Senate Rejects Constitutional Amendment to Ban Same-Sex Marriages
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 7/14/2004
Civil rights leaders hailed the defeat (48 to 50) of a proposed Constitutional amendment that would prohibit gays and lesbians from marrying. Despite pleas from the White House and conservative Republicans to amend the Constitution, six Republicans joined dozens of Democrats in a procedural vote that prevented the Senate from further consideration of the controversial amendment.Scores of civil rights and human rights organizations that had opposed the proposed amendment were heartened by the Senate leadership's failure to change the Constitution.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) applauded the failure of the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) in the Senate.
"LCCR believes that this highly divisive amendment is a dangerous and unnecessary approach to resolving the ongoing debate over same-sex marriage," said Wade Henderson, LCCR executive director. "It would turn 225 years of Constitutional history on its head by requiring that states actually restrict the civil rights of their own citizens."
In the past week's Senate maneuvering, Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., had proposed a vote on two versions of the amendment: the original, introduced in March by Senator Wayne Allard, R-Colo., and a more limited version crafted recently by Senator Gordon Smith, R-Ore.
Lawmakers on both sides did not expect either proposal to gain the 67 votes needed to pass the Senate. In an effort to force a vote anyway, Senator Frist sought a vote on a cloture motion late Monday, July 12, after Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., refused his Republican counterpart's demand for multiple votes.
Many civil rights, human rights, and religious organizations warned that FMA would enshrine discrimination in the Constitution, and also would threaten the validity of civil unions and hamstring state legislatures.
In a statement before the Senate Constitution Subcommittee in March, Hilary Shelton, director of the Washington Bureau of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said that the amendment's wording "could forever eliminate a vast array of rights and protections already provided by states, counties, cities, and towns across the country."
Cheryl Jacques, president of the Human Rights Campaign called the proposed amendment "the politics of distraction."
Meanwhile, leaders from dozens of civil rights groups urged Congress to return to nation's business.
"At a time when our nation has far too many great and pressing issues that continue to be ignored by this Congress, our nation simply cannot afford to exert time and energy on such a divisive and discriminatory proposal," Henderson said.
In related news, the House Judiciary Committee cleared a bill that would strip federal courts of jurisdiction to hear challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, which already bars the federal recognition of same-sex marriages.
