Bush urges federal marriage amendment

Top Democrat will oppose
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who says he believes marriage is the union of a man and a woman, said he nonetheless will vote against the amendment on a test vote Wednesday.

“The reason for this debate is to divide our society, to pit one against another,” Reid said in remarks prepared for delivery on the Senate floor. “This is another one of the presidents efforts to frighten, to distort, to distract and to confuse America. It is this administration’s way of avoiding the tough, real problems that American citizens are confronted with each and every day.”

Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco, which in 2004 began issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, on Monday denounced Bush’s move as predictable and “stale rhetoric” aimed at rallying conservatives for this year’s midterm elections.

“It’s politics. It’s pandering and it’s placating a core constituency, the evangelicals,” Newsom said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

White House press secretary Tony Snow acknowledged said there was a political dimension to Bush’s remarks Monday but said the president was not calling senators to persuade them to pass the amendment. “I’m not sure this is a big driver among voters,” Snow said.

Bush’s views on the federal marriage amendment differ from those held by Vice President Dick Cheney, whose daughter, Mary, is a lesbian.

Cheney said he thinks Americans should do everything they can to tolerate and accommodate whatever kind of relationships people want to enter into. He said he does not think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area.

Emotions run deep
Acknowledging that emotions often run hot in this debate, Bush urged calm during his Saturday morning radio address.

“As this debate goes forward, we must remember that every American deserves to be treated with tolerance, respect and dignity,” he said. “All of us have a duty to conduct this discussion with civility and decency toward one another, and all people deserve to have their voices heard.”

NBC VIDEO President pushes for ban June 5: President Bush kicks off a campaign for a constitutional ban on gay marriage; meanwhile, the Senate begins a debate on a possible constitutional amendment. NBC's David Gregory reports. Today show

David Buckel, Marriage Project director of Lambda Legal, a national organization working to protect the rights of lesbians, gay men and others, said the amendment would be damaging to the lives of same-sex couples and families, which raise millions of children.

“It would brand lesbian and gay men as legally inferior individuals,” he said. “It would write into the supreme law of the land that this group of people are inferior, and when it’s the law, it’s a message to everyone else in society that they have license to discriminate.”

Bush said in his radio address there is broad consensus in America to protect the institution of marriage.

Voters in 19 states have approved amendments to their state constitutions that protect the traditional definition of marriage, he said. Moreover, he said, 45 of the 50 states have either a state constitutional amendment or statute defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

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