ACLU Calls Revised Marriage Amendment 'Desperate Political Move'
By Melanie Hunter
CNSNews.com Deputy Managing Editor
March 22, 2004
(CNSNews.com) - The American Civil Liberties Union is calling a new proposed constitutional marriage amendment "a desperate political move" that does not address the underlying concerns about the measure. Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) and Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.), proposed the new language Monday. The draft amendment now reads: ''Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.'' "The latest proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to discriminate against gay and lesbian families is a desperate political move," said Christopher E. Anders, an ACLU legislative counsel. "The sponsors of the amendment realized that they did not even have a simple fifty-percent majority, much less a two-thirds majority in either house of Congress.


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Rhode Island lawmakers to hear debate over gay marriage
By Michael Mello, Associated Press, 3/22/2004
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Separate bills on both sides of the gay marriage debate are getting a hearing in the Senate, prompted partly by a high court ruling in neighboring Massachusetts that authorizes the same-sex unions in that state.