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DeLay: Renewing Our Reverence for Marriage
House Debates Constitutional Amendment to Protect Marriage

WASHINGTON – House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) today said protecting marriage in this country is an uphill battle, but one of the most important Congress will ever face, as the House of Representatives debated a constitutional amendment to protect marriage.

“Marriage is the most enduring institution in human history – the unique, spiritual bond between one man and one woman,” DeLay said.  “It is the architecture of family and the most successful arrangement ever conceived for the protection and raising of children.  Marriage is the basic unit of society, the very DNA of civilization, and if that civilization is to endure, marriage must be protected.”

In 1996, Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) with broad bipartisan support.  DOMA says that for the purposes of federal law, the term “marriage” describes a union between one man and one woman, and that no state, under its own laws, can be required to recognize homosexual unions licensed in other states.  To date, 44 states have defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

On November 18, 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Court declared that under the Massachusetts Constitution same-sex couples have the right to wed.  Since that decision, the U.S. Congress has considered several options for protecting traditional marriage, with the knowledge that a constitutional amendment may be the only method to protect states from the will of activist judges.

“The question of the future of marriage in America has been forced upon us by activist judges trying to legislate from the bench, and forced upon us in such a way that the only remaining answer is to amend the Constitution of the United States,” DeLay said.  “The timing, substance, and necessity of the Marriage Protection Amendment have been forced by the courts and their refusal to be bound by the clear and absolute limits of their constitutional authority to interpret the law.”

“This amendment provides us with an opportunity to turn back the excesses of judicial activism, help renew our culture’s reverence for marriage, and rediscover our respect for the primacy of our children’s needs,” DeLay added.

The Marriage Protection Amendment establishes a rule against same-sex marriage while leaving the matter of the creation of civil unions, domestic partnerships, and other nonmarital arrangements to the state legislatures to decide as they, and the people, so choose.