The United States Senate blocked a proposed amendment banning gay marriage Wednesday, falling 11 votes short of the 60 needed to end debate and proceed with voting to pass it.
Debate began Monday afternoon, and the vote to end it began around 10 a.m. Wednesday morning. The final tally of the vote was 49-48.
To pass the amendment, however, another vote of two-thirds majority would have been needed. In addition to the Senate vote, to become a part of the Constitution, the House of Representatives would also have to pass it with a two-thirds vote and three-fourths of the states would have to approve.
To some here at N.C. State, like Sam Morris, this was a “small sigh of relief.”
“It was nice to hear,” said Morris, who is pursuing his masters of education in higher education administration. “It’s ridiculous that we would try to write discrimination into the Constitution.”
Morris is the graduate advisor of Identity Defined, which was formerly known as Bisexuals, Gays, Lesbians and Allies. He said he personally does not plan on getting married, but that it would be a nice choice for gay couples to have.
Jeremy Hall, a sophomore in computer science and a member of Identity Defined, said he doesn’t actually believe in marriage at all, and doesn’t plan on getting married either, because he feels it is pointless without the benefits.
“Why do you need a piece of paper from the government saying what you already know?” he said.
However, he was also happy with the outcome of the vote.
“I’m pretty excited that they’re not going to add more discrimination to the Constitution,” he said.
Morris said he feels this is an issue to be decided within the states, and that there are other more pressing issues the government should be focusing on at this time. “It’s a way to try to cover up a real issue and things that are being problematic right now,” Morris said.
Others, such as Megan Perry, a senior in political science and president of College Democrats, agree with Morris.
“I definitely don’t support a constitutional amendment because it’s a very unimportant issue compared to some of the other issues we’re dealing with right now like the war and poverty and health care,” she said.
Perry said she feels the Senate voted as they did because they understand that the states are in control of the situation, having already defined marriage themselves in most cases.
North Carolina has defined marriage as being between a man and a woman, and while court cases are pending in other states, the only state to legalize same-sex marriage so far has been Massachusetts.
Junior in economics and political science Brittany Farrell is chair of the College Republicans. She said while this is a subject being focused on, it isn’t necessarily the most important, or the one at the forefront of discussion, and she didn’t give credence to the accusations that the amendment is a ploy to distract voters from other issues.
“I don’t think this issue holds as much power and weight as some critics are giving to it,” she said. “There are a lot of other issues that play into it.”
She said that while she is disappointed the vote turned out the way it did, she is encouraged to see it back on the agenda and back in the news.
“You don’t really expect big things like amendments to pass the first time,” she said.
Farrell said she feels that this is an issue senators will continue to push because they are aware of the American peoples’ desire to protect the institution of marriage.
While Michael Shields, a senior in animal science, agreed that the ban wasn’t a method of distraction, he said he doesn’t feel “marriage is the sacred thing that everyone says it is,” and was happy with the Senate’s block.
“When you can have TV shows like ‘Who wants to marry a Multimillionare,’ that just takes away the sanctity of marriage,” he said. “If the government doesn’t want to call it marriage, then they don’t have to, but I think that if two people love each other, and want to have at least a civil union, then they should be able to adopt kids and have all the same rights as married individuals.”
Others say they feel the same.
“I’m for marriage between any two people that are in love with each other because honestly, I think that’s very rare in these days,” Perry said.
The battle for same-sex marriage is far from over, and while Morris said the news was nice to hear, and prevented the “horrible” situation of it having passed in a real vote, it doesn’t change much about homosexuals’ current situation.
“They’ve been dragging it out for a while and I think they are going to continue to drag it out,” he said. “It’s a way of maintaining the status quo.”
Hall said he agreed that it wasn’t really a step either way for the gay community.
“It’s not so much a step forward as preventing a step back.”
