Senator Tom Harkin (Democrat-IA)
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510-0001
Phone: (202) 224-3254
Fax: (202) 224-9369
WebSite: http://harkin.senate.gov
E-Mail : http://www.senate.gov/~harkin/contact/contact.cfm

• Amending the Constitution is very rare and is only done to address great public policy need. In our Constitution's 214-year history, it was first amended to include the Bill of Rights in 1791. Since then, it has only been amended 17 times.
   
• Throughout American history, the Constitution has been amended to protect the rights and liberties of the American people. It has been amended to abolish slavery, keep the government out of people's lives, and give women and young people the right to vote. It should not be used to single out some Americans for discrimination.
   
• While states can petition for amendments, no constitutional amendment has ever been proposed or ratified without going through Congress first.
   
• This amendment not only attempts to deny equal rights to gays and lesbians, but it also attempts to undermine legislative and legal efforts to protect American families who are gay and lesbian couples and their children.
   
• Many of the major civil rights advances of the last century have resulted from the judicial branch stepping in to ensure that all Americans are provided equal protection under the law. From Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 to Loving v. Virginia in 1967, the courts have provided a necessary and constitutional check on governmental abuses of power and violations of individual rights. Adopting this amendment would take away the constitutional power of the courts to protect individual rights.
   
• Such a cynical amendment illustrates a cruel irony about groups that call themselves "pro-family." The amendment proposed in the 108th Congress goes beyond defining marriage and seeks to deny gay families fundamental protections such as hospital visitation rights, inheritance rights and health care benefits. There is nothing pro-family about that.
   
• In a post-Sept. 11 world, it is very telling and shameful that the far right has nothing better to focus its energies on than introducing a gratuitous anti-gay constitutional amendment.
   
• Regardless of how people feel about civil marriage equality for same-sex couples, many members of Congress will oppose such an amendment on several different grounds, including the belief that marriage has been and should remain a function of state law. In fact, on July 13, 2001, Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., said in the Omaha World-Herald that he would oppose a federal marriage amendment. "I don't think the Constitution was ever written and set up for those kinds of amendments," Hagel said. "I think those kinds of issues are better left to the states."
   
• In July 2003, White House officials told reporters that President Bush would weigh in on the proposed amendment after Massachusetts’ highest court ruled on a case regarding civil marriage rights for the state's same-sex couples.
   
• On Nov. 18, 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that same-sex couples must be given the same right to a civil marriage license that opposite-couples currently enjoy.  The ruling in Goodridge et al. v. Department of Public Health sets the state up to become the first in the nation to grant same-sex couples the right to a civil marriage license. 
   
• The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court reaffirmed its position on marriage in February 2004, informing lawmakers that only marriage – not civil unions -- would provide equal protection under the state constitution to same-sex couples. 
   
• There is no groundswell of support for such an amendment except from anti-gay extremists. An ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted in January 2004 showed that only 38 percent of Americans support an anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment, while 58 percent of Americans support letting states make their own laws regarding same-sex unions.
   
• A Gallup Poll released in May 2003 showed that six in 10 Americans support granting same-sex couples the legal rights of marriage, including health care and Social Security survivor benefits. The same study also showed that the country is evenly split, 49 percent in favor and 49 percent against, allowing gay and lesbian couples to enter into legally recognized unions. Support for civil marriage for same-sex couples in the United States has grown steadily over the last several years.
   
• Although anti-gay forces are trying desperately to make marriage a divisive election issue, a September 2003 Gallup poll showed that only 12 percent of Americans felt that policies toward gays and lesbians were an important election issue, while almost half of those polled cited the economy, the war on terrorism, the situation in Iraq, creating jobs and education as the important issues in the 2004 election.  
   
• Past polling has shown that 90 percent of voters support hospital visitation for same-sex partners; and 66 percent support inheritance rights for same-sex couples.