It depends first on whether George W. Bush or John F. Kerry wins in November. If it's Kerry, the amendment is dead. If Bush wins, the amendment is hardly a shoo-in, but it still stands a chance.
It also depends on the outcome of Senate and House races. For the amendment to pass Congress farther down the line, several congressional candidates have to lose in ways that make it clear their opposition to the amendment sealed their fate. But if either house shifts toward the Democrats — forget it.
This is not to say Republicans are a collective tower of strength in defense of traditional marriage. The July 14 Senate vote on the procedural question of cloture was 48 in favor, 50 opposed. Six Republicans joined 43 Democrats and one independent in voting against, while the pro-amendment vote included three Democrats. (Senators Kerry and John Edwards skipped the vote, but both are opposed.)
No sane person looks for a Ted Kennedy (D-MA) or a Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to support the marriage amendment, but what were Republicans like John McCain (R-AZ) and John Sununu (R-NH) doing voting against? All credit to senators like Rick Santorum (R-PA), Wayne Allard (R-CO), John Cornyn (R-TX), Sam Brownback (R-KS), and others who fought the good fight — but the position adopted by people like McCain and Sununu is a reminder that there are elements in the GOP which, when all is said and done, view social conservatives and their issues as a pain.
The politicians aren't the biggest problem, though. The largest obstacle to the marriage amendment is the fatuous obtuseness expressed in a Washington Post editorial on the day of the vote. The “question of deep principle” facing legislators was said to be this: “Are they willing to warp the entire American constitutional structure to prevent people who love one another from marrying?”
Love conquers all. Including truth and good sense. The Post to the contrary notwithstanding, the real warping in this fight has been that produced, as in Massachusetts, by courts that overstep constitutional boundaries and legislate social policy. It's precisely that judicial aberration which requires amending the Constitution.
True, the House of Representatives July 22 voted 233-194 for a bill that would deal with the problem by removing from federal courts the authority to re-define marriage as anything but a relationship between a man and a woman. But its chances of Senate approval are not good, it leaves state courts, as in Massachusetts, untouched, and it might not withstand Supreme Court scrutiny. Amending the Constitution remains the best bet.
Americans oppose same-sex marriage, but many don't oppose it nearly enough. “After all,” they reason, “what's the harm? Traditional marriage will survive.”
That complacency is misplaced. Although a direct cause-effect link can't be demonstrated, the experience of recent decades shows that several things happening more or less together result in undermining traditional marriage.
Divorce goes up, more marriages break down, fewer people bother to marry, illegitimacy soars, contraception and abortion proliferate, homosexuality comes out of the closet. Each reinforces and is reinforced by the rest, and all work together to weaken marriage by weakening marital values — procreation, fidelity, male-female complementarity in a covenanted relationship of love. Same-sex marriage is one more step in this deconstruction process.
Russell Shaw is a free lance writer from Washington, D.C. You can email him at RShaw10290@aol.com.
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