George W. Bush called upon Congress to pass the anti-gay "Federal Marriage Amendment"

Washington, D.C.--At a campaign stop in Pennsylvania on July 9 and in his weekly radio address on July 10, President Bush again called upon Congress to pass the "Federal Marriage Amendment." In the U. S. Senate the amendment is already being debated and will be voted upon this week. All sides expect the amendment - which requires 67 votes to pass - to be defeated. At his campaign stop Bush said, "people need to take a deep breath and debate with the ultimate of respect," and in his radio address he added, "(a)ll of us have a duty to conduct this discussion with civility and decency toward one another." At the campaign stop he also said, "And I repeat to you -- my own view is, is that if a state -- if people decide to -- what they do in the privacy of their house, consenting adults should be able to do. This is America. It's a free society. But it doesn't mean we have to redefine traditional marriage."

"Thirdly, one of the interesting issues that we're confronted with here in the country is that if a state decides to redefine marriage, people who are then married in that state can come to a state like Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania must accept that marriage. Now, that is right now protected, what's called the Defense of Marriage Act, signed by President Clinton. But there's a lot of legal experts who tell me that that act is going to be struck down in the court of law, which would then mean that a court could decide, redefine marriage -- a court -- the people would get married, and they'd come to another state and say, you must accept me -- us as a married couple, which then redefines the marriage in the new state.

"Now, this is a sensitive issue that the people ought to decide," Bush said, "and the best way they ought to decide, in my judgment, is to be -- is to have a constitutional process go forward that must be ratified by the state legislatures. That's how you get the people involved. And I repeat to you -- my own view is, is that if a state -- if people decide to -- what they do in the privacy of their house, consenting adults should be able to do. This is America. It's a free society. But it doesn't mean we have to redefine traditional marriage."

George W. Bush: Good morning. The United States Senate this past week began an important discussion about the meaning of marriage. Senators are considering a constitutional amendment to protect the most fundamental institution of civilization, and to prevent it from being fundamentally redefined.

This difficult debate was forced upon our country by a few activist judges and local officials, who have taken it on themselves to change the meaning of marriage. In Massachusetts, four judges on the state's highest court have ordered the issuance of marriage licenses to applicants of the same gender. In San Francisco, city officials issued thousands of marriage licenses to people of the same gender, contrary to the California family code. Lawsuits in several states, including New Jersey, Florida, Nebraska, and Oregon, are also attempting to overturn the traditional definition of marriage by court order.

National Gay & Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Matt Foreman

A couple of issues seem to be missing in all of this. The first is the utter disingenuousness of the President's call that the debate around marriage equality for gay people be conducted with "civility and decency" and the "ultimate of respect. The President admits "that opinions are strong and emotions run deep." The facts are that even though our families and fundamental rights are at stake, gay people are not the ones using disgusting and hateful rhetoric in this debate. Rather, it is the President's close buddies on the religious right - Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, Traditional Values Coalition and their ilk -- who have been doing that for months on end. They all claim that extending equal marriage rights to gay people will doom western civilization, overturn bans on polygamy and bestiality, and, in the words of the $125 million behemoth Focus on the Family, result in families with 'higher levels of poverty, welfare dependency, child abuse, sexual abuse, substance abuse, premature and promiscuous sexuality, early unwed pregnancy, educational failure, juvenile delinquency, adult criminality and suicide as well as lower levels of physical and emotional health." Tonight, many of these organizations are sponsoring a satellite simulcast to several hundred churches titled "The Battle for Marriage." During their last simulcast on May 23, viewers were told that if the "battle for marriage is lost & your grandchildren will grow up hearing the call to prayer from minarets."