US House Rejects Gay Marriage Ban
Pastor Dale Morgan
US House Rejects Gay Marriage Ban Amendment*
Tuesday July 18, 2006 7:16 PM
By JIM ABRAMS
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House on Tuesday rejected a constitutional
amendment to ban gay marriage, ending for another year a congressional
debate that supporters of the ban hope will still reverberate in this
fall's election.
The 236-187 vote for the proposal to define marriage as a union between
a man and a woman was 47 short of the two-thirds majority needed to
advance a constitutional amendment. It followed six weeks after the
Senate also decisively defeated the amendment, a top priority of social
conservatives.
But supporters said the vote will make a difference when people got to
the polls in November.
Opponents disparaged the measure as both meaningless - the Senate last
month decisively rejected the amendment - and mean-spirited.
``This bill, to put it simply and bluntly, is about adding
discrimination and intolerance to the United States Constitution,'' said
Rep. James McGovern,, D-Mass.
The marriage amendment is part of the ``American values agenda'' the
House is taking up this week that includes a pledge protection bill and
a vote on President Bush's expected veto of a bill promoting embryonic
stem cell research. Bush has asked, and social conservatives demanded,
that the gay marriage ban be considered in the run-up to the election.
The same-sex marriage debate mirrors that of the 2004 election year,
when both the House and Senate fell well short of the two-thirds
majority needed to send a constitutional amendment to the states. But
the issue, in the form of state referendums, helped bring conservative
voters to the polls.
Forty-five states have either state constitutional amendments banning
gay marriage or state statutes outlawing same-sex weddings. Even in
Massachusetts, the only state that allows gay marriage, the state's high
court recently ruled that a proposed constitutional amendment to ban
future gay marriages can be placed on the ballot.
The Senate took up the measure last month but fell 11 short of the 60
votes needed to advance the legislation to a final vote. The last House
vote on the issue, just a month before the 2004 election, was 227-186 in
favor of the amendment, 39 short of the two-thirds majority needed to
advance a constitutional amendment.
The U.S. Constitution has been amended only 27 times, including the 10
amendments of the Bill of Rights. In addition to two-thirds
congressional approval, a proposed amendment must be ratified by
three-fourths of the states.