Marriage Protection Amendment - Motion to Proceed - Continued
MARRIAGE PROTECTION AMENDMENT--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued -- (Senate - June 06, 2006)
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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I rise today to join the debate and express my strong support for the marriage protection amendment, of which I am a cosponsor. Amending the Constitution of the United States, as many have noted, is serious business and is something we should only undertake when we have a compelling rationale.
This amendment meets that high standard. Nothing is more fundamental, nothing is more important to the fabric of American society than the family. And that is what this debate is really all about.
Every Member of this body, every citizen of this Nation understands, or at least should understand, that the traditional family is the glue that binds our communities, the building block on which our Nation is constructed. It is something that I as a father of two daughters and a husband of 20 years understand and appreciate.
Yet today, this pillar of our society is under attack by some who are pursuing a narrow social agenda designed to destroy the definition of marriage that has existed since the birth of civilization.
They are trying to convince us that what virtually all Americans have understood for more than two centuries as self evident, is wrong.
People ask why do we need to do this now? Why is it necessary? As has been noted, despite widespread public disapproval, activist judges are eroding the different State laws that define marriage as a sacred union between a man and a woman.
Currently nine States face lawsuits challenging their marriage laws. California, Maryland, New York, and Washington State trial courts have followed Massachusetts and found State marriage laws unconstitutional. The State supreme courts in New Jersey, Washington State, and New York could decide marriage cases this year.
The only sure way to prevent the courts from redefining marriage is to send to the States a Federal constitutional amendment that affirms marriage and prevents activist judges from hijacking that definition.
There have been those who have come to the floor and said that this really is not an issue the American people care about. Well, I beg to differ, if you look at what has happened in 19 States. Nineteen different States in this country have adopted constitutional amendments, by public vote, defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
That very initiative, that very vote will be on the ballot this fall in South Dakota. I predict that we will get a very comfortable margin in favor of that.
In fact, if you look at the average in all of these places around the country, all of the States that have debated this issue and voted on it, the average vote has been 70 percent. Seventy percent of the American people have a different way of deciding what they care about and what is important and that is sometimes different than politicians here in Washington.
Some have said there are more important issues we need to deal with. However, the fact of the matter is if you look at the agenda we have been talking about for the past several weeks right here in the U.S. Senate we have been dealing with those issues.
Yesterday several Democrat Senators expressed their frustration about this debate taking place, a sentiment that has been repeated throughout the course of the day by more of their Democratic colleagues. They say there are more important issues that need to be debated during this time instead of marriage. Putting aside the fact that protecting traditional marriage and families is an important topic, they seem to forget what has been occurring on the Senate floor.
They say we need to focus on health care, an issue that is very important to me and my constituents in South Dakota. However, they forget that when this issue was brought to the floor just a few short weeks ago, they filibustered not one, not two, but three solutions to the health care crisis that faces our country; namely two types of medical liability reform and the Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act.
They say we need to tackle the high price of gasoline that has affected this entire country, something that again affects profoundly the people I represent in South Dakota. However, they must forget the battle that has been occurring since the early 1990s to open up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, to oil exploration. It is something that has been debated consistently and repeatedly here and blocked from consideration. Once developed, ANWR could provide about one million barrels of oil each day for the next 30 years, a good first step toward solving this complicated problem. However, what we have run into is continued filibusters on what is a very commonsense step toward reducing our energy dependence.
They are right, there are many important issues facing Americans throughout this country. However, they are pointing their fingers at the wrong people. If they are so serious about solving America's problems, they should let the Senate vote on these issues, including the Marriage Protection Amendment.
One of the other issues which has been raised throughout the course of this debate is that we should not trivialize the Constitution with this amendment, that somehow marriage does not meet the threshold or the criteria of the liberal elites to warrant discussion as an amendment to the Constitution.
Well, there again, if you look at just the last 20 years here in the U.S. Senate, there have been a whole range of constitutional amendments that have been proposed by our colleagues on the other side. In fact, there are over 100 constitutional amendments that have been proposed right here in the U.S. Senate by our colleagues on the other side.
I was listening earlier to the debate on the floor when the Senator from Illinois, the Democrat whip, and the Senator from Nevada, the Democrat leader, were talking again about how we ought to be talking about other issues. It is interesting to note if you look at some of the constitutional amendments that have been introduced here in the U.S. Senate, both of those particular Members, as well as others of our colleagues on the Democrat side, have cosponsored many of those amendments.
They have cosponsored amendments dealing with physical desecration of the flag, of which I am also a cosponsor, as well as an amendment dealing with the regulation of contributions and expenditures intended to affect elections. There was an amendment proposed by the Senator from Illinois that would abolish the electoral college and provide for the direct popular election of the President and Vice President of the United States. There was a constitutional amendment offered by the Senator from Nevada that proposes repealing the 22nd amendment which establishes Presidential term limitations.
There are always constitutional amendments offered here in the U.S. Senate, and there are always
those on both sides of the aisle who have varying levels of interest in those. But the reality is, that is what our Founders gave us. This is the mechanism they gave us whereby we can deal with some of these issues when there are constitutional questions.
What has prompted this debate in the U.S. Senate is the fact that States across this country, and in the Federal Government right here in Washington with the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, have all taken action on the issue of marriage. Yet, we have courts across the country that are challenging the will of the people in each of those respective decisions and going their own way. They are trying to redefine marriage in a way that is contrary to what I believe is the tradition of this country, not only the tradition of this country, but since the beginning of time.
This is an important issue. It is an important debate. It is a debate that I believe we need to have in this country.
The other thing that has been said by our colleagues on the other side is, Why debate something if you know it is not going to have the votes for passage? Well, we may not get to 67 votes this time around and I was not here in 2004 when the Senator from Colorado brought this amendment to the floor and it was voted on previously, but I am told it got somewhere around 48 votes. I think we will get more votes for it this time.
But the point is, why would we not debate meaningful issues here in the U.S. Senate? That is what we are here for. If we just brought legislation to the floor of the U.S. Senate that we knew we had the votes to pass, we would not be debating very much.
We had a lot of amendments to the immigration bill that we debated in the last couple of weeks that failed by large margins. Yet, I did not see anybody here saying we should not debate them because we know we do not have the votes here to pass it.
The Senator from Illinois was talking about this earlier today saying: We should not be debating this because we know it is not going to pass. The last amendment he offered to the immigration bill, that was debated in the last couple of weeks in the U.S. Senate, got just 34 votes. Well, I think he has a right to debate that in the U.S. Senate, just like I think the people across this country who care passionately about the defense of marriage have the right to do so as well.
The other thing that gets stated a lot in this debate is that we should not in any way erode States rights, that somehow this amendment steps on States rights. That is wrong. Think about it. This is what our Founders gave us. This is the mechanism whereby the people of this country can amend the Constitution.
It requires the active participation of people all across the country, through their elected Representatives here in the U.S. Senate where it takes a two-thirds vote and the House of Representatives where it takes a two-thirds vote. And then it goes to the States. Three-fourths of the States, 38 States, would have to ratify this in order for it to become a part of our Constitution. That is about as much public participation as you could possibly ask for.
Not to mention the fact, as I indicated earlier, that we have already had votes all across the country. Nineteen States have put it on the ballot. Nineteen States, by an average of 70 percent, have affirmed traditional marriage as the union between a man and a woman.
It seems to me the States ultimately are going to decide this issue. If in fact this body and the U.S. House get the two-thirds votes that are necessary to send it to the States, 50 State legislatures are going to be debating this. Thirty-eight of them are going to have to decide if it is the right thing to do before it ultimately becomes part of the Constitution of the United States.
Very simply, the reason for this debate is that people in this country want to know that we care enough about the institution of marriage to step up and defend it against attacks from liberal activist judges, against courts that have decided that they want to redefine what we have known to be true about marriage for the past several hundred years. That is where this debate ought to be heard.
It ought to be heard by the people of the United States of America. It has been in legislatures around the country. It is being heard here in the U.S. Senate today. The people's voice is what we do. We give voice to the issues that the people in this country care about, and I happen to believe that this is one of those issues.
That is fundamentally what this debate is about. It is not about whether or not there are enough votes to pass it. It is not about whether or not this warrants the threshold of what is worthy for a debate on a constitutional amendment.
As I said earlier, our colleagues on the other side who are objecting to that have offered over 100 constitutional amendments over the past 20 years in this institution. It seems to me that the definition of marriage, that fundamental foundational building block of American society, is certainly worthy and warrants discussion and the time of the U.S. Senate.
So I commend the Senator from Colorado for bringing this to the floor. I look forward to voting in favor of it. I urge my colleagues to do the same, because I believe that is what the American people would have us do.
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