House Backs Curbs on Gay Marriages

The House, acting on a potent social issue in the heat of campaign season, passed a measure Friday that would define marriage as a heterosexual union only and limit marriage rights for gay men and lesbians.

In a lopsided 342-67 vote, a majority of Democrats joined Republicans in approving the “Defense of Marriage Act,” sending it to the Senate, where the bill is expected to pass easily.

“The vote today reflects exactly what people in this country feel,” said Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), principal author of the measure. “America today is not ready to redefine marriage” in ways that would recognize same-sex unions, he said. “America will not be the first country in the world that throws the concept of marriage out the window.”

The bill would define marriage, for purposes of federal benefits, as a union between a man and a woman. It also would allow states the right not to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.

With polls showing that as many as 7 in 10 Americans oppose marriage rights for homosexuals, the issue has become a minefield for many lawmakers who are inclined to favor homosexual rights. Public opinion on the issue has prompted President Clinton to say that he will sign the bill if it passes in its current form.

But while reiterating the president’s willingness to sign the bill into law, the White House on Friday decried the debate as “gay baiting, pure and simple,” and chastised Republicans for rushing the politically sensitive issue onto the legislative docket during election season.

“It’s a classic use of wedge politics designed to provoke anxieties and fears,” said White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry. “That being the case, though, the president has very strong views, personal views, and he has to act consistent with those views.”

The legislation is one of several measures touted as “family values” legislation that conservative Republicans are trying to advance over the next several months. The bills, which include a parental rights act and a bill relaxing barriers on state aid to religious institutions, have been embraced by presumed Republican nominee Bob Dole.

The recent White House announcement that Clinton would sign the same-sex marriage bill helped neutralize the issue in the presidential election. But lawmakers said Friday that it remains a potent issue in the reelection campaigns of many politicians who support gay and lesbian rights.

“If a member knew that he or she would be able to explain this back home, constituents would understand,” said Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento). “The problem is the 30-second advertisement” that a political opponent could air on such a lawmaker’s vote. “You then have to spend so much time responding to that. That’s the dilemma most face.”

Gay rights groups and their allies in the Senate, acknowledging that the measure will pass both chambers, hope to sweeten a bitter defeat by adding language to forbid employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Sponsored by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the nondiscrimination measure could be added to the same-sex marriage bill when it is taken up by the Senate early this fall.

Barr and other Republicans called the gay activists’ strategy an effort to short-circuit the same-sex marriage bill and said Republicans will fight any effort to add the Kennedy proposal.

The bill was prompted by a recent ruling by Hawaii’s Supreme Court that would extend legal recognition to same-sex marriages performed in that state. The case is not settled, however, because the justices have given a lower court an opportunity to offer counter-arguments.

If the Hawaii high court’s ruling stands and Congress does not act, many believe that the U.S. Constitution would require all states to recognize same-sex marriages performed in Hawaii. Under the “full faith and credit” clause of the U.S. Constitution, each state is obliged to recognize marriages performed legally in any other state.

The House vote Friday parallels a measure in the California Legislature to prohibit same-sex marriages in the face of the Hawaii court decision.

This week, the state Senate Judiciary Committee narrowly approved the bill but only after opponents softened it by introducing an amendment recognizing domestic partnerships short of marriage.

Gov. Pete Wilson’s office said the partnership provision would prompt him to veto the bill, and backers of the measure vowed to try to remove it at a hearing next month before the state Senate Appropriations Committee.

Assemblyman William J. “Pete” Knight (R-Palmdale), who sponsored the bill, said he wanted to stop California homosexuals from getting married in Hawaii to qualify for tax, retirement, health and other benefits now enjoyed by heterosexual spouses.

Alexander Wentzel, a national gay Republican activist from Orange County, said he wasn’t surprised by the votes in Washington and Sacramento, adding that it’s “always a good vote-getter to come down hard on gays, because we’re in the minority.”

“I might add that my partner and I have been together 36 years, and we’re going to continue living that way with or without the sanctions,” said Wentzel, a national board member for the Log Cabin Republicans. “We’re going to celebrate our anniversary at the appropriate date, which is Valentine’s Day, and it doesn’t matter to me what the rest of the world does. To thine own self be true.”

The bill approved by the House would leave it to each state’s legislature to decide whether that state will recognize homosexual unions.

Opponents argued this week that the House legislation is not constitutional. They said that the Constitution requires states to recognize each others’ “public acts, records and judicial proceedings” and that Congress cannot alter that principle.

But Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, responding to queries by the White House, has said that she believes the bill would withstand constitutional challenges.

Its passage would frustrate gay and lesbian couples who want the benefits of state and federal recognition--including Social Security or veterans’ benefits for surviving spouses--and recognition as next-of-kin for medical, estate and inheritance purposes. On the House floor Friday, Barr charged that opponents of the bill sought to “throw open the doors of the U.S. Treasury . . . to be raided by the homosexual movement.”

The House also rejected a proposal to require the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, to determine the potential cost of extending federal benefits to gay men and lesbians who would choose to be married.

In an emotional speech on the House floor, Rep. Steve Gunderson (R-Wis.), the only openly gay Republican in that chamber, described his effort to persuade GOP leaders to create a commission to study what rights could be extended to same-sex partners and how much that would cost the government.

Their refusal to back his effort, he said, “exposes this legislative initiative for the mean political game that it is.”

Gunderson was the only Republican to vote against the measure. He was joined by 22 California Democrats, including Matsui. Moderate Democrat Vic Fazio of West Sacramento, by contrast, was one of four California Democrats who joined the state’s entire Republican delegation in voting to approve the bill.

“What is at work here is a wedge issue that Republicans have concluded can only work to their advantage,” said Fazio, who faces a tough challenger in a bid for reelection. “How many of us really believe that marriage is under assault in this country for this reason?”

Fazio called the issue “settled” by the depth and fervor of public opposition to gay marriage. “People believe the country hasn’t moved to the point where this issue can be rationally debated,” he said.

A recent poll conducted for Newsweek showed that a solid majority of 58% opposed gay marriage. Conservatives regularly cite polls showing 70% of Americans are opposed. But the Newsweek poll also found that 84% of Americans support equal rights for gay men and lesbians in employment--the objective of the rider that Democrats hope to add to the bill in the Senate.