The Federal Marriage Amendment

THE FEDERAL MARRIAGE AMENDMENT

Mr. KENNEDY. Earlier today the President announced his endorsement of the Federal marriage amendment. By endorsing this shameful effort to write discrimination back into the Constitution, President Bush has betrayed his campaign promise to be "a uniter, not a divider."

The Constitution is the foundation of our democracy and it reflects the enduring principles of our country. We have amended the Constitution only 17 times in the two centuries since the adoption of the Bill of Rights. Aside from the amendment on prohibition, which was quickly recognized as a mistake and repealed 13 years later, the Constitution has often been amended to expand and protect people's rights, never to take away or restrict their rights.

By endorsing this shameful proposal, President Bush will go down in history as the first President to try to write bias back into the Constitution.

Advocates of the Federal marriage amendment claim it will not prevent States from granting some legal benefits to same-sex couples, but that is not what the proposed amendment says. By forbidding same-sex couples from receiving "the legal incidents of marriage," the amendment would prohibit State courts from enforcing many existing State and local laws, including laws that deal with civil unions and domestic partnerships and other laws that have nothing to do with such relationships.

Just as it is wrong for a State's criminal laws to discriminate against gays and lesbians, it is wrong for a State's civil laws to discriminate against gays and lesbians by denying them the many benefits and protections provided for married couples.

The proposed amendment would prohibit States from deciding these important issues for themselves. This Nation has made too much progress in the ongoing battle for civil rights to take such an unjustified step backwards now.

We all know what this is about. It is not about how to protect the sanctity of marriage, or how to deal with activist judges. It is about politics, an attempt to drive a wedge between one group of citizens and the rest of the country, solely for partisan advantage. We have rejected that tactic before and I hope we will do so again.

The timing of today's statement is also a sign of the desperation of the President's campaign for reelection. When the war in Iraq, jobs and the economy, health care, education, and many other issues are going badly for the President and his reelection campaign is in dire straits, the President appeals to prejudice in a desperate tactic to salvage his campaign.

I am optimistic the Congress will refuse to pass this shameful amendment. Many of us on both sides of the aisle have worked together to expand and defend the civil rights of gays and lesbians. Together, on a bipartisan basis, we have fought for a comprehensive Federal prohibition on job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. We have fought together to expand the existing Federal hate crimes law to include hate crimes based upon this flagrant form of bigotry.

I hope we can all agree that Congress has more pressing challenges to consider than a divisive, discriminatory constitutional amendment that responds to a nonexistent problem. Let's focus on the real issues of war and peace, jobs and the economy, and the many other priorities that demand our attention so urgently in these troubled times.

Mr. President, as to the issue that we will be voting on this afternoon, on the medical malpractice legislation, I spoke on this issue yesterday but there are a few additional points that I wish to make today.