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.
I don't. I believe in a free republic. This is not a socialist country based on mob rule.
If homosexuals marry, the law says equal protection. To not allow other fetishes their right to marry would be discrimination based on how they choose to have sex (with whatever).
If we allow one dysfunctional sex fetish to be called marriage, we must do so for them all, no matter how small their number.
I guess this is where we differ. I really don't think any amount of "teaching" would have made my fellow boys in gym class any more attractive to me. I still was more fixated on what went on in the girls' locker room, but the cement block walls were too strong for even my X-ray vision.
Tolerance of even voluntary behaviors is not endorsement of them. When we tolerate people of different political views, religions, or cultural practices, we do not actively encourage them. Homosexuals do not need permission to feel the way they do about members of their own gender. They've done it repeatedly throughout history, even when the penalties of getting caught were much more Draconian than any of us here would countenance.
Nice debatting. Really. My concern is that through a nexus of this kind of 'permissiveness' we will soon act just as they do.
In my families district of Baden Wuttenberg, the CDU used to dominate in the 1950s and now the SPD does.
Did you really get the impression from the Lewinsky affair that adultery suddenly became any more acceptable? Monica is whining that her last name is synonymous with a certain sex act, and anytime Leno or Letterman make a Clinton sex joke, its guaranteed to elicit loads of laughter.
Besides, they were never seeking official approval of the relationship, they only wanted to get away with it. Quite a difference between secret adultery, and open polygamy.
Yes, I think morality has shifted. ANYTHING is ok now. Deviantcy has been defined down. If president Kerry did his staff (like that reporter) it would be no big deal.
A former french president had his mistress show up to his funeral, if I remember correctly
I'm a member of a society that considers exclusivity to be a value, even among people who are not particular about who they sleep with. The one-and-one thing is rooted in the ancient human institution of jealousy, and it's not going to be rationalized away. The only time multiple partner arrangements have been existant, there was a massive power imbalance between at least one of the parties, and the others. Even Biblical kings had a wife, and concubines, the harem of Islam requires a religious belief that a woman is officially one-fourth of the human being a man is.
I just can't see a society of equal people ever adopting multiple partner relationships for more than just a fling, which most would surely regret.
We have values that respect the production of offspring (tax credits just for procreating come to mind), and crowded Europe does not.
Show me some path of causality between homosexual marriage, and imploding birthrate, and I'll believe you. And none of this nonsense about having an FMA will encourage homosexuals to go straight, marry and have kids. That would work about as well as Prohibition abolished drinking.
If strong minority want it, it will happen in the same mode.
It is a characterization, ala the economic freedom index vs GDP published in the WSJ.
You will not find a hard generalization/causation.
It is sort of like are upper class people that way because they went to good schools, or do they do to good schools because they are upperclass.
btw, france put in income tax incentives for kids...
Also, those very values you mentioned would be tossed, since gay couples will the state to take away kids from 'abusive (eg discipline)' parents and get same credits!
Many homosexuals do not want to be limited to one partner anyway. Most have 100-500 in their lifetimes, and some over 1000. Allowing them marriage will not stop that tendency.
Jonathan Yarborough, a Canadian citizen, ventured to Massachusetts to “reaffirm his legal Canadian ‘marriage’” with his partner Cody Rogahn. When asked about marriage, Yarborough offered this startling assessment, saying, “I think it’s possible to love more than one partner, not in the polygamist sense . . . In our case, it is, we have an open marriage.”
The redefinition of terms out of existence continues, as now the word “polygamy” need not uniformly apply to anyone who is married to more than one person (“poly”), at least according to Yarborough.
[...]
http://www.reclaimamerica.org/Pages/News/newspage.asp?story=1735
It's strange that homosexuals recoil at the term "polygamy," when they see nothing wrong in having multiple relations. It's awfully hypocritical for them to pass "moral" judgment on heterosexual polygamy.
I saw a representative of the Human Rights Campaign debating Jay Sekelow on C-Span yesterday. She was offended that anyone would say gay marriage will lead to legalized polygamy. There she was, passing her moral judgment on another group wanting marriage. It was entirely inconsistent with her argument about marriage for all.
Well, maybe the words, "another who can freely consent" implied reaching an age of majority (or a lesser age, if there is parental consent, just like with heterosexual marriage) to me, and not to you. Michael Jackson's playthings did not freely consent to anything, because they were incapable.
There isn't a place in hell hot enough for a child molester, in my opinion. But I have to acknowledge that at a certain age (which may be debatable), a person can take responsibility for their own life.
I gotta stop. Hunter seems like a good guy and he is making me think and realize that we will end creating far more pathologies than I ever imagined.
Just so you know Age of consent goes down to 12 and is 13 in many countries.
Campbell (CO), Chafee (RI), Collins (ME), McCain (AZ), Snowe (ME), Sununu (NH) were the 6 Republican's, er, RINO's that voted against it. That being said, as much as I support marriage being between man and woman, I have no issue with this being left to the states.
I stand corrected, there are indeed religious whack-jobs in Maine who justify this on pseudo-religious grounds. But they need an especially woman-bashing form of twisted Christianity to maintain subservience of the women involved. Is is safe for me to say that no one here who calls themselves Christian would accept this group's teachings as valid? What do you think their chances are to "spread their faith" in a state that elected Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe to the US Senate?
I guess if you look hard enough on the Internet, you can find some fringy group (or an individual masquerading as a group) to advocate anything. Just because the Internet has become the 21st Century's version of the graffiti wall in the men's bathroom, doesn't give the ideas presented any credibility.
The movement to legalize polygamy on that basis has already begun. See my post #237. A lawsuit has already been filed
Just as any fool with a computer can post something on the Internet, any fool with a law degree can assert whatever they want in a case brief. Find a judge who goes along with the "reasoning" being used, and I'll agree we have a problem, namely, a judge who needs to be removed.
The one thing that was standing in the way of this "freedom" was the Federal Marriage Amendment.
No, the thing standing in their way is the good sense of people who abhor polygamy. Even the feminazis who defended Clinton's use of Monica and the others, have no stomach to push polygamy, especially where it involves pseudo-Biblical justifications.
Ok, you got me there. We can both agree that a majority has some rights that minorities only envy. And that's the way the gay marriage debate is being framed in the media by its advocates. If there had been, by some miracle, 67 votes for the FMA today, it would have been painted as "mob rule running roughshod over gay rights."
Be glad that the liberals have been lulled into indifference this fall. You wouldn't want to see them when they're angry! ;)
If homosexuals marry, the law says equal protection. To not allow other fetishes their right to marry would be discrimination based on how they choose to have sex (with whatever).
Lawrence vs. Texas talked about consenting adult homosexuality, nothing else. Equal protection would not automatically accrue to other forms of sexuality. Besides, what do I care what a man wants to do with his Ford Probe, in the sanctity of his (shades pulled down, please!) garage?
Thank you, if you mean that as a compliment, rather than sarcasm. I see a lot of threads where there is disagreement turn into name-calling matches, and that is inappropriate for a forum of intelligent conservatives.
Europe and the US will be different societies as far as the eye can see. Ironic, isn't it, since most of our residents are of at least partially European heritage, and all of our legal systems and institutions have a classical European basis.
I had it explained to me this way: The quality people had enough gumption to leave Europe while they could. They nurtured this gumption in their offspring. It's what makes us great.
Nope, America did not respect Clinton for what he did, even the people who defended him realize that he let down their agenda. If a President Kerry (ouch, it hurts to even type those two words together!) did this, it would bury the Rats for a generation.
A former french president had his mistress show up to his funeral, if I remember correctly
Again, Europeans have always practiced a form of monogamy that allows the high and mighty to have their fun on the side, just make sure the heir is legitimate, that's all that's necessary for them. We have significantly different values, even though some of us like to read about adultery while under a hairdryer!
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