Feb 27, 2004  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO JR.  | COMMENTS     

Republican leaders in the House and Senate said they would have a difficult time garnering the two-thirds vote needed to pass a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, despite President Bush’s call this week for Congress to “promptly” pass such an amendment.

Congressional observers said a majority of Democrats were expected to vote against a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and a significant but undetermined number of Republicans were expected to join their Democratic colleagues in opposing a marriage amendment.

“Amending the Constitution is a huge issue,” Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said at a Capitol Hill press briefing Tuesday. “We’re going to go about this in a very thoughtful way.”

Prior to Bush’s announcement this week endorsing a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, GOP leaders had yet to set a date for a hearing or a vote on such an amendment.

This week, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, announced he would hold a hearing on March 3 to “examine the national implications” of the Massachusetts court decision legalizing same-sex marriage in that state.

Don Stewart, Cornyn’s press secretary, said Cornyn plans to call another hearing in late March to discuss the Federal Marriage Amendment, the proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage introduced by Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.). But Stewart said Cornyn and his Senate colleagues, including Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), chair of the full Senate Judiciary Committee, have yet to set a timetable for a final hearing to mark up a proposed amendment and to send it to the Senate floor for a vote.

As of late this week, no date had been set for similar hearings in the House on a marriage amendment.

Gay activists said they were continuing to lobby against a constitutional amendment, saying backers of an anti-gay constitutional amendment might bring the measure to a vote in the fall, just before the presidential election.

“We are working on the assumption that this will happen,” said Winnie Stachelberg, political director of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay political group.

Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass), who is gay and works closely with House Democratic leaders to monitor lawmakers’ views on pending legislation, said he does not believe supporters currently have the 290 votes needed to pass a constitutional amendment in the House.

As of early this week, there were 112 sponsors of the Musgrave amendment in the House, including 105 Republicans and 7 Democrats.

“I don’t see a danger this year yet,” Frank said last week. “But we’ll continue to work on it.”

A two-thirds majority vote is needed in the House and Senate to pass a constitutional amendment. If approved by Congress, three-fourths of the state legislatures must ratify the amendment before it would become part of the Constitution.

Conservative Republicans in the Senate and House vowed to bring a marriage amendment to a vote sometime this year after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued its second ruling Feb. 4 ordering that state to begin issuing marriage licenses for same-sex couples in May.

Two weeks ago, Frist and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) joined conservative leaders in denouncing a decision by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples, clearing the way for more than 3,000 gay weddings so far. Frist and DeLay said the developments in San Francisco would strengthen efforts to pass a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

But to the surprise of advocates on both sides of the issue, House Republican leaders earlier this month put the brakes on plans by Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) to hold a hearing in late February or early March on the Federal Marriage Amendment. Chabot is chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, a panel that would likely clear the way for a vote on a constitutional amendment in the full Judiciary Committee and the House floor if GOP leaders decide to advance the amendment.

“There’s nothing on the calendar for a hearing on the Federal Marriage Amendment or anything related to that,” said Catherine Graham, one of Chabot’s committee staff members.

Election year plays a role
One congressional staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said GOP leaders don’t want to create an image of intolerance in the eyes of the public by appearing too hostile toward gays, just as voters begin to focus on the presidential election.

“The Republicans don’t want to go back to 1992, when Pat Buchanan came across as scary and hateful,” the staffer said.

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