By: Mary Mostert, Analsyt, Banner of Liberty (www.bannerofliberty.com)
July 15, 2004
Yesterday on a cloture motion on the Federal Marriage act, 48 U.S. Senators voted “Yes” on the bill and 50 voted “No” to not even allow a vote on whether or not marriage meant the union between one man and one woman. The two senators who did not think this issue was even sufficiently important to show up to vote were Democrats John Kerry of Massachusetts and his running mate, John Edwards.
Senator Ted Kennedy, of Massachusetts, the state with tyrannical judges that declared that the Constitution somehow allowed same-sex marriage, led the opposition to a vote on the Federal Marriage Act by stating the Republicans were “engaging in the politics of mass distraction by bringing up a discriminatory marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution that a majority of Americans do not support.”
Yet in 1996 when the U.S. Senate the U.S. Congress debated and passed the Defense of Marriage act on a vote of 85 to 14, it was Senator Kennedy who first claimed that passage of the DOMA was “an attempt by Congress to limit the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution. He was referring to Article IV, Section I of the Constitution which reads:
“Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.”
Kennedy had read into the Senate record a letter he received from Harvard Law School Professor Laurence H. Tribe, who firmly stated that the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 would be unconstitution because:
“Congress possesses no power under any provision of the Constitution to legislate any such categorical exemption from the Full Faith and Credit Clause of Article IV. For Congress to enact such an exemption--whether for same-sex marriages or for any other substantively defined category of public acts, records, or proceedings--would entail an exercise by Congress of a `power not delegated to the United States by the Constitution'--a power therefore `reserved to the States' under the Tenth Amendment. The proposed legislation is thus plainly unconstitutional, both because of the basic `limited-government' axiom that ours is a National Government whose powers are confined to those that are delegated to the federal level in the Constitution itself, and because of the equally fundamental `states'-rights' postulate that all powers not so delegated are reserved to the States and their people.”
Since Kennedy’s own state on May 17, 2004 declared that Massachusetts must allow same-sex marriage based on the Constitution, even though its legislature never passed any such law, the only remedy left is a Constitutional Amendment to declare the will of the people in this matter. Those who oppose amending the Constitution to save marriage as we know it either approve of same-sex marriage – or have been misled by devious politicians like Kennedy.
Eight of the 14 Senators who voted against the Defense of Marriage act in September 1996 are still in the senate. Seven of them voted yesterday against the cloture bill to consider the Federal Marriage Act: Akaka (D-HI), Boxer (D-CA), Feingold (D-WI), Feinstein (D-CA), Inouye (D-HI), Kennedy (D-MA), and Wyden (D-OR). Presidential hopeful John Kerry, probably for political reasons, didn’t vote.
The number of Senators voting yesterday against even considering a bill that would resolve the problem has risen from 15 to 50 in 8 years. Senators voting against cloture were: Akaka (D-HI), Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN), Biden (D-DEL), Bingaman (D-NM), Boxer (D-CA), Breaux (D-LA), Campbell (R-CO), Cantwell (D-WA), Carper (D-DEL), Chafee (R-RI), Clinton (D-NY), Collins (R-ME), Conrad (D-ND), Corzine (D-NJ), Daschle (D-SD), Dayton (D-MN), Dodd (D-CT), Dorgan (D-ND), Durbin (D-IL), Feingold, (D-WI) Feinstein (D-CA), Graham (D-FL),Harkin (D-IA), Hollings (D-SC), Inouye (D-HI), Jeffords (I-VT), Johnson (D-SD), Kennedy (D-MA), Kohl (D-WI), Landrieu (D-LA), Lautenberg (D-NJ), Leahy (D-VT), Levin (D-MI), Lieberman (D-CT), Lincoln (D-AR), McCain (R-AZ), Mikulski (D-MD), Murray (D-WA), Nelson (D-FL), Pryor (D-AR), Reed (D-RI), Reid (D-NV), Rockefeller (D-WV), Sarbanes (D-MD), Schumer (D-NY), Snowe (R-ME), Stabenow (D-MI), Sununu (R-NH), Wyden (D-OR)
Six Republican senators joined 37 additional Democrat senators to oppose consideration of the Federal Marriage Act. A threat to marriage and families that seemed far-fetched when proposed at the United Nations only 8 years ago by homosexuals and feminists, now threatens every family in America.
The wording of that document at Habitat II in Istanbul by unelected and unknown delegates at the UN would have made not only same-sex marriage but almost all forms of sex, including sex with children protected “human rights.” On June 29, 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) law enacted to protect children from pornography is a violation of the Constitution. Unlimited pornography, easily available even at public schools, is now considered one of the “rights” of a child, protected by government, regardless of what the parents might think.
However, because of a small band of dedicated people, the efforts to make unlimited sex available as an international “human right” was blocked in almost a miraculous manner in Istanbul 8 years ago. The anti-family forces that tried to make same-sex marriage a “human right” in 1996 are opposing a Constitutional Amendment to save the moral basis of marriage and the family. Our founding fathers, including George Washington, believed that our system of government would not work without the moral base that has played such an important role in America’s freedom and prosperity. Countries that approved same-sex marriage a few years ago now find more than half their children born out of wedlock and families decimated.
This is about the survival of your family and your country, folks. The same small group who blocked efforts at the United Nations in 1996 strongly urge you to sign their petition at Defend Marriage.org. Richard Wilkins who has taught Constitutional Law for 20 years and who was a key factor in the success at Istanbul is convinced a Constitutional Amendment is the only real solution to the attack on marriage and the family.
I might also point out that of the 50 senators who voted against the Federal Marriage Act, 19 of them, those in bold print, are up for re-election in November. I might also point out that, of the 50 senators who voted against the Federal Marriage Act, 19 of them, those in bold print, are up for re-election in November. If voters do not re-elect those who oppose the Federal Marriage Act, we would have a Senate by January 4, 2005 composed of people who just might understand, again, that it is We the People, not the courts and not the government, who have the right to decide what this nation, our families and our marriages are to be.
To Comment: Mary Mostert