Oct 22, 2004  |  By: LAURA DOUGLAS-BROWN  | COMMENTS     

ATLANTA — Last month’s U.S. House vote on a constitutional amendment to ban gay couples from marrying split largely on party lines, with Republicans supporting the measure and Democrats opposing it. But the dozens of votes across party lines surprised some gay lobbyists and highlighted major regional differences in the debate and reinforced the country’s red state/blue state divide.

The House voted 227-186 in favor of the measure, but failed to reach the two-thirds majority required to pass a constitutional amendment.

North Dakota was the only state not on the West Coast or in the Northeast where a majority of Congressional representatives voted against the measure.

Of the 27 Republicans who defied their party leadership to vote against the amendment, only one — Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), who last year held a news conference to refuse comment on reports that he is gay — was from the South. Some 15 were from California or the Northeast.

Of the 36 Democrats who voted for the amendment, 24 were from the South. Only one Democrat from the Northeast, Pennsylvania’s Jim Holden, and no Democrats from California voted for the amendment.

“It’s clear we have to do a better job as a community, both Democrats and Republicans, in reaching out to the heartland and areas like the South,” said Chris Barron, political director for the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP group that lobbied against the amendment.

Congressional Democrats from the South continue to be a “sticking point” on gay issues, due in part to the GOP’s strong hold on the region, said John Marble, communications director for the National Stonewall Democrats.

“These members continue to face viable Republican opponents who also maintain strong anti-gay records, so it is seen as helping you be competitive with Republicans in the South if you can establish yourself as equally against equality,” Marble said.

Rising star disappoints
Stonewall Democrats cited Congressman Harold Ford Jr. of Memphis, Tenn., as one of the most disappointing votes in favor of the amendment.

Ford, just 34 and serving his fourth Congressional term, is considered one of the party’s rising stars and plans to run for U.S. Senate in 2006.

Ford’s vote was “just cold political calculation, and that’s a cowardly position to take,” Marble said.

“He is someone who has always had higher political aspirations, and I’m sure he thought this would help him in the future,” Marble said. “But it is not going to, and we will make that clear.”

Ford’s spokesperson said he would provide a letter explaining the congressman’s position on the amendment, but it did not arrive by press time.

Another black Southern Democrat who voted for the amendment, Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.), cited pressure from voters among his reasons.

“My constituents have overwhelmingly expressed their support for such a measure,” Bishop said in a July news release explaining his stand on the issue.

Bishop voted for the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which allowed the federal government and individual states to ignore same-sex marriages performed in other states. But he met with gay activists in 1999, and later co-sponsored both the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to ban anti-gay job bias and a bill to add sexual orientation to federal hate crimes laws.

Bishop noted in the release that he voted against the Marriage Protection Act, a bill that would forbid federal courts from ruling on the issue of marriage, because it “is not the most effective way to protect the institution of marriage.”

“Only a constitutional amendment would create a national standard that could not be challenged in court,” Bishop said.

Surprise GOP votes based on necessity
But arguments that the constitutional amendment was unnecessary to stop gay marriage appeared to sway some of the Republicans who voted against the measure.

Rep. Ron Paul, the lone Republican from Texas to oppose the ban, said on the House floor that he opposes “federal efforts to redefine marriage as something other than a union between one man and one woman,” but he does not believe the amendment “is either a necessary or proper way to defend marriage.”

Noting that he would have voted for DOMA and he co-sponsored the Marriage Protection Act, Paul said the constitutional amendment could backfire.

“Ironically, liberal social engineers who wish to use federal government power to redefine marriage will be able to point to the constitutional marriage amendment as ...