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| Evan Wolfson, executive director of the gay advocacy group Freedom to Marry, is one of the leaders planning to attend a summit in Washington on Sept. 8 to develop strategies countering efforts to ban gay marriage by constitutional amendment. (Photo by Clint Steib) |
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HOME > NEWS > NATIONAL NEWS
By: LOU CHIBBARO JR. COMMENTS
 
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attended the New York meeting, said virtually
everybody present, including gay Republican leaders, agreed that the community
should wage an all-out fight for gay marriage.
She said the sentiment was in marked contrast to 1996, when some gay groups
took a far more cautious approach to gay marriage while opposing the anti-gay
Defense of Marriage Act. Congress passed the act, which defines marriage for
purposes of federal law and benefits as a union between a man and a woman,
by a lopsided margin.
President Bill Clinton signed the measure over the objections of gay activists,
saying he supported the bill on religious grounds.
Conservative religious groups, viewing the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA,
as a harbinger for their proposed constitutional amendment, have begun their
own highly aggressive campaign to build support for the amendment.
They received a boost two weeks ago when President Bush said he supports some
form of codifying a ban on same-sex marriage. Bush’s statement came on the
heels of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s (R-Tenn.) strong endorsement of
the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
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| Congresswoman trong>Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.)
has introduced a bill that would amend the Constitution to limit marriage
in the United States to heterosexual couples. |
Marriage laws traditionally have been left to the states, and many conservative
and moderate lawmakers normally would be expected to oppose a constitutional
amendment that takes away state powers.
A report issued last month by the Senate Republican Policy Committee appeared
to open the way for conservative lawmakers to break from their states’ rights
tradition. The report, prepared by committee lawyers, argued that “no statutory
solution appears to be available” to Congress or the
states to prohibit same-sex
marriage if federal courts or the U.S. Supreme Court overturns state marriage
laws that currently ban same-sex marriage.
The committee based its findings, in part, on the recent Supreme Court decision
overturning state sodomy laws on grounds that they violate fundamental, per
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