WASHINGTON - The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Federal Marriage Amendment last month, sending it to the floor of the Senate. The action was taken in a small room not generally open to the public, prompting Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) to walk out, the Washington Post reported. The measure passed 10-8 along party lines.
     “This shameful election-year ploy puts the Senate one step closer to a vote that threatens to write discrimination into the U.S. Constitution,” said Human Rights Campaign (HRC) President Joe Solmonese.
     With less than 24 hours’ notice, the committee moved the session from a public hearing room to a restricted-access room in the capitol. The President’s Room is not open to the public and does not even have enough chairs for every senator on the committee to sit, the HRC noted.
     “Using the constitutional amendment process as a political tool is bad enough, but doing it behind closed doors is appalling,” said Solmonese, leader of the nation’s largest LGBT advocacy organization. “The U.S. Senate shouldn’t be playing fast and loose with our most fundamental freedoms.”
     In 2004, the Senate and House both fell far short of the two-thirds vote necessary to send the amendment to the states for ratification. In the Senate, the vote against cloture was 50 to 48, with six Republicans voting no. The Republicans who opposed cloture were Senators Campbell, Chafee, Collins, McCain, Snowe and Sununu.
     In the House, the vote was 227 to 186. Many prominent Republicans and conservatives expressed opposition to the amendment in 2004, including Vice President Cheney, Arlen Specter, Rudy Guiliani, Chuck Hagel, David Dreier, George Pataki, Bob Barr, Alan Simpson, George Will and David Brooks.
     This year, those numbers increased to former Senator Danforth who called the amendment “silly” and “contrary to basic Republican principles,” the HRC said.
     First Lady Laura Bush was recently quoted as saying, “I don’t think it should be used as a campaign tool, obviously.”
     Sen. John McCain has repeatedly reaffirmed his opposition to the amendment. George Will again restated his opposition by lauding Sen. John Sununu’s vote against the amendment was a vote against the “federal usurpation of the traditional state responsibility for marriage law” and that it “affi rmed the value of cultural federalism.”
     Sen. Bill Frist, M.D. (R-Tenn.) announced earlier this year his promise to bring the Federal Marriage Amendment to the floor for a vote the week of June 5th. Observers have said they do not expect the amendment to pass.

Compiled from press releases by Lynn McNicol