But if it does get to some sort of a vote prior to the election, it will get on record who voted which way. It remains to be seen how this information could be used to influence the voters for gain during the election.

Kerry is against it?

OK so I know it is hard to get him pinned to a position but I thought he said he was for it???

P

I think if it gets past Congress, it is still highley unlikely that it will be ratified by the states. Why? Because if it gets to the states, that is when people are going to start protesting at a level not seen since the civil rights movement. It is possible that it will pass Congress just based on "polls", but when it makes it to the states that is when it will become very apparent that the numbers in those polls are soft. If the poll is 47 against gay marriage and 41 for it now, just wait until somebody wants to put an amendment into the consitution banning it. That "41" number will be strong, and won't go backwards, the 47 number will be very soft.

One other thing to consider is that amendments that have passed, perhaps excluding the bill of rights, have largely been procedural in nature. Divisive moral issues like ERA have had far less success in either Congress or the states. I would say in this case, history may show a 80+% success rate in the states, but because the gay marriage ban is a highly divisive moral issue, its chances would be much lower.

Check out my most recent post on this one, as I still think my fundamental point isn't coming across. If you can get 2/3rd support in the Congress for something this controversial it will only happen because there is widespread public consensus, and hence that would translate into states likely approving it.

Bill you must not be watching history. After the Mass court case the polls went heavily against gay marriage.

People say they support it until it might actually happen. then reality kicks in.

How bout a little Congress 101.

The only polls that most congressmen and congresswomen are concerned about come from their own districts. Since it takes only 136 Congressmen/women to block the amendment all you would need to kill the amendment is 50%+1 against the amendment in the 136 most liberal congressional districts. Take the more liberal cities, (NY, LA, PHI, CHI) the west coast and NE and I bet we can get real close to 150.

In short the country may be evenly divided but congressional districts rarely are.

In fact I may have to go run some numbers unless others have already done it. Anyone know?

Lets take a look at what folks have to do to pass this amendment through Congress.

Let us start with the HRC's congressional ratings: (note these are from the 107th Congress so not exact, but they should give us a good idea about the House.)

During the 107th congress 155 members received a 100% rating on HRC's issues. (151 Democrats, 3 Rs and 1 Ind) In addition another 54 members voted with HRC more that 50% of the time (34 Ds and 20 Rs)

Or 36% of the House had perfect pro-gay voting records with another 13% with pro-gay voting records. That equals 209 members who are pre-disposed to voting pro-gay.

While these numbers are not necessarily transferable to the Con. Amend. They do give us an idea of a starting place. Somewhere between 19 and 53 members of Congress would have to vote against their previous history. That is called starting in a hole.

Also posted at my site, where I am going to do more research on this

Rob--exactly my point. In any system that requires a super-majority, the minority had the edge.

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When an amendment "goes to the states" what are we talking about? Does it go on the general ballot, or just to the State Legislatures? I'm thinking that if it just goes to the state legislatures, here in Uah it's definitely going to pass, but I believe most people, making an anonymous vote in a private booth won't support an effort to write bigotry into the U.S. Constitution in order to discriminate against a portion of our own countrymen and women.

I don't know how I stumbled onto this website. But allow me to add my .02...

The Federal Marriage Amendment is a complete joke that doesn't have a chance of passing. It's complete nonsense meant to distract Americans from real issues. I'm not gay nor is anyone in my family, but who am I to tell someone they can't get married? If two gay people want to get married it's of no concern to me.

Even if the Federal Marriage Amendment passed Congress (which it wont) it would be held up in enough states to block it. I can think of enough states that are reliably democratic that would have an easy time stopping it from passing. Just take the New England block which has overwhelmingly liberal state legislatures and you've got half the states right there.

The reason the right-wing is pushing this garbage is becuase they know that this is the last chance they have. Well it doesn't stand a chance but in 10 years this will be a non-issue because homophobia is dying down.

It's pathetic that Bush would stoop to such levels to score political points on an election year to appeal to that unsophisticated segment of society (Reagan-trailerpark-democrats).

I don't know how I stumbled onto this website. But allow me to add my .02...

The Federal Marriage Amendment is a complete joke that doesn't have a chance of passing. It's complete nonsense meant to distract Americans from real issues. I'm not gay nor is anyone in my family, but who am I to tell someone they can't get married? If two gay people want to get married it's of no concern to me.

Even if the Federal Marriage Amendment passed Congress (which it wont) it would be held up in enough states to block it. I can think of enough states that are reliably democratic that would have an easy time stopping it from passing. Just take the New England block which has overwhelmingly liberal state legislatures and you've got half the states right there.

The reason the right-wing is pushing this garbage is becuase they know that this is the last chance they have. Well it doesn't stand a chance but in 10 years this will be a non-issue because homophobia is dying down.

It's pathetic that Bush would stoop to such levels to score political points on an election year to appeal to that unsophisticated segment of society (Reagan-trailerpark-democrats).