Several House Republicans have responded to the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage by renewing the call for a Constitutional Amendment that would define marriage as being between only between and a woman:
Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kansas, and other conservative members of Congress say they will attempt to introduce in the coming days a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
Following the Supreme Court’s ruling deeming the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, several Republicans expressed their disappointment with the decision and vowed to take action. Apparently, this means an amendment to the Constitution.
“This Court has taken it upon itself the radical attempt to redefine marriage,” Huelskamp said, standing outside the Supreme Court. “I think what gets lost in this judicial attempt to short-circuit the democratic process is the needs of our children…. Every child deserves a mommy and a daddy and with this decision they undercut the needs of our children.”
And although the likelihood of that amendment passing is bleak—amendments need a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress, and then ratification by three-fourths of the states—Huelskamp urges congressional leadership to allow the amendment to go to the floor.
That’s unlikely to happen, of course. The Amendment has been proposed many times in the past and has never actually gotten to a floor vote even when the Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate. Even if it did, it would never get the 2/3 of vote in the House that it would nee to move on to the Senate, where it would die anyway. However, this is hardly the message that Republicans should want to be sending to a nation where same-sex marriage is becoming more and more widely accepted by the public. Yes, it will appease their base, but it will do so by reaffirming one of the many things about the GOP that makes it less liked by the public as a whole. Of course, they’re essentially doing the same thing with immigration reform so one never knows what will happen.
