It appears that Senate Republicans will fail ...

[Pookie]

It appears that Senate Republicans will fail in getting a vote on the proposed marriage amendment. The Majority Leader had hoped to get a vote before the election. It's very unlikely that will occur now.

WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats on Tuesday appeared headed toward a tactical victory over the hot-button issue of gay marriage.

What seemed likely Monday — an up-or-down Senate vote on a proposed constitutional amendment to define marriage as only "the union of a man and a woman" — appeared very doubtful a day later as Republican and Democratic leaders were unable to agree on a procedure for a vote.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has scheduled a Wednesday vote on cloture, a procedural move that would limit debate on the topic and allow the Senate to proceed to voting on the proposed amendment itself.

Senators who who want to avoid casting election-year votes on the amendment, one way or the other, will vote against cloture and it seems unlikely that Frist will be able to muster the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture and allow a vote on the amendment.

That will let Democrats who didn't want to cast a vote on the question of whether marriage should be limited to heterosexual couples breathing easier.

The Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. John Kerry, had said that he and his running mate, Sen. John Edwards, would return to the Senate from campaigning to vote against the amendment. But since it now appears there will be no vote, Kerry and Edwards will not need to show up. ...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5416297

Bush so wants this to be a major election year issue to deflect attention away from his political problems. Instead it appears he will have to run on his poor economic record and costly invasion of Iraq.

 

[Queersetti]

WSe Are Not Humans

"It does not affect your daily life very much if your neighbor marries a box turtle. But that does not mean it is right. . . . Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife."

-- Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.)

"Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. Why? Because society is based on one thing: that society is based on the future of the society. And that's what? Children. Monogamous relationships. In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality...

--Sen. Rick Santorum (R- Pa.)

Just in case anyone was still not clear as to what the Republicans think of us.

 

[Queersetti]

THIS IS PRICELESS!

The Democrats, sure that the Republicans can't win the vote, are asking that debate end and the vote be taken.

Republicans, afraid that they are not only going to lose, but by an embarrassing margin, are now filibustering their own amendment!

 

[Pookie]

Re: THIS IS PRICELESS!

The Democrats, sure that the Republicans can't win the vote, are asking that debate end and the vote be taken.

Republicans, afraid that they are not only going to lose, but by an embarrassing margin, are now filibustering their own amendment!

LMFAO!

 

[Netzach]

wow...

that's awesome.


~kissing M and my cats and my box turtle.

 

[Pookie]

They can't seem to even get a simple majority to try to invoke cloture. I think Bush might begin to take some heat from his own party for putting them in a situation like this. They're certainly not coming out of this looking good.

 

[emap]

Politicians never look good, all they do is lie their asses off to each group and pander to their interests for money and votes, once elected they continue doing the same thing, never actually doing anything. When confronted with you said you would do this, they always say factors I did not know about before I was elected have prevented me from doing that.

 

[Etoile]

I especially love how even those who are against gay marriage don't support the FMA. This thing doesn't seem to have much chance of passing.

 

[John Doe]

Re: WSe Are Not Humans

I hadn't heard anything about when the vote would actually be. It just wasn't bright to bring this bill up in the first place, let alone so close to an election.

It's very difficult to get any amendment the the Constitution passed (and perhaps rightly so in the long term), let alone one so divisive.

 

[Queersetti]

Re: Re: WSe Are Not Humans

I hadn't heard anything about when the vote would actually be. It just wasn't bright to bring this bill up in the first place, let alone so close to an election.

It's very difficult to get any amendment the the Constitution passed (and perhaps rightly so in the long term), let alone one so divisive.

The Republicans will probably allow a vote today.

I think they always knew it would fail, bringing it up now was intended to make the Democrats go on the record in opposition, in order to use their votes against them in the fall campaign. Both sides have used that tactic at one time or another.

 

[Pookie]

Re: Re: Re: WSe Are Not Humans

The Republicans will probably allow a vote today.

I think they always knew it would fail, bringing it up now was intended to make the Democrats go on the record in opposition, in order to use their votes against them in the fall campaign. Both sides have used that tactic at one time or another.

Opponents of the amendment won't even have to vote on the procedural move. It's up to those in favor to come up with 60 votes for ending the debate. About all the Bush campaign could do with this is say that Democrats were avoiding the issue. But Kerry and Edwards have been quite open in stating their opposition to the proposed amendment.

The House may vote on it in September. But those in favor of the amendment don't have nearly enough votes for it to pass.

 

[Pookie]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Efforts to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage foundered Wednesday afternoon in the Senate when the proposal failed to garner enough votes to stay alive.

After final arguments by the leaders of each party, the Republicans mustered 48 votes, 12 short of the 60 they needed to overcome a procedural hurdle and move the proposed amendment to the floor.

 

[overthebow]

Re: Re: WSe Are Not Humans

I hadn't heard anything about when the vote would actually be. It just wasn't bright to bring this bill up in the first place, let alone so close to an election.

It's very difficult to get any amendment the the Constitution passed (and perhaps rightly so in the long term), let alone one so divisive.

I disagree with your first assertion. The purpose of the issue was to force the Democrats into a corner about the amendment, validate the Republicans with their base and invalidate the Democrats with theirs. That could have happened if Americans weren't so damned ornery. Abortion: most Americans support the rights of the mother to choose, but are personally against having abortions. This may seem like eating one's cake and having it too, but it makes sense - we don't want our rights infringed on, so we are slow to infringe on other's rights; we don't want to be in a position where we are forced to make a decision to end a pregnancy and we empathize with those who face that decision. Now there are Americans who are holier than thou and have creed and a screed and are not above infringing on anyone's rights if they so choose. Note that they are in the minority. It is a vocal minority. Gay marriage: most Americans don't like the idea of Mr. and Mr. Smith living next door, but they also empathize with the real issues that gays live with, e.g., insurance coverage, rights, benefits.

The Republicans wanted to force Democrats to either take a hard position in favor of gay marriage and thereby piss off moderates in their constituencies or take a hard position against it and thereby piss off party activists. But this is a knife that cuts both ways and the Republican strategists in the White House didn't understand that they lacked enough votes to get to that tipping point. They were the ones being hung out to dry because the Republican senators faced the same dilemma. If they were hardline about gay marriage, they would lose the support of moderates. In the end, Republican senators had more to lose than Democrats and the White House never understood that.

The Republican tactic was designed to cause the Democrats to defend a position that was not of the Democrats choosing. This is a sound political tactic. But the Democrat position was stronger than the Republicans understood. The Dems said "Back at ya!", tossed the poitical hot potato back and the Republicans are trying to figure out what to do with it.

This was never about getting an amendment into the Constitution. There is no way that they could get 38 states to ratify it. This was more political smeerage.

 

[Regis2001]

All plausible reasons.

... But I may theorise an even scarier alternative.

Trying to ban gay marriage wasn't going to be a move that would win votes, not really. Or at least, not as many votes as it would lose by pissing off otherwise moderate voters who object to homophobia. I for one don't think the average man in the street has anything against gay marriage, but does have a problem with bigots. The tactic of trying to put a party in favour of gay rights to make it look bad doesn't make that much sense to me. I mean, if a party likes giving people rights, isn't that good? Isn't America supposed to be the home of the free and all that?

The scary alternative I theorise? It's entirely possible that these people really believe that they would be doing the right thing in opposing gay marriage. And that is an unnerving thing to believe about any country's elected representatives.

 

[emap]

I have a plausible reason why this happened, and is almost totally certain to be true. Bush said this and then tossed it to the senate to pull attention away from his poor performance to someone else in a rather desperate move to get him votes for the election, he was hoping it would take longer and draw a hard line between supporters and opponents. Then right before the election he can change his position on the whole thing and instead say I don't like this but it's obvious alot of you do so I will veto the amendment if it passes to me and try to get people to change their votes to squash it now, I am also running for president again, why not vote me back in, look what I have done for you.

I'm not sure which is worse, they tried this, or that he would have been elected again if it worked.

Since this failed miserably look for him to do something else in about 3 weeks.

 

[John Doe]

Re: Re: Re: WSe Are Not Humans

I disagree with your first assertion. The purpose of the issue was to force the Democrats into a corner about the amendment, validate the Republicans with their base and invalidate the Democrats with theirs. That could have happened if Americans weren't so damned ornery. <snip>

Not considering the mindset of the American people was part of the mistake.

I'm confused. On the one hand you say you disagree with my first statement, but you go on to confirm it.

 

[Pookie]

"The unfortunate result is that the important work of the American people — funding our homeland security needs, creating new and better jobs, and raising the minimum wage — is not getting done." ~ John Kerry, July 14, 2004

 

[Regis2001]

Now Kerry is a damn smart guy, who I'd probably vote for if I was living on that side of the pond.

But not for that reason. I just like the fact that him and Edwards are the most obvious couple in politics.

At least we can guess where they stand on gay rights!

 

[Adrenaline]

Re: All plausible reasons.

The tactic of trying to put a party in favour of gay rights to make it look bad doesn't make that much sense to me. I mean, if a party likes giving people rights, isn't that good? Isn't America supposed to be the home of the free and all that?

Unfortunately there are a lot of people who believe that homosexuals aren't deserving of the right to marry, and that giving them such rights is a bad thing to do. So yes America is the land of the free but it's freedom for the right people. You've seen and heard the sort of people and practices to which homosexuality has been compared.

<--Wearing her santorum shirt: The frothy mixture that says I love you .