Dems May Dodge Marriage Vote
By David Paul Kuhn,
CBSNews.com Chief Political Writer
Wednesday's scheduled vote on the constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage was timed by Senate Republican leaders to portray Democrats as out of touch with mainstream America ahead of their late July political convention. But Senators John Kerry and John Edwards, the Democratic presidential ticket, will likely dodge the domestically divisive issue.
Republicans continue to lack the 60 votes needed for initial passage of the bill. And the two-thirds majority, 67 votes, required to amend the constitution (pending ratification by three-fourths of states) is well out of the GOP's reach, likely by more than a dozen votes.
That is beside the point to the bill's chief sponsor, Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., who wants to "put people on record." Those people are Kerry and Edwards. But getting them to cast a vote is proving a challenge.
The Kerry-Edwards campaign said Tuesday that neither man would vote in the Senate's procedural test. If that passes, both senators will participate in the final vote, requiring two-thirds support.
As Kerry and Edwards begin to travel to key swing states, speaking to values, Republicans hope the vote can force the Democrats to take a polarizing position, on the record, that may estrange key socially conservative swing voters. Such voters are vulnerable this election year due to rising anti-war sentiment.
Both Kerry and Edwards, oppose a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. They argue the issue should be left to the states. Though both men say they oppose same-sex marriage, they support civil unions, a legally equivalent alternative that does not impede on the word "marriage." Many view the word "marriage" as sacrosanct.
President Bush and Vice President Cheney support the amendment to ban same-sex marriage. In the past, Cheney had said he was against it, arguing then that the issue should be left to the states. His wife and fellow conservative powerbroker, Lynne Cheney, said this week that she still opposes the amendment on state's rights grounds.
"A constitutional amendment should never be undertaken lightly, yet to defend marriage, our nation has no other choice," President Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address. "I urge members of the House and Senate to pass, and send to the states for ratification, an amendment that defines marriage in the United States as a union of a man and woman as husband and wife."
The mid-May legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts brought the issue to national prominence. In the 2000 election, an estimated 4 million conservative Christians did not vote. The Bush campaign believes these voters are crucial to Mr. Bush winning four more years. Polling shows that white conservative Christians are overwhelmingly against same-sex marriage.
The majority of Americans are as well. A CBS News poll in May found that 60 percent of Americans favor an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would allow marriage only between a man and a woman. Forty percent want no legal recognition for homosexual couples, 28 percent think they should be allowed to marry and 29 percent said they should be allowed to form civil unions.
But a Gallup Poll that same month found that support was far more split: 51 percent supported amending the Constitution, while 45 percent opposed it. Gallup also found that 47 percent of registered voters view same-sex marriage as a "major issue."
In the swing states of Arkansas, Michigan, Ohio and Oregon, upcoming votes are scheduled for statewide bans on same-sex marriage. The affect of the ballot tests is to keep the issue central in voters' minds, giving it more weight.
Although the conservative base enthusiastically supports a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, there is some concern among Republican strategists that the push for a ban may make President Bush, and Republicans in general, look intolerant.
Already President Bush has all but estranged his only gay constituency. Log Cabin Republicans, the leading conservative gay-rights group, is almost certain not to endorse Mr. Bush.
"The president has truly jeopardized the endorsement of Log Cabin Republicans. He did that first on February 24, when he came out with the federal marriage amendment and he reinforced this in his radio address this weekend," said Patrick Guerriero, the group's executive director.
"We are very close to a breaking point," he added.
The 25-member Log Cabin national board will make the endorsement decision "right around" the Republican convention. The group's bylaws forbid it from endorsing a Democratic presidential ticket. But Guerriero says that the lack of an endorsement, combined with already rising dismay among gay conservatives, could lead them not to vote for Mr. Bush.
In the 2000 election, about 1 million of the 4 million voters who described themselves as gay voted for Mr. Bush, according to Voters News Service exit polls.
Matt Dowd, chief Bush campaign strategist, said the president's support for the amendment makes sense on principle and thereby, in his view, strategically.
"Americans always support principled leadership," he said, adding that anytime President Bush makes a principle-based choice, it "provides great contrast with Kerry."