President's Endorsement of Marriage Amendment Draws Sharp Response
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 2/24/2004
While city and state courts and legislatures across the country explore the issue of same-sex marriage, President Bush today backed a constitutional amendment to ban marriage for same-sex couples."To use the Constitution to discriminate against our families is un-American, shameful and divisive," said HRC President Cheryl Jacques. "Constitutional amendments have historically served to expand liberty and equality – such as giving women the right to vote. This amendment would be the first to reinstate discrimination in our Constitution."
The proposed Federal Marriage Amendment would take away a state's right to make its own policy toward protecting same-sex couples, however research indicates that most Americans are against granting the federal government that power. In a recent survey administered by ABC News and The Washington Post, 58 percent of the respondents thought that the Constitution should not be amended and instead left up to the states.
"There is no doubt in my mind that the American people will see this as an ugly and discriminatory game of politics," Jacques said. "Americans remember the president's promise to be a uniter, not a divider. Today, the president has broken that promise."
Earlier this month, Patrick Guerriero, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, called the president's support for the amendment, "a declaration of war on gay and lesbian families and an attack on our sacred Constitution." Guerriero said that writing discrimination into the Constitution is wrong, and further asserted that it will not strengthen America as a whole.
"This amendment would turn 225 years of Constitutional history on its head by discriminatorily intruding into the traditional authority of states in matters of family law," said Nancy Zirkin, deputy director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. "The whole idea of America is to provide each citizen with inalienable rights. All of a sudden the Constitution will be used to take rights away."
On the state level, the Massachusetts Supreme Court announced earlier this month that only equal marriage rights for gay couples would satisfy constitutional requirements. Also, earlier this month, San Francisco, Calif., became the first jurisdiction in the nation to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
