Jackson Free Press

The Senate has failed to pass legislation calling for a Constitutional amendment to protect traditional marriage and halt the proliferation of same-sex marriages. Despite the current setback, I believe debate on this issue has only just begun, and the topic is bound to fester until Congress assumes its responsibility and deals with it decisively.

Since the dawn of recorded history, marriage has been a loving commitment between a man and woman, but now homosexual interest groups and their activist allies seem determined to redefine marriage. In state after state, they've attacked traditional marriage through the courts, marrying same-sex couples and forcing the issue to a head in Washington.

Like an overwhelming majority of Americans, I believe marriage should remain strictly between men and women. That's why I was an original cosponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment, which the Senate failed to even consider this week because we didn't have quite enough votes to bring it up for debate.

I was an original cosponsor of the Defense of Marriage Act, too. This law was signed by President Clinton a few years ago with bipartisan support. Back then, a majority in Congress and throughout America felt this law would protect traditional marriage. Unfortunately, the act is not working. Liberal judges are disregarding this act, sanctioning same-sex marriages despite the law and overwhelming public opposition—even in places with state laws designed to protect traditional marriage. The situation is creating perplexing legal questions among states, and it begs for significant action from Washington. A Constitutional amendment is the only way to restrain activist judges. These few now seek to make law instead of interpreting law as written by your elected representatives in Congress - the way our Founding Fathers intended.

Obviously the issue of same-sex marriage transcends the legal debate. This is a subject very important to millions of Americans, and it impacts our entire social fabric. Marriage is the building block of families. Only men and women together can produce children. Children, in turn, need a mother and a father. That's not to say kids can't grow up well in single parent homes, but traditional marriage has always been, and always must be, the ideal environment for raising families.

Some of my colleagues in the Senate say a Constitutional amendment is too drastic. They agree with the majority of Americans who oppose same-sex marriage, but say they can't support a Constitutional amendment. That's expected. Constitutional amendments are heavy stuff. Our Founding Fathers meant for Constitutional amendments to be done only after a lot of very serious thought and legislative deliberation. Amending the Constitution takes time, as it should. But it's done more often than we may think. In fact, there are 27 amendments to the Constitution, almost half of those amendments made during the last century. It's clear that protecting traditional marriage does indeed rise to a Constitutional level.

Others in Washington are frankly just trying to have it both ways. They are using parliamentary procedures and technicalities as cover to avoid taking sides, scared they may offend someone. Well, two out of three Americans already have taken a side, that of opposition to same-sex marriage. Like most Mississippians, I'm on this side because of my personal Christian faith—a faith that, like most faiths worldwide, recognizes and encourages traditional marriage.

Many of you have called my office voicing strong support for the Federal Marriage Amendment and stern opposition to same-sex marriage. I thank each of you for your action. I will continue my efforts to protect traditional marriage. I assure you, as much as some folks want this issue to just go away, it will not. Americans overwhelmingly oppose same-sex marriage, and we favor traditional marriage between men and women. The U.S. Congress should reflect America's people, and our courts must respect America's law. Until this happens, the issue remains unresolved, and it can't remain that way for long. 7/16/04

Senator Lott welcomes any questions or comments about this column. Write to: U.S. Senator Trent Lott, 487 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510 (Attn: Press Office)

Previous Comments

ID

85449

Comment

I'm going to hurl now. Uh, since the *dawn of recorded history* women have been treated as property, and traded like cattle. Marriage, since the *dawn of recorded history* has been far more about economic relationships, not "loving commitment." And don't even get me started on the "it's important for the children" because that implies that people who are unwilling and/or unable to have children should also be denied the right to marry. Can't type any more. Brain is frozen in outrage... Donna, I swear you post his stuff just to set me off.

Author

kate

Date

2004-07-16T16:31:39-06:00

ID

85450

Comment

Well, it works, doesn't it? ;-D

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2004-07-16T16:35:13-06:00

ID

85451

Comment

it works, but it's just too easy. Like shootin' fish in a barrel. Dawn of $@#@^ recorded history!?! I can't even read past that line...

Author

kate

Date

2004-07-16T18:01:53-06:00

ID

85452

Comment

It does sound like the radical right prefers promiscuity, doesn't it?! Also: homosexual interest groups and their activist allies Replace the word "homosexual" with "colored" and "activist" with "communist," and we'd be right back to those Dixiecrat days that Lott expressed such nostalgia for a couple years back. This kind of rhetoric shows such contempt for the intelligence of Mississippians. Lott can go on all he wants, wishfully, about Americans getting all bent out of shape over this issue this year, but the evidence just isn't out there that it's going to happen. Maybe it'll help shore up Bush's radical-right base, but it's not exactly the issue atop most Americans' agenda. And, yes, it's a naked ploy for the black vote from an adminstration that snubs the NAACP, but I think they're whistlin' Dixie on this one.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2004-07-16T20:04:29-06:00

ID

85453

Comment

Here's the real irony... One side is arguing for EQUAL rights, which SHOULD be covered under "right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" period. The other side is arguing that homosexuals want "SPECIAL rights based on sexual orientation". Excuse me...that's what we have NOW! Heterosexuals have "special rights to marry based on their sexual orientation".

Author

R. Leigh

Date

2004-07-16T23:20:48-06:00

ID

85455

Comment

this is all expected. i'm just holding out for the constitutional ammendment against reality show marriages, britney spears marriages, j.lo marriages (i mean, she's on like #3, that's not keeping any sanctity), etc

Author

casey

Date

2004-07-17T11:12:46-06:00

ID

85454

Comment

this is all expected. i'm just holding out for the constitutional ammendment against reality show marriages, britney spears marriages, j.lo marriages (i mean, she's on like #3, that's not keeping any sanctity), etc

Author

casey

Date

2004-07-17T11:12:46-06:00

ID

85456

Comment

Watch out... Trent and people who think like this anger me uncontrollably. Trent Lott is laughable in so many issues he chooses to address. I, personally, feel he does not represent most Mississippians and feel his ideals and way of thinking are dangerously archaic and from a perspective that still haunts and hurts many Mississippians. The sad man has related homosexuality with alcohol and theft in the past and obviously still feels there is some connection though unscientific. Our politicians use fear to control us and we should wake up as a city, state and nation and remove the fear-mongers. By now, anyone with even a single digit IQ should know: -Gay people are everywhere -- have been and will continue to be. Homosexuality is a natural occurrence found consistently throughout our living Earth. Scientists have proven it and children can see it with open eyes and minds... What's wrong with adults these days? -Homosexuality is not a moral sin (the primary argument most used). It was a sin of common law during the times of the Old Testament used generally to control sex and sex worship in the temples. So were shellfish, mixing fibers, crops, and so forth... There goes my calamari in the freezer, my favorite polyester pants and our entire agricultural community that has fed Mississippi for its history! Any preacher/priest/leader that tells you otherwise is bent on an agenda and just as radical as those damned "liberal judges". Question it and them! -Don't bring the disciple Paul into this mess. It's been proven he was more of a political activist than the entire Act Up crowd in the 80s. So, "good" Christians, especially the radical right, learn your stuff. Political and religious scholars and translators should not have to relay this over and over again to those that claim to be followers of the Bible and the Bible's God and its will. Paul was an angry man bent on destroying a political power and civilization and used Christ's energy and the Christian movement to successfully do so... But not without consequence.

Author

kaust

Date

2004-07-17T13:46:39-06:00

ID

85457

Comment

[cont] -The decline of marriage has been going on since the Nuclear Family was suggested. It's impossible to maintain in such an idealistic way. Most mom's can't stay home and cook for the "bread winner" and the kids because of outstanding costs-of-living that seem to increase by the day. As well, they aren't property and should not be required to do so unless as a self-made choice. It's not "the gays" fault that heterosexual marriage is on the decline. It is the faulty ideals established by the mainstream in the recent past that suggests marriage is a utopian arrangement with warm, cooked meals and an urban environment where everyone knows everyone and everything with no variables such as love, hate, death, money, children, crime, lust, abuse, and stress. This is the real world not TV. It's not that way and never has been. As well, now that women are no longer property, there is a second and equal voice in marriage that must be heard which seemingly castrates so many ego-centric men leading them to feel weak and removed from power by their own egos. This is the primary reason heterosexuals must face a necessary adjustment in their way of thinking about marriage. It is now a union of love, respect, freedom, and choice -- not of property ownership, including the wife and kids. If you want to amend the constitution to protect marriage, make it more difficult to be married for ANYONE that wishes to be married and for the sake of humanity ditch the insta-marriages offered so easily today! -The gay community is no threat to marriage. Many will pull stats about the Netherlands and how gay unions caused marriage to decrease... Interestingly, the divorce rate decreases with that and more people have significantly more alternatives than shotgun weddings with the reciprocal divorce following in a few years -- days if you are Britney Spears or J-Lo. If thought about logically, it makes sense and resolves the issues with the floodgate of divorce and marriage. Fewer people get married for silly reasons and it becomes an institution again with safe alternatives for those too timid to sign their life away to another individual and ideal.

Author

kaust

Date

2004-07-17T13:47:18-06:00

ID

85458

Comment

[cont] -Gays have been around throughout history and have been accepted by many long-standing, successful and established civilizations from ancient Greece to primitive, but advanced, Indian and African cultures. Marriages or unions between same-sex partners have been shown to exist before the invention of the Christian church and have been recognized many times by, of all churches, the Catholic church. No one has particular authority over this issue and it should be available to anyone willing to recognize the vows. If you say your God disagrees, please, give me the phone number you used to establish such a connection... I'd be happy to debate such a matter with any deity that seeks to make this world a miserable place but I am sincerely tired of people putting words in that deity's mouth. Until then... Let's base our information on scientific facts and reasoning not irrational fears placed by war-mongers and churches seeking a larger cash base. -Gays will not be the straw that breaks the proverbial back of the camel known as Western Civilization. I would argue Bush, Inc. has already done a bang-up job ensuring the West will face difficulty upon difficulty in the near and distant future -- obviously, without "the gays" assistance. Funny how so few see the repetition in the statements of those pushing these hateful amendments. Scapegoating minorities has always been a tactic used by politicians and religious leaders. Remember the pagans anyone? Native Americans? The witch hunts of early America? Women lacking rights? Interracial marriage restrictions? It is so devastating that so many minorities forget the chains that were recently cut within the last few decades and centuries but while they still dangle from their ankles. Any Native American, female, Jewish, Polish, Irish, black or hispanic person (and the many other groups, races, communities that have been attacked by a hateful society) that casts a vote to amend the Constitution is predictably casting a vote against their own progress and more than likely re-enforcing and re-seeding the ignorance that held them back for years.

Author

kaust

Date

2004-07-17T13:47:53-06:00

ID

85459

Comment

[cont] The hypocrisy of the radical, Christian right is finally getting to me and I'm becoming turned off by all forms of religion -- as I witness religious leaders passing judgment and creating bad karma and chi. These people are weak and should not be leading any church or group of spiritual believers. Witness your experience but do not tell others, as a mortal, how to experience their own. While I think spirituality is extremely important to individuals and our society, I feel religion is a tool used by political extremists to control the unknowing masses with the hopes of salvation no human can unlock for another individual. If you want to save yourself and society, start within your Self and lead by example. Christ, the Prophet and the Buddha lived by example. They were not men of action but of words and passive experience. Through studies, I can say they would run so far and so fast from this political hot potato it would leave the zealot's heads spinning and they would be opposed to any governmental action restricting any individual's right to experience bliss in life. Well, the Buddha might sit and talk of the tree bowing but the effect would be the same. I am taking a new position on this gay marriage issue. If I am not allowed to marry because I, supposedly, cannot start a family, then marriage should ONLY be extended to people that produce offspring. If you have a child, you should be REQUIRED to marry and required to stay in that marriage literally until death. After death, the individual must continue to live alone without giving in to lust and seeking affection in another individual's arms removing any attempts at adultery. Divorce should be obliterated by any government that seeks to "protect marriage". Those that commit adultery or seek to destroy the marriage should be publicly stoned, imprisoned, or ridiculed as they have been in the past. Let's bring the Scarlet Letter to a new reality... Shall we? If anyone finds that last paragraph absurd but continues to feel gays should not be allowed marriage, think of the direction this amendment will take our society. This type of action is literally a leap backwards in logical and sociological thinking and places us in a trap of acting much like the radical Islamist regimes we supposedly are destroying and the previous civilizations that used brutality to protect *their* morality. Expect more outlandish ideas to pop-up from both sides that will highlight why thinking in this vein will ultimately be the decline of Western civilization rather than the protection of it.

Author

kaust

Date

2004-07-17T13:48:17-06:00

ID

85460

Comment

[and finally] Until one of this politicians or religious leaders stands up and declares legislation effectively illegalizing divorce and requiring marriage when a child is born, you must certainly question their motives when they say they are "protecting" marriage! Want gays to shut up about this? Give us equal rights now... It won't end and will not disappear until that happens. The cycle has not completed. The love that was once not spoken is being screamed from the tongues of many with one goal in mind -- equality. We've been killed, beaten, gassed and tortured in the past by people with evil in mind while professing good. We won't let that happen again. You should not either.

Author

kaust

Date

2004-07-17T13:48:44-06:00

ID

85461

Comment

REPEATED FROM ANOTHER POST This pretty much says all as to what I think of the issue as well: God allows others the freedom of choice,including freedom to sin - and even curse both His name and Christís sacrifice if one chooses to do so!!! (Shocking, Isn't It?!?!?!?!?!) Government policies based ultimately and exclusively on religious doctrines cannot change the non-savedsí hearts, mindsí and soulsí (this makes government policy irrelevant to oneís spiritual condition, which is why government policies forbidding merely personal sins are ultimately pointless) Therefore, governments cannot actually lead people to Christ or any other deity. Since governments cannot lead people to Christ or any other deity, it follows that government policies enforcing personal morals that are based solely on religious grounds is undue interference in our lives as surely as many government economic and property regulations are likewise undue interference in our lives (in other words, government ought not be a bureaucracy in matters of personal morality). Now if even God Himself wonít force people to obey His commands, then isnít it frankly arrogant and presumptuous for we humans to insist that we introduce into our civil law codes laws against personal sins (i.e. ones that are only between the person and God)? I myself see no reason to doubt it! I'm still open to the possibility that the USA was created for the purpose of having a law code based on God's law, but all the arguments I've heard are sounding pretty worn!!! (Continued)

Author

Philip

Date

2004-07-17T14:18:49-06:00

ID

85462

Comment

Given my previous post, I've got some questions to ask any lurkers who happen to read this (I'm not gay, BTW - and perfectly happy being straight if that matters to you) I donít find homosexuality or gay marriage... (or laws against sex toys for private home use, or properly consumed alcoholic beverages, or even smoking pot, though I'm against legalizing heroin, cocaine and such [I'm not into pot either], and need I bring up teaching sex education and evolution in schools?????)...to in any reasonable way... (a) Threaten my life, health, or body parts (b) My sanity or general mental functions (c) My personal liberties (closely related to points a and b, the connection with b becomes obvious if one sits down and thinks about it) (d) My property and other physical belongings (e) My money, my bank account, and any other assets I have. Given all this, I say ìSO WHAT?!?!?!?!î

Author

Philip

Date

2004-07-17T14:26:18-06:00

ID

85463

Comment

BTW, Kate and Knol KUDOS to y'all for bringing up child-free couples!! Somehow, I don't think the straights-only crowd had in mind the idea of denying Child-free-by-choice HETEROsexual couples. Yet as far as I can see, this is just what these people have to believe if they follow their premise out to its logical conclusion. Since I'm child free and plan to stay that way pemanently, then I guess I should be offended. But since nobody is denying the right to marry to the child-free-by-choice, I'm merely amused by the "children" argument.

Author

Philip

Date

2004-07-17T14:37:47-06:00

ID

85464

Comment

There's this over in Salon, about a group that's 'highlighting' publicly gay staffers of Congresspeople who are supporting the ban on gay marriage. They seem to be walking a fine line, in terms of privacy. But, if they manage to stay on the right side of that line, it will be a very useful process. Their next idea is to highlight those congresspeople who are defending the 'sanctity' of marriage who have cheated on their spouses.

Author

kate

Date

2004-07-19T08:30:59-06:00

ID

85465

Comment

Another good piece on Salon, which highlights how these fights over wedge issues are an attempt to distract voters from things that impact their lives: Ride the bus every day, and you might even feel the weight of this little fact: Low-end jobs accounted for about 44 percent of total hiring from February to June of this year. Heavy sucker, isn't it? Funny, no one on the bus seems concerned about gay marriage. Not even my conservative neighbor Stan. Stan introduced himself "as the guy with the last manufacturing job in America." Says he "grew up in a factory town in Indiana [where] conservatism was our birthright." "Irresponsible spending on a manufactured war to line the pockets of one's associates is not the act of a conservative," Stan says. "It is also not acceptable to borrow money from your children. The word 'neocon' must be entered into the lexicon and defined for independents who have a fiscal conservative stripe. They need to know that conservatism has been hijacked and is currently parked in a multinational offshore island where it is being used to steal America." Stan thinks that "regular people who are undecided will understand and respond to the fact that the Republican Party no longer shares their values."

Author

kate

Date

2004-07-19T12:38:44-06:00

ID

85466

Comment

I was watching the news last night about 50 North Mississippi preachers gettings their congregations together to protest the upcoming vote to not acknowledge gay marriages performed in other states. Sounds like its gonna be a really hot issue pretty soon. Will the vote be on the same ballet as the presidency ? I wonder if voter turn out in Mississippi would be effected by having it on there. Conservatives really turn out to vote in Mississippi. It's everyone else thats MORE likely to "think" their vote doesn't count. I can see the Baptist Coalitions busing folks to the polls, just like Passion of the Christ.

Author

herman

Date

2004-07-20T12:52:10-06:00

ID

85467

Comment

From another JFP blog entry about gay marriage; contains a number of reader comments: http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/comments.php?id=3420_0_27_0_C

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2004-07-21T15:33:17-06:00