Frist Seeks Vote on Gay Marriage Ban

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 2:02pm

A Republican effort to ban gay marriage nationwide will be returned to the Senate floor in 2006, RAW STORY has learned.

The Marriage Protection Amendment was originally introduced by Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) in 2003, and leveraged as a wedge issue by the GOP during the 2004 election cycle as a way of mobilizing its base to vote against same-sex marriage.

Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO), a co-sponsor of the 2005 joint resolution, has confirmed that Senate Majority leader Bill Frist (R- TN) will attempt to bring the controversial legislation to the floor this year for a full vote.

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I guess when you have the SEC, NASD an other people staring down you back for ethics violations, you have to find something to rattle and raise the base -

"Senator Bill Frist has indicated he will try to bring the Marriage Protection Amendment to a full vote again this year," Allard spokeswoman Angela de Rocha told RAW STORY. "Senator Allard believes that a constitutional amendment is the best way to make it crystal clear that marriage is between a man and a woman."

Senator Frist's office did not return a call seeking comment.

The proposal to amend the Constitution with a definition for what constitutes marriage became a central GOP platform issue after the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that the state could not "deny the protections, benefits and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who wish to marry."

Although the primary concerns of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered (GLBT) community are equal rights and protection under the law, including visitation, property and child custody rights, the GOP has successfully framed the legislation as a religious argument rather than a legal issue in order to fire up their base and rally them to the voting booths."

Let's Get Ready To Rumble.


GOP to force Federal Marriage Amendment vote in 2006

[NYadgal]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 2:03pm

You should join the serious discussion of the day thread...

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 2:06pm

Ahh - the title to the thread has not been updated yet.

Thanks.

[NYadgal]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 2:07pm

I know.. it's a shame.

Interesting topic, isn't it?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 2:07pm

I will join the serious discussion thread, but meanwhile, I have this message for my Republican friends: "F*ck you very much for this."

[WindyCityActor]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 2:08pm

Elections in 2006.....Let's plays the "Flags, Fags, and Guns" card.

Just like a broken record.


Updated On: 1/27/06 at 02:08 PM

[Sing a Song With Me]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 2:10pm

This is a travesty. Once again, though, the GOP is proving to anyone with a mind (which would preclude their own party members) that they put the church or their own personal religious interests (namely, in the sake of their own pocketbooks at that!) in front of service to the government.

[Color and Light]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 2:13pm

This is just depressing beyond words.

[theatreboi11]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 2:36pm

Today in acting class a girl simply read from the Declaration of Independence. This is the paragraph she read:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

I can not and do not understand how and why we have gotten so far from this! And how a country that was founded on freedom has come to this! Equality is a false truth that we all believe. Until we have a government that solely believe in that paragraph this country will never be free or represent the ideals that is supposed to make this country great!

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 2:41pm

I am so proud that Frist is from Tennessee. This is the same man who is trying to stop any research into whether Autism can be linked to mercury in vaccines. I mean, just because a few of those kids get vaccinated, go home and wake up the next day having lost all ability to speak doesn't mean the two could possibly be related.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 2:47pm

Thank you, Theatreboi11.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident..."

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 2:51pm

Not to change the subject, but I have always that it interesting that the Declaration of Independence mentions "pursuit of happiness", yet the phrase is not in the Constitution.

I saw both documents in December. Wow have they faded under the Bush era!

[theatreboi11]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 2:57pm

--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

I find this hilarious! We live in a country where the government is so corrupt and yet if the people rise up to abolish it can you only imagin what would happen to them! Bush would have everyone killed before he opens his idiot mind for one second!

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 3:07pm

please. first knows he has no chance of getting the 67 votes he needs to pass this just in the senate much less the 290 in the house. that's of course before they have to get 37 state legislatures to pass it. frist is sending a bon mot to the far right to burnish up his credentials for a run in '08. he knows if he brings this to a vote it gets shot down and not only does it embarrass the party, but it splits the gop with the frothing class looking to send up true believers in primaries where incumbents look to breeze though in '06. i got $50 says it never comes to a vote in '06. any takers?

[theatreboi11]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 3:12pm

Papa- I really really hope you are right!

[WindyCityActor]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 3:13pm

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 3:16pm

Oy.

[theatreboi11]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 3:16pm

LOL THAT IS SO GREAT! Its funny only because of how true it is!

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 3:19pm

papa - I agree.

[Sing a Song With Me]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 3:24pm

But even this display by Frist keeps the issue on the forefronts of the minds of the movement dying to make this a central issue. And so, for them, it will be. And the issue will be pushed and poked and prodded and those poor fools in West Virginia will get those same flyers with a man proposing to a man and a red circle barring the Bible to scare them into voting Republican.

[guitargeek0624]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 3:25pm

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

No matter what the anti-gay marriage activists say, this whole issue is based on religious beliefs. I like to rub this quote from the United States Constitution into their faces when they try to shove their ideas down my throat.

Unfortunately, our government has compromised our Constitution so many times that it's almost unbelievable. The Bush Administration is in no way anything like the founding fathers envisioned the United States government to be.

The fact that South Africa is allowing gay marriage and third-world countries are electing female leaders way before us shows how much our country isn't progressing. As a matter of fact, if the conservatives have their way, our country will have regressed considerably.

That reminds me of a cute joke I once heard:

"What's the opposite of progress?"
"Congress!"

[WindyCityActor]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 3:25pm

Papa, I agree with you as well...which is why I would love Love, LOVE Frist to be placed in a position where he was forced to actively pursue the amendment.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 3:32pm

exactly, wca. ironically, the left should be hoping and praying and actively encouraging their senators to do everything they can to make sure that it does come to a vote.

sing, do you really believe that the true believers need frist to make a statement (not that he made a statement in the first place) to keep the issue alive for them? when they're ignored they just scream louder anyway to make sure someone pays attention to them like the whiny little children that they are. expecting them to give up this issue is like expecting helen thomas to declare her absolute and unabashed support for the bush administration and declare that every previous statement she made can now be ignored in favor of her new love for all things dubya.

[Burlesquebabe]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 3:37pm

I know I'm the odd man out when I say I'm glad gay marriage is being banned. I have no problem with gay people, or gay culture but for them to be able to marry is just like a sick joke.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 1/27/06 at 3:40pm

i know i'm the odd man out

i propose this one for understatement of the week.