Senate Says, "Let the black-robed tyrants decide"
Topic: Legislation
(What are "political devotions"? Click here.)

Family Research Council's Washington Update reports:

50 Senators Invite Unelected Judges to Redefine Marriage

With 48 Senators in favor and 50 Senators against, the procedural vote was 12 votes short of the 60 needed to get the amendment to the Senate floor for an up or down vote. This was round one in the debate over marriage and now that it is over, we begin training for round two. I believe the pro-family forces have benefited from the debate over the past few days in two ways: One, every time this issue is forced into the public square, the opposition to same-sex "marriage" among the American public grows. Second, we now know which Senators are for traditional marriage and which ones want to allow unelected judges to usher same-sex marriage down the isle, and by November, so will voters in every state. Would we have preferred a knockout in the first round? Of course. But we've known from the beginning that this was going to be a long fight. What we didn't know was just how little regard Senators on the left would have for the hundreds of thousands of calls and letters that American's sent expressing the "will of the people" on this issue.

Comments made by Sen Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) were quite telling when, after admitting she had received over 50,000 pieces of mail on the subject, she said, "People do not understand that the Constitution relegates family law to the States...". Of course, it is Sen. Feinstein who doesn't seem to understand that state laws can be overturned with the stroke of a judicial pen and that the only way to protect states' rights on this issue is to pass a constitutional amendment.

And then there is Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) who said in response to the argument that the Supreme Court might rule in favor of homosexual "marriage" under the full faith and credit clause and thereby force such marriages on all states, "That is not the way I read the case law." Perhaps Sen. Clinton should read the Supreme Court's 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas for an understanding of the Court's current view on matters. The comments by Sens. Feinstein and Clinton add up to nothing but hypocritical humbug. The will of the people is clear and so is the way in which we should protect marriage in this country. This fight has just begun.

The FRC has created a nifty page where you can quickly learn how your senators voted on the motion to invoke cloture. It links to a CapWiz page, complete with a sample message you can customize and, with a single click, send to both your senators.