Pro-Family Leaders Blast House for Failing to Protect Marriage
by Mary Rettig and Jenni Parker
July 18, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Today, in a 236-187 vote, the U.S. House of Representatives has rejected a constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage, thereby ending congressional debate on the issue for this year. The vote over a proposal to amend the Constitution of the United States to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman fell 47 votes shy of the two-thirds majority required to advance the amendment.
The vote on H.J.Res 88 comes only six weeks after the Senate likewise defeated the amendment in a decisive vote. Conservative and pro-family leaders are expressing bitter disappointment over the outcome of this bid to protect traditional marriage, and many are predicting that the majority of Americans will be expressing similar feelings at the polls in November.
Dr. Don Wildmon, founder and chairman of the American Family Association, says most members of the U.S. House of Representatives believe that homosexual marriage should be outlawed. Those who believe otherwise, he insists, need to be held to account
"We want to identify these 187 members of Congress who believe that homosexual marriage should be legal," Wildmon says. "Every one of them will be running for re-election this fall," he explains, "and we want to let their constituencies know how they voted."
See the roll call vote on H.J.Res. 88
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council described today's vote as a failure on the part of a House minority to do its duty by representing the American people. And just as happened in the Senate, he laments, just because the two-thirds majority needed for the amendment to go forward was not there, the House chose to "turn a deaf ear" to the wishes of the vast majority of those they are sworn to represent.
In state after state, when the issue of protecting traditional marriage is put before the people, "the average popular vote exceeds 71 percent," Perkins points out. It is therefore time for America's elected officials at every level "to stand on this issue and listen to the voice of their constituents," he asserts, "and not allow radical judges and homosexual activists to redefine this fundamental institution."
The Family Research Council spokesman says the fight for a federal Marriage Protection Amendment must continue, as the measure "is still needed to ensure that all 50 states employ a common and consistent definition of marriage."
Marriage protection is an issue that must not be taken lightly, Perkins contends, because one way or another, the U.S. Constitution will be amended. The only question, he says, is whether it will be amended by the American people through the ratification process or by the fiat of activist judges.
