WASHINGTON, May 13 (UPI) -- Returning again to what Republican political operatives have determined is a core voter issue for party members this November, conservative lawmakers in the U.S. House Thursday examined what they have dubbed the "threat to traditional marriage" posed by same-sex marriage and potential remedies to the perceived problem.
Like similar hearings in the Senate Judiciary this year, House Republicans heading the Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee seem unwilling, or even uninterested, in carefully examining all sides of the issue regarding the proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would ban such unions.
The Republicans controlling the committee provided only a minimum of time to pro-gay marriage interests -- to the lone openly gay member of Congress, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. -- when compared to the panels of three conservatives and religious zealots supporting the constitutional ban.
Proponents of the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, introduced by Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., argue that it will protect "traditional" heterosexual marriage from the negative impacts that homosexual marriage will bring to society and the institution of marriage.
Musgrave, House Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee Chairman Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, and others hold steadfastly to the argument that marriage is primarily a legal context for protecting and raising children that would be undermined by allowing homosexuals to marry.
Former federal judge Robert Bork, a conservative legal analyst at the Hudson Institute who was blocked as nominee for the Supreme Court during the Reagan administration by Senate Democrats, told the panel said that while homosexuals are clearly just looking for cultural affirmation that their lifestyle is as normal as any other, allowing gay marriage would have negative impacts as have been demonstrated in the Scandinavian countries that have legalized gay marriage in recent years.
According to Bork and other critics, these include less interest in marriage by heterosexual couples.
"You wind up with a lot of children being raise in one-parent families, which we know is a social pathology," he said.
But Frank pointed out in response to this analysis that one only has to look at the history of demonizing gay rights to see the faultiness of these arguments.
For instance, social conservatives have bemoaned providing homosexual rights over the years by always citing the social costs, which have never appeared.
Social conservatives argued that civil unions in Vermont would lead to social disintegration, which has clearly not been the case in that state, Frank said, adding, "Today civil unions in Vermont are boring."
A collation of more than 100 liberal-minded religious, labor, civil rights, women's rights and other public-interest organizations calling themselves the "Coalition Against Discrimination in the Constitution" spoke against the proposed amendment at a news conference on Capitol Hill Thursday morning.
The opponent groups -- including the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Campaign, United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries, Japanese American Citizen's League, and the NAACP -- have painted the move as an amendment requiring states to "discriminate against same-sex couples and their families."
"Gay and lesbian families are the new targets for some politicians this election year," said Christopher E. Anders, a legislative counsel for the ACLU. "This discriminatory proposal says that loving and committed families should be denied equality, that somehow their love and commitment is not worthy of protecting. Gay and lesbian Americans are just that, Americans, and Congress should not discriminate against them."
Those pushing the amendment remain unfazed by such criticisms, saying their intent is multifaceted.
The overall reasoning, they say, is to allow states and Congress to enact civil unions for homosexuals while reserving marriage as legal concept applicable only to the union between a man and a woman.
However, critics question whether the language could block states from enacting civil unions.
In addition, conservatives believe the amendment would guard against the encroachment of activist judges into the legislature, who seek to force the country to accept same-sex marriage despite the fact that polls show a majority of Americans do not support the concept.
Musgrave, along with Bork, said that the problem was one created by activist courts.
Calling the amendment a "moderate response" to the problem, Musgrave told the House panel that the measure is the "only option left open to us" to deal with the issue because the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts is looking to advance a "social revolution not sought and unwanted by the American people."
"Gays are not excluded from the benefits of marriage by others," said Musgrave. "They are excluded by their own choices."
While Bork was more careful in his choice of words than his fellow panel member, he agreed with analysis that the problem was one perpetuated by the courts.
The conventional wisdom -- accepted by both proponents and opponents of same-sex marriage -- is that the justices on Massachusetts' highest court forever changed the tone of this debate and projected it into the national spotlight in an unavoidably way by deciding that the state was illegally denying gay couples the right to marry in the same manner as heterosexuals.
Thursday's hearing was conducted in the shadow of the fact that on Monday, as a result of an order from the state's Supreme Judicial Court, Massachusetts will become the first state to allow marriages between same-sex couples.
The Massachusetts Legislature approved a constitutional amendment in March aimed at stopping such marriages, but it awaits a required second approval by the Legislature next year and then by voters -- at the earliest in 2006 -- before being adopted.
What will happen to the marriages enacted in the meantime if the state's constitutional amendment is adopted remains unclear; while they would likely become void under the new constitutional language, this would be open to a legal challenge.
Both sides of the debate also generally agree that a nationwide showdown is coming in both state and federal courts on the issue as challenges are mounted against the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and the 44 similar laws adopted by states around the country.
It would take just one gay couple getting married in Massachusetts and returning to a state that refuses to recognize the union to mount a legal challenge based upon the provisions in the Constitution requiring states to recognize contracts enacted in other states.
"Most court watchers agree that within the next two to three years the Supreme Court will hold that there is a federal constitutional right for gay marriage," said Bork.
Conservatives concede they are trying to avoid this situation.
But there are dissenters to the belief that the Supreme Court will require all states to allow homosexual marriages. Frank predicted that the dire legal problems many say will occur will not come to fruition, noting that states have a long-recognized right to control their own marriage laws.
In addition, a recent decision by the City of Boston, which is expected to set the tone for the entire state, would seem to support his prediction. City officials announced Wednesday that they would not be accepting marriage applications from same-sex couples who neither reside in the state nor intend to move there.
However, the city is not demanding proof of residency, only accepting the word of those seeking marriage licensing, a kink in this analysis.
An important point lost in this debate is the cost.
This fact was brought up in the hearing by conservative Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., who noted that the Government Accounting Office has found there are 1,138 federal benefit programs for which the determining factor for receiving benefits is marital status.
Providing such benefits to same-sex partners could cost the state and federal governments billions of dollars.
"This would not simply be a recognition of these people and a blessing of it," said Bachus. "It would be asking that those constituents ... that all of us represented to pay billions of dollars more."
However, the Alabama representative's reasons for brining this up did not appear to be solely fiscally motivated as he stressed that the "heavy cost" of gay marriage was not just financial, but also moral and social.
Such arguments did not sit well with Democrats on the House Subcommittee, including ranking member Jerrold Nadler of New York and Rep. Robert Scott, D-Va.
In his questioning of Bork, Scott and the conservative legal scholar agreed that same-sex civil unions could be enacted that provide most of the rights provided to those marriage.
Bork also agreed with Scott that marriage would then act mostly as a symbol, but he implied that this was not bad considering the place of symbols in the cultural wars.
"Symbolism is crucial," said Bork. "The symbol of family is one of the most basic symbols in our society."
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