Senator says grass-roots effort needed to save marriage amendment

Published: 2004-07-14

MANASSAS, Va. (CNS) -- Even before the Senate failed to vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment, Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said that "barring some sort of grass-roots revival, we'll lose this." He made the comments in an address during a July 9-10 conference for Catholic families in Manassas sponsored by the National Association of Catholic Homes and Educators, a nonprofit organization of parents who home school their children. On July 14 the Senate failed to invoke cloture on the debate on the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would have defined marriage as between one man and one woman. Cloture would have ended the debate and permitted the Senate to vote on the amendment. Speaking July 10, Santorum, a Catholic, said that most of his colleagues in the Senate do not want to discuss same-sex marriage, much less vote on an amendment that would ban it, and they want to let the courts decide the issue. "If you're for traditional marriage, that equals hate," he said, adding that same-sex marriage is now an issue of tolerance. "It is a mind-set that is affirmed by popular culture, affirmed by the national media that traditional marriage is a discriminatory, hate-filled institution."

Copyright (c) 2004 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .