By Christianne Walker
© Seattle Gay Standard, July 2001

Get ready for yet another federal attack on gay rights-this one more extreme than anything seen to date.

Last week, a collective of religious groups called the Alliance for Marriage (AFM) announced that an amendment to the U.S. Constitution would soon be introduced in Congress that would have devastating effects not only on lesbian and gay rights, but also on the rights of any unmarried couple. The amendment, which the group terms the "Federal Marriage Amendment," reads, "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."

The proposed amendment would bar same-sex marriage and override federal, state or local laws granting any type of legal protection to unmarried couples. It would invalidate all state and local domestic partnership laws, which currently exist in at least eight states and more than 100 counties, cities, and towns across the country. Even more modest laws, such as those allowing a person to visit his or her unmarried partner in a hospital, would be overturned.

The amendment would also undermine state adoption, foster care and kinship laws, which apply not only to gay and lesbian couples but also to unmarried heterosexual persons, such as unmarried relatives and unrelated clergy members. It could destroy a wide range of other rights granted to unmarried persons, such as state laws prohibiting discrimination based on marital status and state laws protecting unmarried elderly couples who chose not to marry in order to preserve their pensions.

In Washington, the impact of this amendment would be felt around the state. For example, it would end same-sex domestic partner benefits now afforded to Washington state workers as well as employees of the cities of Seattle, Olympia, Tumwater and Vancouver, and of King County. According to Scott Holleman, board member of Fairness Lobby, a statewide lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender rights organization, "If this amendment were to pass, it would have devastating effects on gay and lesbian families throughout the state. That's why it's important for us to organize now to make sure that that doesn't happen."

National gay rights and civil liberties organizations, such as the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), along with various religious leaders, immediately denounced the amendment as an unprecedented attempt to use the Constitution to deliberately strip away individual freedoms. Christopher E. Anders, an attorney with the ACLU, notes, "The few amendments to the Constitution that have been adopted in the last 200 years are the source of most of the Constitution's protections for individual liberty rights. The proposed amendment, by contrast, would deny all protection for the most personal decisions made by millions of families."

Some gay rights activists, such as HRC's David M. Smith, speculate that the amendment is a reaction to Vermont's enactment of a civil unions law in 2000, which gives gay and lesbian couples the same rights and benefits afforded married couples under state law. Since the law went into effect, over 2,300 couples-most of them from out of state-have conducted civil union ceremonies in Vermont.

The proposed amendment would reach further than the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which for the first time created a federal definition of marriage as a union only between a man and a woman, and defines spouse as a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife. It prohibits federal benefits to couples that do not meet this definition of marriage and allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. Whereas DOMA did not prohibit states from enacting their own same-sex marriage or benefits laws, the proposed constitutional amendment would do exactly that.

As to the purpose of the proposed amendment, AFM executive director Matt Daniels claims it is necessary to "stem the tide of family disintegration that has resulted from the decline of marriage as a social institution." At its press conference last week, the amendment's supporters did not reveal details about when it will be introduced or who in Congress will sponsor it, perhaps hinting that they expect significant resistance and public outcry.

The amendment faces a difficult uphill battle procedurally. An amendment to the U.S. Constitution first requires the approval of two-thirds of both houses of Congress, then ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures. There have only been 27 amendments to the Constitution, and only one ratified since 1971. However, the amendment's supporters have vowed to make its approval a long-term fight over the next decade, and it is sure to galvanize the anti-gay lobby across the country to act on the federal and state levels.

Washington citizens wishing to do their part to fight the proposed amendment can contact Sens. Patti Murray (202-224-2621) and Maria Cantwell (202-224-3441) and their members of Congress to urge them to vote against this dangerous, hateful, and unprecedented restriction on gay and lesbian families. To look up your member of Congress, go to www.house.gov/writerep, or call the U.S. House switchboard operator at (202) 225-3121.