Marriage protection amendment likely on hold in 2005.
Fox News reports that the marriage protection constitutional amendment is not likely to move ahead soon. (*)
The issue is too esoteric and abstract for most voters, and numerous Congressional representatives and Senators will not support the amendment until there is more pressure for it from the public.
Court challenges in favor of gay marriage continue. Eventually the courts will push the issue further. Another backlash may occur at that time.
July 11th, 2005 at 13:44
I am sorry to hear about your stance on the Marriage Protection Amendment. This amendment does nothing to protect marriage. Instead, it singles out a group of people for discrimination in the United States Constitution, which has always been used to guarantee rights and freedoms, not to take them away.
Civil rights should not be trampled by religious beliefs, especially in our country. Our Constitution guarantees us that the state will never tell us how to believe, because we will never have a state established church. Ensuring civil rights does not deny churches the right to carry on as they see fit regarding their recognition of marriages, or any of their other beliefs. That reasoning, vital to protecting the rights of small groups from the will of larger ones, is increasingly absent from U.S. debates and decisions on gay marriage.
If you believe that marriage is the binding of two people in a committed loving relationship, with the possibility of creating a family, how can you say that same sex marriage does anything but add to the institution? Same sex marriage does not discourage or belittle marriage, it just expands it, requiring that these couples have the same responsibilities to their partner and to their children as any other married couple.
Churches have every right to tell their clergy what kind of marriages to conduct, just as the state has the right to instruct civil officials what marriages they must honor. Protect the rights of individuals, the church, and the state by opposing the Marriage Amendment. The Constitution has been amended just 27 times, and never before has it been amended to limit rights.
Educated people are less distracted by name calling, jingoism, and flag waving … and they know the really important thing that makes the US different isn’t cloth but paper. Protect the Constitution!