Marriage amendment is complex issue

A proposal to amend the Constitution to ban homosexual marriages was offered in May by U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave of Colorado.

That date might surprise people who didn't take notice until late June, when the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling that some say directly affects the institution of marriage in the United States.

The court ruled 6-3 that a Texas law banning sodomy between same-sex partners demeaned gays by criminalizing their private behavior. The case sprang from an arrest of two Texas men in a private residence. Police barged in after a neighbor reported there was an armed man in that apartment, a claim later discovered to be fabricated.

The result of the Supreme Court's ruling was the elimination of similar sodomy laws relating to homosexuals in three other states, including Missouri, and to same-sex and opposite-sex couples in an additional nine states.

Immediately, the issue was raised of whether decriminalizing of gay sex would open the door to gay marriage.

And that's when Musgrave's amendment got the most notice. Particularly after Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee came on board last week. He said the court's decision threatened to make the United States a place "where criminal activity within the home would in some way be condoned."

He likened the condoning of consensual sexual relations between same-sex adults in a private residence to condoning prostitution and illegal drug activity in the same place.

As drafted, the proposed constitutional amendment says: "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any state under state or federal law shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."

Regardless of one's personal beliefs on the legitimacy of homosexual marriages, changing the Constitution is a matter to be considered only with the utmost seriousness.

Marriage has both a civil and religious nature. Many of those who support a marriage amendment to the Constitution cite a religious foundation for their beliefs. The Constitution's acknowledgment of religion is contained in the First Amendment, which has been sufficient for church-related issues. How government deals with marriage as a civil matter would probably best be left to the individual states to resolve.

The Constitution has been changed only 27 times. The last amendment, ratified May 7, 1992, states: "No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened."

That amendment originally was proposed in 1789. It took more than 200 years to get all the states on board.