Notes from the Federal Marriage Ammendment Hearings

Part one:

Today was Tuesday, and that means that I get to get up at 5:15 and take the ever-exciting bus ride into dc to hang out in senator !@#%^$^#$&’s office… and, every week it is very worth the effort (although the night before I wonder sometimes).

Anyway, why am I sending a semimass email about that? Because today I got to go to the senate hearing on the fma (federal marriage amendment) and thought you may all be interested in what I learned/saw/etc

First, I have to tell you how awesome it was as compared to other hearings… for example, I went to an Amtrak hearing… and no one really showed up… and it was rather dry. At this hearing not only were senators/representatives and “experts” testifying, but ted kennedy, russ feingold, senator durbin, and others came to ask questions/give statements/etc…

So, here is how the morning began:

I got off my bus and walked to 0.5 miles up capital hill… noticing the looooonnnngggg line outside the russel building I called fiengolds office and asked if I could go to the fma hearing and not stop in the office… no problem… so, I entered the building. The line of people who wanted to go to the hearing was all the way down and around the Russell building. Luckily, I have a staffer pass and got to sneak in (regardless, I stood in the back in case there were some people who weren’t good standers who wanted to come).

Anyway, the room was packed, and that was awesome…

So, the chairperson of the senate hearing committee (his name escapes me, but he is a senator from texas) began by giving his position on the topic. These are his key points:

There are three myths about gay marriage in his eyes 1) “my marriage does not affect your marriage”… rather, he argued… gay marriage would reduce the institution of marriage to a financial agreement and that would be bad for family life. 2) “we don’t need to amend the constitution to defend traditional marriage” – in his view this was necessary in order to prevent change from “activist judges”. He also felt that states couldn’t handle this issue on their own because they would be unable to stand up to federal laws. 3) the amendment is “Writing discrimination into the constitution” – on the contrary he argued that because the naacp and the American bar association hadn’t taken a stance, then it must not be discriminatory (just wait till we get to the part when the lady from the aba spoke)

So, after he was done (yes, I have a lot of thoughts about all that, but I’m just going to tell you what everyone said)… senator feinstien (CA) spoke. Her main points were as follows: 1) this amendment was limiting rights, rather than extending or preserving them as all other amendments (aside from prohibition which was repealed) had. 2) in the past, states have always done well controlling their own laws on marriage. She sited massachusettes actions now – bringing it to a referendum by the PEOPLE to see what should be done. He also sited California proposition 22 which had amended the constitution to limit marriage there to men and women… and she talked about interracial marriage and how it was illegal in some states and not others 3) she discussed the fact that no state was going to be forced to recognize or follow the actions of another state – like polygamy, incest, interracial relationships in the past and present

Wow… I’m realizing that this email is going to get long… but the hearing was 3 hours long… so, yeah, you can stop reading at any time…

Senator feinstein also argued that, according to a recent poll, only 20% of the people supported the FMA… and, perhaps her most interesting argument, she was very concerned about the fact that the commission bringing forth the amendment had changed the language the day before. Previously it had explicitly outlawed civil unions and domestic partnerships as well… now the language read that “marriage or legal incidents there of” cannot be legalized by states. So, her question then was, how was a civil union different that the “legal incidents” or marriage if they were not going to provide equal rights for people in unions and not marriage. She also discussed how complex this change demonstrated the topic to be – changing it 24 hours before the hearing…

So, then they had the panelists speak. The panel was made of 4 people – two supporting the amendment, and two against it. First senator allen – the one who introduced fma – spoke. His key points are as follows: 1) he changed the words so that he could define marriage, maintain a role for states, and limit the actions of activist judges (these are the same issues everyone else was saying the new language limited… so that was a point of tension – but, seriously, how is federally mandating something preserving states rights, and how are “legal incidents” provided by marriage not limiting the rights that could be given in unions or partnerships)… 2) marriage is the foundation of all civilizations, and it is cross cultural for hetero relationships. He sees it as the basic unit of society and the expression of people…

Next representative franks (mass) spoke. He is one of a few “out” representatives (another being tammy Baldwin – yea! Wisconsin!). he was amazing and made me cry. First, he recapped what he had heard summing up the arguments of others as “a need to prevent “activist” judges (the term which he mentioned was ironic, and definitely subjective and of our times – did people call judges allowing interracial relationships activists??)… and the second argument he was hearing was the need to preserve states rights. In franks eyes the amendment does the following 1) it takes away states rights – using the example of massachusettes. If the referendum in may passes, the fma will take away the states rights to make its own law in this situation 2) denies states in general to decide marriage laws 3) traditional marriage will not be effected. In his words (this made everyone laugh) “same sex marriage will be entirely optional”. And he argued that it was the ultimate form of flattery. He saw the desire for marriage as gay people recognizing that straight couples had something good, and that they wanted to share part of it. How would that detract from marriage? Another great line of his was that the amendment was punishing “millions of people who are threatening to commit love”. 4) he defeated the argument of it being better for kids to be in straight families (which most psychologists don’t support anyway) by pointing out that gay people have kids now, and will continue to do so…. The part that made me cry was when he almost started crying, and openly and honestly asked the panel why they were so afraid of him and his love… oh my god, he was so eloquent, if you can get a tape of this conference, you HAVE to listen to him speak…

Ok, I’m going to get a little speedier now, mostly because a lot of repetition started and b/c this is so long I don’t think you’re reading it anymore (except maybe Lindsay)

The next speaker was representative lewis – he opposed the amendment and the righting of discrimination into the constitution. He is an African American rep, from rural Alabama, and a Baptist minister… he said that his experience fighting for racial civil rights made it impossible for him to not fight for these rights. He asked the question - - if in 1954 the congress had made an amendment saying that segregation was legal, where would brown vs boe have put us? If in 1967 (the year before the love decision legalizing interracial marriage in Virginia) the congress had made an amendment making interracial relationships illegal, where would we be??? He says no to 2nd class status, and that this amendment prevented the mission of equal rights under the law – that separate is not equal. He also argued that our rights should not be determined based on the approval of others, or the feeling of the times – rather, they should be based on the status we have as Americans to have liberties and freedoms… all people are the same – with hopes, dreams, and troubles, therefore we should all be treated the same…

Finally, there was cosponsor to the bill, representative musgrave… she said that *some counselors say straight couples are better for kids and that *some legal experts say gay marriage is a threat to the traditional institution of marriage. She talked a lot about DOMA in 1996. he also was using reverend Richardson and the AME church to say that it wasn’t discrimination to amend the constitution (krissy side note, what happened to separation of church and state?? Isn’t’ this ENTIRE argument a religious debate and not something the state should mandate anyway?)

Then they opened for questions… I’ll just give you key parts (new arguments)

Kennedy (I love watching him debate) argued that the fed gov’t shouldn’t dictate state marriage laws – ended up talking with allen and concluding that VT would have to overturn their civil union laws b/c they have the same “legal incidents” as marriage and that would be unconstitutional --- he also made people conclude that the goodridge decision would have to be overturned (it made it illegal for the states to discriminate against glbt peoples)

Feingold was upset that we were spending so much time on this… he felt that if we were really worried about kids and families we should be debating how to improve education, etc rather than this. He also was upset that they were rushing this amendment, and declared that it was a political move in an election year. In the past amendments take years to come to vote… and NEVER are in hearing within 24 hours of getting new language. He also said that there is no need for an amendment, and that no state has been forced to accept the rules of a different state – it isnt’ a federal issue.

Senator durbin agued that the amendment was against the oath of office all members take (to defend the constitution) – especially because of the intense rush to amend. He also questioned why polygamy was edited out of the new language – why it was still going to be legal for states to determine that – however, by this time allen and musgrave had left, so they couldn’t answer questions.

After that they had a legal expert panel – we didn’t learn much except that the am. Bar association was opposed to the amendment and felt as though it limits states authority and hurts the rights of kids of same sex couples to be protected under the law.

The rest of the arguments were just repeats – basically the people supporting the amendment are arguing 1) stop activist judges 2) protect traditional marriage 3) protect kids

Everyone else was like – um, what?!?! The amendment 1) discriminates and makes it legal 2) opposes the purpose of the constitution to grant us rights 3) limits states rights and all that on top of the fact that 4) traditional marriage wont change, we will just have other options for people who don’t fit that mold 5) kids are best off when protected by the law and with people who love them – why prevent that?

There was obviously a lot more, but that was the gist of it… hopefully you aren’t too bored, and if you didn’t make it this far… then you don’t get to find out that I almost ran over senator lieberman on my way out tonight…


Part Two:

ok, i do have to put a small krissy spin on all this...
what the hell are people talking about with liberal media?!?! i was THERE and i can tell you as a PRIMARY source (hello, we learned about his in like 8th grade) that the supporters of FMA fell FLAT on their faces in the debate (and i'm not even saying that b/c i'm bias - but b/c i wasn't mad at them, i felt sorry for them, normally when people are mean i get mad/angry... but i couldnt even do that b/c they couldn't stand up for their own amendment) yet you watch the LIBERAL media and the ACTIVST judges and it looks like the amendments is super popular and doesn't have any roughspots... bullcrap - i wish the entire nation could have been in that room with me...
AHHH!!!