About a month ago, the [tag]Senate[/tag] went through the motions and held a vote on a [tag]constitutional amendment[/tag] to ban [tag]gay marriage[/tag]. It failed miserably; proponents needed 67 votes in the Senate and they couldn’t even break 50.
With one chamber already rejecting the measure, the [tag]amendment[/tag] can’t be approved, at the earliest, until next year. To which [tag]House[/tag] [tag]Republicans[/tag] respond: where’s the fun in that?
Undeterred by a decisive defeat in the Senate, House Republicans are moving ahead with a vote on a constitutional amendment to [tag]ban[/tag] gay marriage, forcing lawmakers to take a stand just months before the election.
The vote, scheduled for Tuesday, will occur in a week devoted to several priorities of social conservatives — what House GOP leaders call their “American [tag]values[/tag] agenda.” […]
Defeat of the amendment is once again a near-certainty. The Senate fell 11 votes short of the 60 votes needed just to advance the proposal to a yes-or-no decision. Two years ago, just before another election, the House came up some 40 votes shy of the two-thirds majority required to advance a constitutional amendment.
Proponents don’t have the two-thirds majority they need, and they don’t have the Senate support they need, but they’re going to hold the vote anyway … because apparently the GOP base gets riled up by failure. As Tony Perkins told the AP, “The more this issue is discussed, the more people understand the threat.”
I generally avoid predictions, but I have a hunch this isn’t going to work.
Rep. Tammy Baldwin, an openly gay Democrat from Wisconsin, said the marriage amendment “certainly is a tool that the right wing is using, but I think it has lost the impact it had in 2004.”
Baldwin said voters are more concerned about the war in Iraq, health care costs and gas prices and to a greater extent “are recognizing this time that these measures are politically motivated.”
It’s always a mistake to underestimate the draw of these emotional culture-war issues, but I think Baldwin’s right. This has “backfire” written all over it.
For the right, it’s a reminder that even with big GOP majorities in both chambers, they still can’t get the amendment they want. For everyone else, it’s a reminder that big GOP majorities in both chambers would rather waste time on an amendment they know they can’t pass than work on real issues that affect people’s lives.
House Dems shouldn’t sheepishly kill time and get this vote out of the way — they should embrace this as a terrific opportunity. Dems could hold huge media events showing that House Republicans want to focus their energy on an anti-gay measure that can’t pass while events in the Middle East spiral out of control. Dems should then ask, “Had enough?”