House targets marriage validation

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In a showdown on the role of Congress and the courts in defining marriage, the House voted yesterday to strip federal judges of the ability to rule on such cases, leaving the matter up to the states.

The Marriage Protection Act would prohibit the Supreme Court and other federal courts from deciding challenges to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which says no state could be forced to accept a same-sex "marriage" entered into in another state.

If it passes the Senate and is signed into law, then couples who obtain licenses in Massachusetts, where the state Supreme Judicial Court legalized the practice, could not sue in federal courts for recognition from other states under the "full faith and credit" clause of the Constitution.

A lesbian couple this week filed the first such challenge in federal court in Florida.

"This bill is a check on judicial power, and the question is whether we should have the elected representatives of the people, in this case Congress today and the state legislatures in the future, determining marriage policy," said Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

The bill passed 233-194, with 206 Republicans and 27 Democrats supporting it and 176 Democrats, 17 Republicans and one independent voting against it.

Opponents called the bill a "mean-spirited, unconstitutional, dangerous" election-year distraction.

"The Republicans have decided that if you are gay, you should be able to get along with just two branches of government," said Rep. Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts Democrat.

Republican supporters viewed the fight over the definition of marriage as a fundamental challenge to civilization.

"Traditional marriage is the most stable, enduring, and efficient means of raising children, laying down the roots of community life, and establishing the necessary and sustainable predicates of nationhood," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texas Republican. "This is the evolution of civilization."