c. 2006 Religion News Service
WASHINGTON _ A constitutional amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage died in the Senate on Wednesday (June 7) despite intense pressure from President Bush, prominent religious leaders and a host of conservative activists.
The amendment, which would have limited marriage in the United States to `only the union of a man and a woman,’ gained one vote from 2004, the last time the Senate took up the measure. On Wednesday, the vote was 49-48.
The measure required 60 votes to end debate and 67 votes to pass.
Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., who voted for the amendment in 2004 but rejected it Wednesday, said in a statement that “the past two years have shown that federalism, not more federal laws, is a viable and preferable approach.”
The amendment may not stay dead for long. House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, promised to revive it later this summer.
“This is an issue that is of significant importance to many Americans,” Boehner told reporters. “We have significant numbers of our members who want a vote on this, so we are going to have a vote.”
Opponents of the amendment, including Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., labeled it “bigotry.”
The amendment “discriminates not only against people who want to be married, but also against the faith traditions” that deem homosexual marriage consistent with their religious ideals, said the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance.
According to a Gallup Poll conducted in late May, while a majority of Americans do not favor legal recognition of same-sex unions, only half believe the Constitution should be changed to define marriage as solely between a man and a woman.
On Tuesday, voters in Alabama adopted a state constitutional amendment outlawing gay marriage by an 81 percent margin, making it the 20th state to adopt a constitutional amendment. Similar amendments will be on six state ballots this November.
In addition, 26 states have laws like the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a heterosexual union and allows each state to decide for itself whether to grant legal status to same-sex marriages.
Despite those measures, religious and conservative activists say a constitutional amendment is needed to keep “activist judges” from striking down the state laws.
“The U.S. Constitution will be amended,” Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, said in a statement after Wednesday’s vote. “The only question is whether it will be amended by the courts or by the people through the ratification process.”
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This week Washington became a virtual rotating pulpit, as religious activists on both sides of the debate elbowed into the spotlight and held media events in every cranny of the Capitol.
Both sides claimed to be backed by “unprecedented” and diverse religious bodies.
On the right, the Religious Coalition for Marriage, which supported the amendment, released statements signed by more than 50 national leaders including eight U.S. Catholic cardinals, top leaders of the Greek Orthodox Church in America and the Orthodox Church in America, the National Association of Evangelicals, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Southern Baptist Convention and James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and one of the country’s most prominent evangelicals.
The left boasted similar coalitions, including Clergy for Fairness, which lobbied in Washington against the amendment and sent senators a letter signed by numerous religious bodies, including the Episcopal Church, the American Friends Service Committee (the Quakers), the Union for Reform Judaism, the National Sikh Center, the Alliance of Baptists, the National Council of Jewish Women and the Unitarian Universalist Association.
KRE/PH END BURKE
Editors: Retransmitting to correct error in 2nd graf. The measure gained one vote, sted lost one vote, compared to 2004. Story was originally transmitted on Wednesday, June 7. Corrected version follows:
NEWS STORY
