SI
SI
discoversearch

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor.  We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community.  If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH

 Public ReplyPrvt ReplyMark as Last ReadFilePrevious 10Next 10PreviousNext  
To: Srexley who wrote (590721)7/14/2004 4:45:31 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof  Read Replies (2) of 769670
 
Sen. John McCain of Arizona broke forcefully with President Bush and the Senate GOP leadership Tuesday evening over the issue, taking to the Senate floor to call such a constitutional amendment unnecessary -- and un-Republican.

"The constitutional amendment we're debating today strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans," McCain said. "It usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them."

McCain also said the amendment "will not be adopted by Congress this year, nor next year, nor any time soon until a substantial majority of Americans are persuaded that such a consequential action is as vitally important and necessary as the proponents feel it is today."

"The founders wisely made certain that the Constitution is difficult to amend and, as a practical political matter, can't be done without overwhelming public approval. And thank God for that," he said.

...McCain argued that there are "far less draconian" remedies, including the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act -- which defined marriage for purposes of federal law as a union between a man and woman and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other states -- and state constitutional amendments limiting marriage to heterosexual couples.

He said if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down DOMA or "state remedies to judicial activism fail," then amending the federal Constitution might be "appropriate." But he said the Massachusetts decision to legalize same-sex marriages does "not represent a death knell to marriage."

"What evidence do we have that states are incapable of further exercising an authority they have exercised successfully for over 200 years?" McCain said. "We will have to wait a little longer to see if Armageddon has arrived."

cnn.allpolitics.printthis.clickability.com
Report TOU ViolationShare This Post
 Public ReplyPrvt ReplyMark as Last ReadFilePrevious 10Next 10PreviousNext