that are permitted, and those that are discouraged. We always have. It's just that there are enough people out there ready to think about moving the line on this particular facet. Is it possible to happen with other things in the future? Sure, anything is possible, but essentially all of what you fear down the slippery slope will have to overcome a crushing burden of convincing 90-99% of the people who are dead set against these acts.
Nonsense. The birthrate in the US was a lot smaller in 1900 than it was in 1800. Society in 1900 was, if anything, more moralistic and capitalistic that it had been a century earlier.
Nah, the 50s are the relevant time frame here.
Not really relevant the control both locations happens on this time frame.
Funny you should mention that on a homo "marriage" thread.
That's the same thing the NAMBLA members said about their boy toys.
Well, it's their perception that the Republican Party, especially the religious right wing of that Party, who is targeting them. I don't remember any debates on the Senate floor about proposed Constitutional amendments regarding keeping segregation, denying voting rights to any particular group, etc.
When Republican Senators take the floor to talk about the "destruction of marriage" because of pending redefinition, it sounds like hyperbole to many people. They know that straight people will always fall in love with people from the opposite sex, and men and women (especially the latter) will always want to get married. If anyone's destroyed marriage, its the people who get drive through disposable marriages in Vegas, or those who buy tickets to movies made by people who consider procreation first, marriage-maybe later, or the revolving door of the courthouse, where one side of the building marries people, while the other side dispenses no-fault divorces.
Keeping marriage "safe from gays" is not going to change any of those things, and is not going to save marriage, if it is indeed in danger of being abandoned by people in the future.
Apparently this is a valid, though discouraged, choice as long as it is safe, legal and rare.
There's a group of polygamy activists in Maine. See TruthBearer.org, which has no connection to Utah.
But that's beside the point. If the groundwork is laid that rejects marriage between a man and a woman, it doesn't matter how many people or states advocate an alternative marriage. It only takes one successful suit based on the reasoning of Lawrence v. Texas.
The movement to legalize polygamy on that basis has already begun. See my post #237. A lawsuit has already been filed. More will come, until they prove successful.
To quote Pro-polygamy.com: "'Polygamy rights' are coming. Free at last. Free at last. Great God Almighty, we'll be free at last!"
The one thing that was standing in the way of this "freedom" was the Federal Marriage Amendment.
Again, I'm sorry that Western Europe is a cesspool of immorality. I suppose I'd rather have Europeans sexually harrassing their livestock, rather than getting into shooting wars that Americans have to die in, to get them peaceful again.
I guess I have to believe that there's a fundamental difference between people who fight for the world's freedom, and those who have to be bailed out of their idiocy every generation or so.
Yep, and we can have polyhomo unions too.
I remember when the gay 'purists' debated the bi-sexuals in the 1980s. The 'purists' semmed to win a the time, but we all know how that one turned out.
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