Federal Marriage Amendment
For information about the amendment, see Federal Marriage Amendment.
For arguments for and against same-sex marriage in general, see Same-sex marriage#Controversies. The Alliance for Marriage’s amendment introduced in 2002 consisted of two clauses. It stated:
"Marriage in the United States of America shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman." "Neither this constitution or 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."
Controversy surrounding the second sentence of the original amendment has led to an alternative version that only includes the first sentence. However, only the original amendment was debated in the Senate when it came up for a vote on July 14, 2004. The Federal Marriage Amendment was widely considered a significant issue in the 2004 presidential election, and the continued political disagreement over the definition of marriage has become an important and divisive issue in American politics. For more information on this controversy, see Same-sex marriage in the United States. In the wake of the Democratic takeover of Congress (see United States general elections, 2006) and the new leadership that does not share their views, the Alliance for Marriage announced they were shifting their focus from the Congressional level to the state level. They plan on building a nationwide network of state lawmakers who would support the Federal Marriage Amendment. Ultimately, three-fourths of the state legislatures would have to approve any federal constitutional amendment.
Read more about this topic: Alliance For Marriage
Famous quotes containing the words federal, marriage and/or amendment:
“The proposed Constitution ... is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“All married couples should learn the art of battle as they should learn the art of making love. Good battle is objective and honest—never vicious or cruel. Good battle is healthy and constructive, and brings to a marriage the principle of equal partnership.”
—Ann Landers (b. 1918)
“During the Suffragette revolt of 1913 I ... [urged] that what was needed was not the vote, but a constitutional amendment enacting that all representative bodies shall consist of women and men in equal numbers, whether elected or nominated or coopted or registered or picked up in the street like a coroner’s jury. In the case of elected bodies the only way of effecting this is by the Coupled Vote. The representative unit must not be a man or a woman but a man and a woman.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)