How many Gay Marriage Amendments?

November 20, 2005 4:22 PM

How many attempts have there been to pass a constitutional amendment that limits marriage to a relationship between a man and a woman?

I hope this is straightforward, but I can't seem to find the answer.

posted by xoe26 to law & government (5 comments total)

It's going to depend on how you define "attempts".
posted by duck at 4:31 PM on November 20, 2005

I was thinking about introductions into the US Congress.
posted by xoe26 at 4:34 PM on November 20, 2005

I understand that the Federal Marriage Amendment was introduced into the House by Marilyn Musgrave in May 2002 and May 2003.

Didn't George W. Bush support an amendment - if so which one was it?
posted by xoe26 at 4:47 PM on November 20, 2005

Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., re-introduced the federal marriage amendment in the U.S. Senate on January 24, 2005. Twenty-four of his Republican colleagues joined the senator in introducing the amendment, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and designated the joint resolution S.J. Res. 1, indicating the constitutional amendment was a priority for the Republican leadership in the Senate. No Democrats have co-sponsored the bill.

Early in his second term President Bush signaled that there are not enough votes for the amendment to pass the Senate. He did not indicate that the White House would aggressively push for an amendment, despite their repeated call for a constitutional amendment throughout 2004....Despite intense pressure from the White House, the Republican leadership and extremist lobbying organizations the amendment failed in both the House and Senate last year, by a 227-186 margin in the House in September and a 48-50 vote in the Senate in July. The wide margin by which the amendment failed to pass represents that at the end of the day, this amendment is simply too extreme. It would single out a group of Americans for discrimination, something that the vast majority of Americans are against.

contact info here.
posted by dash_slot- at 5:29 PM on November 20, 2005

The federal anti-gay marriage amendment (which is a response to the opinion among many conservative legislators that the federal DOMA act won't survive a Supreme Court test) has been introduced various times into the House and Senate, according to this summary page from religioustolerance.org:

The "Marriage Amendment" to the U.S. Constitution was first introduced into the House of Representatives on 2002-MAY-15

The amendment, in its initial wording, stated: "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups." 6

A similar amendment was introduced into the Senate on 2003-NOV-25.
posted by mediareport at 6:31 PM on November 20, 2005