Feingold Statement on the Proposed Constitutional Amendment on Marriage

Feingold Statement on the Proposed Constitutional Amendment on Marriage:

"The proposed constitutional amendment before the Senate today, S. J. Res. 1, has no better chance of getting a two-thirds majority in the Senate than it did in 2004, another election year. There are no new court decisions that supporters of the amendment can legitimately argue make it any more imperative now than it was then that such an amendment be passed. Yet the Judiciary Committee was ordered to mark up this amendment to fit a schedule announced by the Majority Leader months ago.

This is pure politics, an election year gambit. Mr. President, we should not play politics with the Constitution. Nor should we play politics with the lives of gay and lesbian Americans who correctly see this constitutional amendment as an effort to make them permanent second class citizens.

The amendment we are debating will not pass, but it still risks stoking fear and divisiveness at a time when we should be trying to unite Americans. Gay and lesbian Americans are our friends, our family members, our neighbors, our colleagues. They should not be used as pawns in a cynical political exercise."