MORE SENATE TESTIMONY: EVERYBODY!

[I don't know that you all want me to do separate posts for each of the speakers, so I will just pluck representative chunks from their statements and give you the links.]

Rev. Richard Richardson: "The dilution of the ideal--of procreation and child-rearing within the marriage of one man and one woman--has already had a devastating effect on our community. ...This discussion about marriage is not about adult love. It is about finding the best arrangement for raising children, and as history, tradition, biology, sociology, and just plain common sense tells us, children are raised best by their biological mother and father. ...The defense of marriage is not about discrimination. As an African-American, I know something about discrimination. ...The traditional institution of marriage is not discrimination. And I find it offensive to call it that. Marriage was not created to oppress people. It was created for children."

Pastor Daniel de Leon, Sr.: "I live everyday in the front-lines of Urban America, where the ills of society are magnified greatly. People like myself, who provide a service to our community, are often the ones that have to 'pick up the pieces' when marriages and families fall. In my 30 years of counseling, I have often dealt with grown children that still harbor hurts and deep seated frustrations because they did not have a mother and a father."

Hilary Shelton: "At a time when our nation has many important problems affecting the lives of millions of Americans, the Congress and this Subcommittee should waste no more time or energy on divisive and discriminatory constitutional amendments. The NAACP strongly urges you to reject the so-called Federal Marriage Amendment and all other proposed constitutional amendments that would permanently deprive any person in our great nation of his or her civil rights."

Chuck Muth: "I am here today not as a lawyer, a theologian or a constitutional scholar but as a simple conservative grassroots political activist who shares former Sen. Barry Goldwater’s penchant for limited government. It is in that spirit that I come here today urging this Congress to reject a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages. This is not to say that conservatives such as myself necessarily favor gay marriage, but rather that we strongly oppose the notion of addressing this issue of social policy in our nation’s governing document. ...Further, I believe this effort could be the first step toward the federalization of family law. Throughout history, government has used a 'crisis' to expand their encroachment on liberty. In this case, under the guise of a homosexual crisis, can we expect a Federal Department of Family Affairs at the cabinet level by decades' end?"

Prof. Lea Brilmayer: "The issues we face today concerning the interstate consequences of a marriage are not much different from those faced in previous generations, and the Clause has ample flexibility to handle them. For more than two centuries the Clause has stood as written, with only occasional legislative elaboration to bring it up to date. A constitutional amendment would put an end to the possibility of legislative innovation, state or federal. There was nothing the matter with the Full Faith and Credit Clause when it was written and there is nothing the matter with it now."

Hon. John Bruning: "I am not here to debate with you the moral issue of whether same sex marriage is right or wrong. I am here because of the reality that four judges in Massachusetts could eventually invalidate Nebraska’s ban on same sex marriages.... The ultimate question for you, as members of the United States Senate, is whether you believe this issue should be resolved by judges or by the American people through you, their elected representatives."

Then the senators have their say: John Cornyn, Orrin Hatch, Patrick Leahy, Russ Feingold.
posted by Eve at 9:35 AM VOTE

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