WASHINGTON (ABP) — As the May 17 deadline for the United States' first legal gay marriages approaches, members of Congress debated a nationwide ban on same-sex marriage, and one more state legislature narrowly rejected a similar amendment.
“Gays are not excluded from the benefits of marriage by others; they have been excluded by their own choices,” said Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.), the chief House sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment, in a May 13 hearing on the proposal.
May 17 is the day when the state of Massachusetts, under orders from the state's Supreme Judicial Court, will begin issuing the nation's first state-sanctioned marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The subject of gay marriage has grabbed national headlines since that court's November decision.
The Federal Marriage Amendment would ban same-sex marriage nationwide and prevent the “legal incidents” of marriage from being bestowed on same-sex couples. Opponents of the amendment say its language is vague enough that it could ban not only marriages but also “civil unions,” or marriage-like legal relationships.
Musgrave and other supporters of the amendment have publicly denied that banning civil-union statutes is their intent. They say the bill's language would only ban judges from interpreting same-sex marriage or civil-union rights where none explicitly existed before.
But under questioning from members of the House Judiciary Committee, amendment supporter Jay Sekulow admitted some courts could interpret the amendment's language to ban even legislatively enacted civil unions.
“It's hard to say what a court would do, to be honest,” Sekulow told the panel. He is the head of the American Center for Law and Justice, a non-profit legal advocacy group founded by Religious Right broadcaster Pat Robertson.
Rep. Barney Frank, testifying before the panel, accused the amendment's sponsors of being dishonest on that point, noting that they chose vague language instead of language explicitly barring judges from interpreting same-sex marriage or civil unions while explicitly allowing democratically enacted civil unions.
“If that's what the opponents want to do,” Frank said, “they know how to do it.”
But witness Robert Bork, whom the Senate rejected as a Supreme Court nominee in 1987, said the Federal Marriage Amendment is necessary as a pre-emptive action against an anticipated court decision. “Most court watchers believe that, in two to three years, the Supreme Court of the United States will hold that there is a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage.”
Elsewhere in the country, gay-rights supporters eked out narrow victories against similar amendments on the state level in Louisiana and Kansas.
The Louisiana state Senate failed, by a lone vote, to muster a two-thirds majority to pass a similar ban. However, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Louisiana proposal is far from dead. Its sponsor expects to bring the bill up for another vote before adjournment.
In Kansas, the state legislature adjourned May 8 without having re-visited a state gay-marriage amendment that failed to get the two-thirds majority required for passage.
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