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A Plan to Protect Marriage: Short-Term Remedies 6/18/2004 The institution, and not just the word, needs to be sheltered. Even before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts took it upon itself to define marriage out of existence, an effort was underway in the U.S. Congress to enact a constitutional amendment to defend marriage. Concerned Women for America agrees that it is necessary for the Constitution to be amended in order to prevent the states from dismantling the fundamental institution of society.
Regrettably, the framers of the amendment being considered in Congress wrote into their amendment proposal a provision granting the states, through their ordinary law-making procedures, the right to confer all the legal rights of marriage upon undefined clusters of persons and/or things as long as they do not use the term "marriage." CWA believes that the institution of marriage - not just the word - needs to be protected in the Constitution, and for that reason has consistently withheld its support of this seriously flawed proposal.
Nonetheless, many other fine pro-family organizations have decided to support this language and at their request, the president has endorsed it. We regret having to part company with our friends and with President Bush, but as a matter of principle, CWA cannot support an amendment that puts same-sex unions into the Constitution.
The Senate leadership has scheduled a vote on this amendment for July 15. At this point it seems likely that there will have to be a cloture vote, needing 60 affirmative votes to overcome a filibuster by the opponents of the amendment proposal. CWA will support an affirmative vote for cloture because we believe that it is irresponsible for senators to hide behind procedural screens to avoid a clear vote on a matter of public importance.
The presence of this amendment proposal on the congressional calendar has made it a practical impossibility to introduce a philosophically sound amendment. But there are other short-term remedies that can be attained this year and which CWA has strongly supported.
The first is the Marriage protection Act (H.R. 3313) sponsored by Rep. John Hostettler (R-Indiana). It withdraws jurisdiction from the federal courts over any case claiming that a state can be forced to recognize some non-standard union recognized in another state. Under the "full faith and credit" clause of the Constitution, states are required to recognized the "acts and records" of other states, so that a marriage performed in Pennsylvania would be valid in New Jersey. But the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) declared that states need not recognize as marriages unions performed in another state that involve any parties other than one man and one woman. The Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate the application of the "full faith and credit" clause, as well as the power to limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts. Enactment of this bill will prevent the federal court system from being used as a means of imposing the "Massachusetts model" of pseudo-marriage upon the rest of the nation.
Another important measure which might be voted on this year is a Defense of Marriage Act for the District of Columbia. CWA has been encouraging citizens to pass laws, or even better, constitutional amendments in all the states clearly defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman and reserving all the legal rights of marriage to married couples. The District of Columbia currently has no such law. (The federal DOMA applies only to the treatment of marriage in federal law. The District of Columbia is not governed directly by federal law, but has a city council entitled to make local ordinances subject to the over sight of Congress.) A Defense of Marriage Act for the District of Columbia could be passed either as a free-standing bill or attached as a rider to the annual District of Columbia Appropriations Bill. Such a law would put Congress clearly on record as favoring a protection of marriage in its integrity, and would provide an example for the states which have not yet passed DOMA's to do so.
Both the Marriage Protection Act and a DOMA for the District of Columbia are attainable through the ordinary legislative process, requiring only simple majorities in both Houses of Congress and the assent of the president. A constitutional amendment, by contrast, requires a two-thirds supermajority in each House of Congress, plus ratification by three-fourths (38) of the states. The ratification process varies from state to state. The president has no formal role in amending the Constitution.
Michael Schwartz is CWA's vice president for government relations. |
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Concerned Women for America 1015 Fifteenth St. N.W., Suite 1100 Washington, D.C. 20005 Phone: (202) 488-7000 Fax: (202) 488-0806 |
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