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Senate Abandons Marriage After Brief Engagement 6/14/2006 Marriage Protection Amendment fails cloture vote 49-48.
With as much bliss as a gathering of the Montagues and Capulets, the Senate avoided vowing “I do” to the Marriage Protection Amendment by failing to reach the 60 votes needed to end debate and vote on the amendment. Seven Republicans joined 43 of 45 Democrats and the lone Independent to preclude the vows. Two Democrats, Sens. Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Ben Nelson of Nebraska were the only ones who voted to end debate.
President George W. Bush acted as the father-of-the-bride by escorting the amendment to the Senate altar. The President pronounced his blessing in a recent radio address and on June 5, when he hosted an engagement event for amendment supporters at the White House. At the same time across town, some senators issued prenuptial statements sounding about as love-struck as a groom at a shotgun wedding.
Some are laying blame for the amendment’s failure on the President. But it was a Senate with a Republican majority that refused to lift the veil and kiss the bride.
Congress is the body responsible for constitutional amendments. Article V of the Constitution states: “The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution.”
The Constitution mentions no role or responsibility of the President. Unlike a bill, Congress is not even required to deliver an amendment to the White House for the President’s signature.
The Senate didn’t “deem it necessary” to protect traditional marriage, despite the fact that state judges in Massachusetts, California, New York, Washington, Maryland and Georgia, and a federal judge in Nebraska, have picked a fight over marriage that We the People can win by amending the U.S. Constitution. Only a federal amendment will stop the undemocratic acts of judges and other public officials who are reducing marriage to nothing more than a license to engage in state-sanctioned sex.
John McCain (R-Ariz.), Arlen Specter (R-Penn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), Lincoln Chafee (R-Rhode Island), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) and John Sununu (R-N.H.) refused to end debate so a vote could be taken.
McCain said he opposed the amendment because of states’ rights and federalism, even though he knows full well that judges are running rough-shod over both. Specter said “government should stay off our backs.” Why isn’t he interested in getting government courts off our backs?
Some launched venomous attacks on the “bride’s” family rather than allowing the vote to proceed. Anyone who doubts that gay “marriage” will lead to suppression of religious liberty needs look no further than to comments from the left.
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) called the amendment “bigotry, pure and simple.” Years before his state’s highest court trashed traditional marriage, Kennedy and most of his family married under Massachusetts law. By Kennedy’s logic it means they took advantage of a bigoted law. Does Kennedy think that his Catholic Church, Protestants, Jews, Muslims and African-Americans who support the amendment are all bigots?
Then there’s Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who opposed the amendment on the absurd claim that the amendment is “divisive” and would “write discrimination into the Constitution.” Why did Reid not find it “divisive” when he voted for the federal Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, which limits marriage under federal law to opposite-sex couples? Why did Reid help “write discrimination” into Nevada’s Constitution by supporting Nevada’s marriage amendment? Does Reid, a Mormon, think his church supports “discrimination” because it supports the marriage amendment?
Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, called the amendment “hateful.” Gay marriage “makes me uncomfortable, the same as anybody else,” was Dean’s comment in 1999, when as governor he failed to urge his state legislature to ignore an unconstitutional court order. Instead, he urged the legislature to create civil unions rather than gay “marriage.” Apparently one can be “uncomfortable” with gay “marriage” without being “hateful” as long as one isn’t religious or conservative.
Attempts to pass the Marriage Protection Amendment and its predecessor, the Federal Marriage Amendment, have failed to garner sufficient support in Congress. The next amendment should be one sentence. “Marriage in the United States consists only of the legal union of one man and one woman.” It will strip cover from those who hide behind civil unions, and it will be virtually secure from misinterpretation and judicial tinkering.
Those of us who know we act from love of God and what’s best for children must not be cowed into silence by derision. John Wesley responded to his scorners with uncompromising conviction: “Give me a dozen people who hate nothing but sin and fear no one but God and we can turn England upside down.” May we find the same courage to secure the blessings of liberty on America.
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