Revised Federal Marriage Amendment

The new wording is designed to leave state legislatures with the unambiguous right to recognize civil unions and grant benefits to same-sex couples. This is the new wording:

''Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.''

What people are saying about the proposed change:
The latest proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to discriminate against gay and lesbian families is a desperate political move. The sponsors of the amendment realized that they did not even have a simple fifty-percent majority, much less a two-thirds majority in either house of Congress.

The latest draft won't change a single vote in Congress. The two principal reasons that opponents of the constitutional amendment have for opposing it are that the country should not write discrimination into the Constitution, and that there is no reason to amend the Constitution when the federal statute on marriage has never been invalidated by any court.

The new proposal would still write discrimination into the Constitution, deny all states the right to decide who can get married in their states, preempt the state constitutions of the fifty states, prohibit such important court decisions as the Vermont civil union decision and the Oregon domestic partnership decision, and potentially jeopardize a wide array of other rights provided to gay and lesbian couples and their children. - Christopher E. Anders, an ACLU legislative counsel

The changes to this amendment are technical clarifications that are important to help move it forward, but are legally and technically minor. The sponsors of this amendment have said clearly that they want to protect marriage between a man and a woman, but leave other arrangements to the state legislatures.

These changes make that clear and specifically address concerns that some Democrats in Congress have raised. This amendment will be examined in the hearing I will chair on Tuesday. - Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the Constitution subcommittee

I think this change of language is a good indication of how controversial and complex this issue is – here, on the eve of a hearing into the text of one amendment, we see a change in language so dramatic that we are now really confronted with a different amendment altogether, with its own unique problems. Amending the Constitution is not a process best done overnight, on a moment’s notice. - Sen. Dianne Feinstein (California), the ranking Democrat on the committee