Senate Panel Backs Constitutional Amendment to Ban Gay Marriage


May 18 (Bloomberg) -- A Senate panel approved adding a ban on gay marriage to the U.S. Constitution, as congressional Republicans seek issues to appeal to voters in the November election.

The Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee approved the amendment on a 10-8 party-line vote.


``Seeing activist courts under the guise of interpreting the Constitution seeking to redefine our most basic institution, I think it ought to be a right reserved to the American people through the representative process and not one done by judges,'' Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said in an interview before the vote.