- WASHINGTON -- The US Senate
rejected an appeal by President George W Bush yesterday for a constitutional
amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
-
- In a disappointment for Mr Bush and conservative Republicans,
Democrats and some Republican rebels voted against even holding a vote
on whether marriage should be defined as exclusively between a man and
a woman.
-
- Supporters of the amendment knew in advance that the
proposal would fail to gain the necessary two-thirds majority, but they
hoped to bring it to a headline-making vote and not see it backfire by
faltering on a procedural issue, as happened yesterday.
-
- The debate has also exposed divisions within the party
over what Right-wingers hope will be one of the "wedge" issues
of the election campaign. A wing of Republicans, including Lynne Cheney,
the wife of Vice-President Dick Cheney, took the view of many Democrats
that this was an issue for the states to decide and not for the constitution.
-
- The Democrats were all the more delighted because Senator
John Kerry, their presidential candidate, and Senator John Edwards, his
running mate, were spared from the potential electoral embarrassment of
having to cast a vote on this deeply divisive issue.
-
- Yet by pushing the proposal on to the Senate's agenda
and into the spotlight, Right-wingers are confident that they have rallied
the Republican conservative "base", whose votes may be crucial
in the swing states where November's election will be decided.
-
- The issue came to a head in February when Mr Bush called
on Congress to approve an amendment following a ruling by the Massachusetts
supreme court that homosexual couples had the right to marry. But the Republican
attempt to win a vote on the issue faltered when they disagreed among themselves
over the amendment's wording.
-
- On the campaign trail yesterday, Mr Bush said he was
the candidate who believed in family and marriage. Opinion polls suggest
that most Americans are against an amendment but also are against the idea
of same-sex marriages.
-
- Republican supporters of the vote vowed they would not
give up their cause.
-
- "I would argue that the future of our country hangs
in the balance because the future of marriage hangs in the balance,"
said Senator Rick Santorum, a leading Republican supporter of an amendment.
-
- "Isn't that the ultimate homeland security, standing
up to and defending marriage?" Republicans are now expected to portray
Mr Kerry and Mr Edwards as too frightened to risk voting on the issue.
-
- They were particularly keen to highlight the issue this
week in the countdown to the Democratic national convention at the end
of the month in Boston, Massachusetts, the first state to legalise same-sex
marriage.
-
- Democrats countered yesterday that the vote highlighted
Mr Bush's intolerance. On his first solo foray on the campaign trail, Mr
Edwards hailed the alliance between moderate Republicans and Democrats
to reject the "politics of division" and using the constitution
as a "political tool."
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- Tom Daschle, the Democrats' leader in the Senate, said
there was no "urgent need" to amend the constitution and that
it was an issue for states' legislatures and courts.
-
- "Marriage is a sacred union between men and women.
That is what the majority of Americans believe."
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