vauge

Source: CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona broke forcefully with President Bush and the Senate GOP leadership Tuesday evening over the issue of same-sex marriage, taking to the Senate floor to call a constitutional amendment to prohibit the practice unnecessary -- and un-Republican.

"The constitutional amendment we're debating today strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans," McCain said. "It usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them."

McCain also said the amendment "will not be adopted by Congress this year, nor next year, nor any time soon until a substantial majority of Americans are persuaded that such a consequential action is as vitally important and necessary as the proponents feel it is today."

"The founders wisely made certain that the Constitution is difficult to amend and, as a practical political matter, can't be done without overwhelming public approval. And thank God for that," he said.

The proposed amendment will likely die Wednesday in the Senate if GOP leaders cannot muster the 60 votes needed to overcome a procedural hurdle that would allow them to move it to the floor. With most Democrats and a number of moderate Republicans opposed, clearing that hurdle is considered unlikely. (Full story)

McCain said he would side with opponents of the amendment on the procedural vote in order to make clear to his constituents that he is against the amendment itself.

Bush, who defeated McCain for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, has championed the amendment, saying it is necessary to defend the institution of marriage from "activist judges." Social conservatives have been pushing hard for the measure since May, when Massachusetts' highest court legalized same-sex marriages in the Bay State.

But McCain argued on the Senate floor that there are "far less draconian" remedies, including the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act -- which defined marriage for purposes of federal law as a union between a man and a woman and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other states -- and state constitutional amendments limiting marriage to heterosexual couples.

He said if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down DOMA or "state remedies to judicial activism fail," then amending the federal Constitution might be "appropriate." But he said the decision in Massachusetts to legalize same-sex marriages does "not represent a death knell to marriage."

"What evidence do we have that states are incapable of further exercising an authority they have exercised successfully for over 200 years?" McCain said. "We will have to wait a little longer to see of Armageddon has arrived."
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It is indeed up to the states, but it sounds like McCain is as out of touch with Republican values as Kerry is the whole American people. IMO

What do you think?