On July 18th, Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese made the
following statement as the House rejected an effort to put
discrimination into the Constitution with a 236 to 187 bipartisan vote
against the Federal Marriage Amendment, with 27 Republicans voting in
opposition to the amendment.
"Republican House leaders have now failed twice in their shameful
election-year ploys using gay and lesbian families as punching bags,"
said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. "A bipartisan group
of Representatives today rejected the politics of discrimination and
stood up for the American value of fairness."
Solmonese continued, "More and more Americans are beginning to
understand that same-sex couples and their children deserve to be
treated equally under our nation's Constitution, nothing more and
nothing less. Congress has defeated this discriminatory amendment on
four separate occasions now, while the American people's support for
equality has continued to grow. The message is clear: get to the work
of protecting families, not threatening them with prejudice."
To defeat the discriminatory amendment, the Human Rights Campaign has
lobbied on Capitol Hill; mobilized its members; engaged the press; and
worked with a large coalition of civil rights, religious, civil
liberties, labor and professional organizations advocating against the
measure. The Human Rights Campaign organized the collection and
distribution of more than 310,000 postcards to the Senate and House in
opposition to the amendment.
Requiring a two-thirds majority, or 290 votes in the House, a vote on
the same measure failed 227-to-186 in the House on Sept. 30, 2004.
The Senate rejected the measure on June 7, 2006, with a 49-to-48 vote,
and 48-to-50 on June 14, 2004. In the Senate, only two Senators changed
their votes – Sens. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., both
this time voting against the discriminatory measure.
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