[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 2980-2981]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ON MARRIAGE

  Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I wish to change the subject to another 
important matter that has arisen, because recently President Bush 
announced his support for a constitutional amendment which would define 
marriage.
  While our majority leader, Senator Frist, wisely observed, last week, 
that one does not want to knee-jerk or respond too quickly to changing 
the Constitution--and I certainly agree with that observation--the 
Senate Republican Conference chairman recently said he hoped the 
amendment would pass out of the Judiciary Committee and be before the 
full Senate by mid to late April. So much for not knee-jerking or 
responding too quickly to amend the Constitution.
  This is one constitutional amendment that evidently is being put on 
the fast track. I ask my colleagues to compare that timetable with the 
proposed constitutional amendment to ban the burning or desecration of 
the American flag, which I support, which has been proposed for the 3 
years I have been in the Senate. No votes scheduled on that. No 
statement by the President about the need to protect the American flag.
  For almost as long as that, there has been a proposed constitutional 
amendment to protect the rights of victims of violent crimes, which I 
also support. No vote planned on that. No statement from the President 
on protecting the victims of violent crimes--just a budget that cuts 
funding for local law enforcement programs, including almost 
eliminating the COPS program that puts more police officers on streets 
in cities and sheriffs in rural areas, in Minnesota and across the 
country, to prevent violent crimes.
  It certainly shows the priorities of this President and the Senate's 
majority that protection of the American flag and of the rights of 
victims of violent crimes are set aside, while the constitutional 
amendment to define marriage gets this priority treatment.
  In my opinion, it is the wrong priority and the wrong policy. The 
proposed constitutional amendment on marriage is un-American, un-
Christian, and unwise. It is the wrong approach. We need to find a 
better answer. We also need to avoid the mean, ugly, dehumanizing, and 
divisive debate that a constitutional amendment would require. We owe 
the American people much better than that.
  In the Bible, Jesus says, ``Render unto Caesar the things which are 
Caesar's, and render unto God the things that are God's.'' Many of the 
Christian religions' marriage ceremonies proclaim marriage as an 
institution created by God. I agree. So let us leave the definition of 
marriage to the various religions as they interpret the Word of God, 
and Congress, the Federal Government, any government in this country, 
should keep its hands off of marriage. It belongs to God. That follows 
the words of Jesus and it also follows the founding principle of this 
country, the freedom of religion, the separation of church and state.
  Surely this body doesn't intend to tamper with that bedrock principle 
long enshrined in our Constitution, the free exercise of religion. It 
is the civil side of this overlapping term called marriage that we can 
and should concern ourselves with. First, we should clear up the 
confusion being caused by the dual usage of the word ``marriage'' to 
apply to both a religious ceremony and a legal contract. Let's find a 
term like ``marital contract'' or ``legal union'' or ``matrimony'' to 
describe the civil relationship for everybody. It will be perhaps a 
little awkward at first, as word changes always are, but they are far 
easier than constitutional amendments, and far less destructive than 
this one would be.
  Yesterday I was having lunch with my father, a wonderful man whom I 
love dearly. He expressed his concern about gay marriages, and then I 
explained some of the real-life rights and protections involved, like 
property transfers, inheritance rights, or hospital visitations. He 
said, ``I am for all that.'' That is the distinction which must be 
made. Not everybody will agree with my father about all of that. 
However, most Americans, I believe, would consider those issues 
differently and feel differently about them than about the term ``gay 
marriage,'' which should not be forced upon them.
  We have a choice. We can lead the consideration of these very 
personal, very sensitive, and very controversial matters toward a 
higher plain of respectful, rational discussion and resolution or we 
can drag them through divisive, destructive, and dehumanizing 
demagoguery on the Senate floor. Obviously, some people--starting, 
evidently, with the President of the United States--believe it is to 
their political advantage to do the latter. That is really a shame.

[[Page 2981]]

  Our Constitution should be above Presidential politics; it should be 
above partisan politics; it should be above any politics at all. It is 
the greatest document on governance ever written by the human race in 
all of recorded history throughout the world. Since the first 12 
amendments were quickly added, it has been amended only 15 other times 
in the past 200 years. Those amendments were either to adjust how our 
Government functions, such as the direct election of Senators, or the 
succession after the death of a President, or as amendments to extend 
the founding principles of this country of life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness to all our citizens fully and equally, like the 
abolishment of slavery, giving women the right to vote, and providing 
equal protections to all of our citizens.
  The Constitution doesn't define the Ten Commandments or the Golden 
Rule. It doesn't define war, peace, family values, spiritual growth, or 
even good and evil. It is big hearted, not mean spirited. It unites 
rather than divides us. It expands human liberties, protects human 
rights, and it treats all of us as equals. Our Constitution affirms the 
best of the human spirit, tolerance, and acceptance of differences, and 
the rights of each of us as human beings--not the worst of human 
nature, prejudice, and hatred.
  The proposed amendment on marriage is the worst. It is that mean 
spirited, degrading, and divisive. It is un-American and it is unworthy 
of our Constitution. It is also un-Christian.
  I am not going to dwell on this point, but as a Christian I am 
offended by those false prophets who cloak their arguments with 
biblical references that simply do not exist. I recently reread the 
four Gospels of the New Testament--actually, the entire New Testament, 
the King James version. I cannot find anywhere that Jesus Christ 
condemns homosexual relationships or gay marriages. He makes no mention 
of them at all. Twelve times he condemns adultery. Six times he opposes 
divorce. No one is proposing a constitutional amendment to ban adultery 
or divorce.
  What Jesus does say repeatedly is to love thy neighbor as thyself. 
One of the ten great commandments is: ``Love one another as I have 
loved you. By this, people will know thee as my disciple.''
  Jesus did not say to love only thy opposite sex neighbor, or love 
only thy same race neighbor, or love thy just like my neighbor. He 
said, ``Love thy neighbor as thy self.'' He also said to beware of 
false prophets who appear like sheep, but inwardly are raving wolves. 
How do you tell them apart? He said by those who preach love versus 
those who preach hatred. A simple test.
  This proposed constitutional amendment spews hatred and that is why 
it is un-Christian. This amendment is un-American, un-Christian, and it 
is unwise. It is ugly, divisive, and destructive. Some people like to 
promote the so-called culture wars. They try to build themselves up by 
tearing other people down, try to make them seem immoral or bad or 
wrong for being the way God made them, or however one comes to be who 
he or she really is.
  Ugly, divisive, destructive, hateful--that is what this debate will 
become right here on the Senate floor and spread all across America by 
false prophets who claim the moral high ground while they reach down 
into the emotional cesspool and hurl their slime at decent and innocent 
human beings--our fellow citizens.
  As I said earlier--and I will close by saying it again--we have the 
choice and the obligation to do better than that. We can and we must 
address these issues and the people affected by them respectfully and 
responsibly. We can render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and 
render unto God the things that are God's. We can leave marriage to 
God, treat it as a religious ceremony under the terms and conditions 
established by religions and, as Government, leave those matters to 
God.
  We can define the legal union of two people as a marital contract or 
matrimony or some other term, and either allow the States to define 
those terms, benefits, and protections of that contract or do so 
ourselves. I prefer we do the latter, consistent with the equal 
protections clauses in article 4 and the fourteenth amendment to the 
United States Constitution for everyone, by passing laws, not a 
constitutional amendment--laws which define a legal union or a marital 
contract for everyone but which leave marriage as a separate province 
of religions.
  By following this course, we will judge not that we shall not be 
judged; we will condemn not that we shall not be condemned. For it is 
said that with the same measure that we mete withal, it shall be 
measured to us again.
  The Founders of this country were wise enough not to inscribe their 
condemnations into the Constitution. Senators for over 200 years have 
been wise enough not to insert their religious interpretations or their 
personal condemnations into our Constitution. We would be most unwise 
to do otherwise.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

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