E-Actions for Freedom: Oppose Constitutional Amendment Defining Marriage

June 26, 2003

Oppose Constitutional Amendment Defining Marriage

You can read my views on gay marriage here, in my second-oldest Internet article, from December 1996.

Suffice it to say, I'm against a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being only between a man and a woman. If that's the direction our country's heading in, we might as well just start back up with witch trials too for good measure. And then maybe we could ban mixed-race marriages, and then cross-class marriages...and there's still time to return to the feudal system, while we're at it. Oh -- I know! we could make a constitutional amendment banning tongue rings. Those kinda gross me out a little.
</sarcastic rant>

From: Matt Howes, National Internet Organizer, ACLU
To: ACLU Action Network Members
Date: June 25, 2003

With Canada preparing to legalize gay marriages, religious right organizations are signaling their intent to push a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as strictly between a man and a woman. And a Supreme Court decision on gay rights expected later this week will likely incite them even further.

The proposed constitutional amendment would also destroy a wide range of rights that are important to the lives of unmarried persons (whether unmarried relatives, heterosexual couples, and gay and lesbian couples). Those legal protections include state and local civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination based on "marital status" and state laws protecting unmarried elderly couples who refrain from marrying in order to hold on to their pensions.

Take action to oppose writing discrimination into the Constitution. Click here to get more information and send a free fax to your Members of Congress.

http://www.aclu.org/LesbianGayRights/LesbianGayRights.cfm?ID=9977&c=101

****************************************************************
For more information on other issues and the latest news, please visit our website at http://www.aclu.org

Help Strengthen the ACLU's Voice in Congress... Click below to become a card-carrying Member or donate today!
http://www.aclu.org/contribute/contribute.cfm?ORGID=AA02

If you are not already on our mailing list and would like to subscribe to the ACLU Action Network Updates, click http://www.aclu.org/team/member.cfm

To find out what more you can do to protect your civil liberties, please visit http://www.aclu.org/action

Posted by Lance Brown at June 26, 2003 09:56 PM

Comments

I think marriage must be the union between man and woman and nothing else.

Patrick
Haiti

Posted by: Patrick Antoine at November 6, 2003 12:16 PM

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for your comments.

If a lot of people thought that marriage should be the union between a man and a man, and nothing else, would they have the right to force that on a populace by law? What if someone believed that marriage should only be between a woman and a woman? Would that person be in the right to get that made into law, if they were able to?

Posted by: Lance Brown at November 6, 2003 02:20 PM

Not only do I categorically oppose any constitutional amendment that tries to limit marriage to heterosexual couples, I also think that the law should be able to accommodate forms of plural marriage. It is neither moral nor practical for a particular subculture (e.g. religious fundamentalists) to seize control of the family structures of those whose values differ from their own. The law already permits business partnerships of more than two people, and can also be shaped to allow more than two people to unite themselves financially in the way that marriage does. In terms of sex and residence, of course, people can unite when and as and with whom they please. Probably the biggest challenge will be in the area of child custody rights, but that's already a challenge for married couples who dispute custody.

Posted by: Steve Owen at January 20, 2004 10:59 PM