50 Family Feuds
Democratic Congress prompts Alliance for Marriage to
focus on states.
John W. Kennedy | posted 4/24/2007 01:43PM


After years of failing to persuade a
Republican-controlled Congress to pass a federal
marriage amendment (FMA), Alliance for Marriage (AFM)
founder Matt Daniels has decided to take his campaign
to the states.
 
Despite bipartisan support, the FMA never mustered the
two-thirds majority needed for ratification in both
congressional chambers. Democratic control makes the
amendment significantly less likely to pass.

"We want to go where the momentum is strongest,"
Daniels told CT.

AFM announced its strategy shift on February 27 by
launching the Marriage Protection Caucus (MPC).
Initially, lawmakers who make up the MPC will try to
advance amendments in states without a constitutional
definition of marriage. In states with amendments, the
MPC will promote non-binding resolutions. Daniels said
lawmakers in 14 states are already drafting model
legislation.

Forty-five states—all but Massachusetts, Wyoming, New
Mexico, New York, and Vermont—have enacted some type
of protection for traditional marriage. Voters in 27
states have approved constitutional amendments.

Daniels said he still believes only federal action can
protect marriage, but he hopes state action will force
the issue for Congress. Passage in three-fourths of
the states (38) is required for a federal amendment to
become law.

"The ultimate solution has got to be a federal
marriage amendment," said Tom Minnery, vice president
of Focus on the Family. "We have to have one
definition of family for the country."

The doomed effort to pass the FMA confirmed what
former Family Research Council president Ken Connor
suspected all along, he told CT.

"It is appropriate to go to the states and fight the
battle," Connor said. "It's a much more prudent and
manageable strategy that will be more successful."