Gay-marriage foes want Constitution amended

By Alan Cooperman
The Washington Post

	Chuck Colson
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A broad array of religious groups and conservative political activists has united behind the idea of a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. But the fledgling coalition is deeply divided about what, exactly, the amendment should say.

At issue are not merely the fine details of legislative wording but the amendment's very purpose: Should it ban only same-sex marriage, or also take aim at Vermont-style civil unions and California-style partnerships that some opponents say amount to marriage in all but name?

Underneath that dispute, moreover, are differing calculations about what language would appeal to the general public and what would excite grass-roots conservatives. "It's purity versus pragmatism," said Glenn Stanton, a senior analyst at Focus on the Family, one of the groups leading the charge against gay marriage. "Do we go for everything that we want, or take the best we think we can get?"

Although they are early in the process of trying to win a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states, some conservatives worry the political clock is ticking and the drive to amend the Constitution will be doomed unless they can reach consensus.

The Supreme Court overturned a Texas law against sodomy in June, and the highest court in Massachusetts declared Nov. 18 that same-sex couples have a right to marry. Conservative groups since have acted with a new urgency, vowing to make gay marriage a major election issue in 2004 and calling for passage of a constitutional amendment by 2006, an extremely fast timetable by historic standards.

At least three versions of the amendment are circulating in Washington, D.C. The leading text, and the only one introduced in Congress, has two sentences: "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."

Matt Daniels, president of the Alliance for Marriage, a bipartisan coalition of religious and political leaders backing that language, said the first sentence would ban gay marriage and the second is designed to stop courts from finding a constitutional right to same-sex unions.

But he said nothing in the short text is meant to prevent state legislatures from establishing civil unions, as Vermont's did in 2000, or from conferring a range of domestic benefits on same-sex partners, as California lawmakers did this year.

"What the polls show is that people make a clear distinction at marriage," Daniels said. If some states want to allow civil unions, he added, "that's life in a democracy."

Since it was introduced in May as House Joint Resolution 56 by Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., the Alliance for Marriage's language has gained more than 100 co-sponsors. Identical wording was introduced in the Senate last week by three Republicans: Wayne Allard of Colorado, Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Sam Brownback of Kansas.

Some legal experts have argued that, regardless of Daniels' explanations and the congressional sponsors' intentions, the second sentence of the proposed amendment could gut civil unions by making them unenforceable in the courts. Daniels said his alliance is working on another version that would make "minor changes in the text to make it explicit and undeniably clear that we are not seeking to invalidate legislatively created civil unions or partnership arrangements."

The alliance assembled by Daniels cuts across traditional party lines and includes Catholic, Jewish and Muslim leaders as well as ministers in historically black Protestant denominations.

Meanwhile, another powerful coalition of religious leaders is pushing for language that clearly would block Vermont-style civil unions. Known as the Arlington Group, because it first met in July in the Washington suburb of Arlington, Va., it unites the heads of almost every major political advocacy organization on the Christian right, including James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Gary Bauer of American Values, Bill Bennett of Empower America, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Sandy Rios of Concerned Women for America and Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation.

At an Oct. 15 session spearheaded by Chuck Colson, the former Nixon White House staff member who now heads Prison Fellowship Ministries, key members of the Arlington Group and several evangelical Christian leaders unanimously decided to push for adding a third sentence to the proposed amendment: "Neither the federal government nor any state shall predicate benefits, privileges, rights or immunities on the existence, recognition or presumption of nonmarital sexual relationships."

That wording, according to Colson, would bar the creation of any form of "substitute marriage" specifically for gays. He said state legislatures still could establish civil unions, but only if they conferred the same benefits on "any two people who live together," such as "an unmarried heterosexual couple or two old spinsters." Vermont's law would not meet that test.

Several members of the Arlington Group said if it becomes clear that a constitutional amendment designed to block civil unions has no chance in Congress, they would endorse the Alliance for Marriage's wording. But Colson said their fear is that language that protects marriage "in name only" would not fire up enough grass-roots evangelical support to win ratification by 38 state legislatures.

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