Senate vote on marriage amendment nears
- May 1, 2006
The ERLC continues to encourage Southern Baptists to ask their senators to support in a June vote a federal amendment to protect marriage.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has scheduled a vote on the Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA), S.J. Res. 1, for June 6.
The MPA, which defines marriage as only between a man and a woman, is intended to protect the institution against continuing legal efforts that would identify homosexual relationships, and potentially other groupings, as marriages. While only Massachusetts has legalized “homosexual marriage” so far, supreme courts in New Jersey, New York and Washington could legitimize “same-sex marriages” before the end of the year, according to the Senate Republican Policy Committee.
A member of a diverse coalition of religious leaders, ERLC President Richard Land said the interfaith effort testifies to “the importance in our society of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”
“The best legal minds in the country have come to the conclusion that the only way we can protect ourselves from having a runaway, imperial judiciary force ‘same-sex marriage’—and perhaps, down the road, even polygamy—upon an unwilling nation is to have a constitutional amendment that says specifically that nothing in the U.S. Constitution or any of the state constitutions shall be construed as requiring that marriage be anything other than the union of a man and a woman,” Land said.
“The vast majority of Americans do not want the definition of marriage to be radically modified to include same-sex partners,” Land said. “We still have a government of the people, by the people and for the people—if we will stand up and demand it.”
In an April letter to all Southern Baptist churches, Focus on the Family Action Chairman James Dobson and Land asked pastors to encourage their congregations to participate in the effort.
Postcards are available at the ERLC website and the Internet site of the Religious Coalition for Marriage, for printing, copying and mailing to senators. Senate offices also may be called through the Capitol switchboard, (202) 224-3121.
The proposed amendment says, “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, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.”
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