Pro: Amendment needed to prevent
courts from nullifying will of 45 states

Thursday, June 22, 2006

By Andrea Lafferty

The writer is addressing the question, "Should Congress continue to pursue a constitutional amendment defining marriage as solely between a man and a woman?"

    WASHINGTON - The United States needs to nail down the definition of marriage and its singular role in our culture. The most recent attempt, the Marriage Protection Amendment, was poorly worded and it went down to defeat in the Senate, but a new amendment should already be on the drawing board.
   
       A constitutional amendment is required because one state legislator or a few judges can impose the recognition of homosexual marriage on all of America, even though 45 of the 50 states have taken some form of legislative stand against it.
   
       In Massachusetts, one legislator, then-Senate President Thomas Birmingham, gaveled down a constitutional convention in 2002 before a vote could be taken on a marriage referendum initiated by 130,000 petition signers - twice the amount required by law.
   
       Seizing the moment, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued a decision legalizing homosexual marriage.
   
       The Full Faith and Credit clause of the U.S. Constitution requires all states to recognize certain actions of each individual state, and marriage is one of them. That amounts to one state forcing America to recognize homosexual marriage even in each of the 45 states that have condemned it.
   
       The recent Marriage Protection Amendment that failed in the Senate gave marriage definition and protection in its first sentence but took it away in the second with language that constitutionalizes "civil unions," "domestic partnerships" and whatever new synonym is created as a facsimile of marriage.
   
       The Traditional Values Coalition joined with Michael Farris, Patrick Henry College president and constitutional law scholar, and other conservative groups like Concerned Women for America in opposing this version of the amendment because of the boost it gives to civil unions by enshrining them in the U.S. Constitution.
   
       A number of our colleagues supported the amendment and argued that "giving in" on civil unions was the only way to gather enough votes for passage. The Senate vote on the amendment proved them wrong.
   
       We need to initiate this new amendment on the state level and align it with the reality of the grass-roots activists on the frontlines of this national battle defending the sanctity of marriage.
   
       Civil unions are homosexual marriages. Michael Farris drives home this point by quoting the statutory language that codified and implemented civil unions in Vermont and domestic partnerships in California. They say in slightly different terms that civil unions/domestic partnerships grant all of the same rights and privileges as those accorded to married spouses.
   
       It is hoped the House will survey the shortcomings of the Senate's defeated version and adopt an amendment that provides unqualified support and protection to marriage.
   
       This may be a simple, one-sentence amendment. But an amendment that starts on the state level and rolls into Washington like thunder will help energize the grass roots and also ensure that no compromises of principle go unnoticed.
   
       Formulations that attempt to finesse or horse-trade for marriage protection will continue to fail. The Marriage Protection Act proponents have mislead the conservative grass roots across America into believing that civil unions were somehow different than marriage while simultaneously trying to win the consent of liberals who know that civil unions are different from marriage in name only. They failed on both scores.
   
       A forthright debate on marriage and a simple and clear amendment will crystallize the votes needed in 38 states to bring forth this amendment from the grass roots, where there is overwhelming support.
   
       Marriage can occur only between one man and one woman, and everything else is a cheap imitation, unworthy of this great country and her free and intelligent people.
    ---
       Andrea Lafferty is the executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition.

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