Opponents of same-sex marriage gain momentum, eye federal amendment

Religion News Service ^ | Nov. 4, 2004 | G. Jeffrey MacDonald

[AFA-Michigan]

"We have a sense of mission and responsibility to make sure the victory given by 'marriage moms' all across America is not left on the table."

Gary Glenn, President
American Family Association of Michigan

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WASHINGTON - Riding high on President Bush's re-election and on decisive victories to ban gay marriage in 11 states, activists in the traditional marriage movement said Nov. 3 they now have a mandate to claim their ultimate prize: an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

"The American people are now trying whatever democratic means are available to them. This is a dress rehearsal for what is to come. We are going to win," said Matt Daniels, president of the Washington-based Alliance for Marriage, which authored an ill-fated federal constitutional amendment earlier this year.

Voters approved constitutional amendments traditionally defining marriage in every state where they were on the ballot: Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah.

In Oregon, gay marriage advocates had concentrated vast resources with hopes for a single win. It didn't happen. Margins ranged from 7 percentage points in Oregon to 36 percentage points in Mississippi.

For gay marriage activists, whose cause gained unprecedented momentum in February with a Massachusetts court decision affirming the right to wed, the returns marked an occasion to pause, caucus and regroup. New York City-based Lambda Legal, which represents plaintiffs in gay issue cases, urged caution in challenging new amendments in court.

"While the picture looks bleak in states where constitutions have been amended," said an official Lambda Legal statement, "it could be even worse with court rulings upholding those amendments."

Other gay marriage supporters disagreed. They cited Louisiana, where a state court last month struck down a marriage-related constitutional amendment passed by 78 percent of voters. And they reaffirmed their faith in courts as the proper arena in which to pursue marriage rights.

"I have a fundamental problem with fact that the rights of a disfavored minority are being voted on," said Ron Schlittler, interim executive director of the Washington-based Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays. "I'll be interested to hear from the legal experts what our options are."

On the right, some credited the gay marriage issue for mobilizing a strong turnout that swelled Bush's vote totals and strengthened the GOP's majority in Congress.

"There is no doubt," said Roberta Combs of the Washington-based Christian Coalition of America, "that because four radical left-wing Massachusetts judges ruled that homosexual 'marriages' are constitutional last year, there was a conservative backlash which played a major role in the election outcome."

Gary Glenn, who led the campaign to amend Michigan's constitution, joined a conference call Wednesday with more than 20 leaders in the traditional marriage movement nationally. He said they agreed on a two-part agenda: amend the U.S. Constitution and lean on Bush to stack the Supreme Court with traditional marriage supporters.

"We have a sense of mission and responsibility," Glenn said, "to make sure the victory given by 'marriage moms' all across America is not left on the table. ... It's necessary because five members of the United States Supreme Court could wipe out everything done on the state level."

In a takeoff on the "soccer moms" who may have decided prior elections, Glenn suggested mothers who oppose gay marriage had delivered wins on ballot initiatives. These mothers joined, he said, a burgeoning alliance of white evangelicals, conservative Roman Catholics and African-American Protestants for whom gay marriage is like abortion: "non-negotiable."

What worked on the state level could work on a national level as well, according to R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY.

"I think the first impact of this will be a shakeup of how Congress looks at this issue," Mohler said. "It's going to be hard for a senator from a state with 70 or 80 percent of the vote in favor of marriage (in Tuesday's balloting) to vote against an amendment in support of marriage."

But passing a U.S. constitutional amendment won't be easy.

The U.S. House of Representatives handily defeated a marriage amendment proposal earlier this year by a vote of 227-186. For an amendment to pass, it must win a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress and receive ratification by three-fourths of the states.

"Whether they can sustain the effort to amend the federal Constitution, which is very hard to do and very cumbersome, is yet to be seen," said John Green, a political scientist who studies religious issues at the University of Akron's Bliss Institute. "It might work the other way, where people say, 'We passed a constitutional amendment in my state, and we don't have gay marriages here. Let's quit while we're ahead.'"

[escapefromboston]

This gay marriage scam was a HUGE mistake by the homosexuals.

[RonF]

The Congress can be bypassed, or goaded into action, by introducing resolutions at the state level to call a Constitutional convention for the purpose of proposing a Constitutional amendment to confirm that marriage is for disparate-sex couples only. If two-thirds of the states pass such a resolution, then Congress must organize such a convention (although it does not participate in it). Any amendment coming out of that convention becomes part of the Constitution if passed by 3/4 of the states.

Congress won't like this, since there does not appear to be a way to limit the scope of a Constitutional convention once called. So my guess is that if this gains momentum, Congress will pass an amendment before 2/3 of the states pass such a resolution.