Ted Kennedy, Democratic senator from Massachusetts, was faced with prominent opposition in his own party when he led the fight to stop the 1996 federal law that would have defined marriage only as the union of one man or one woman.
They included Chuck Schumer, Senator from New York, Joe Biden of Delaware, as well as Bill Clinton.
Due to a case that was proceeding through the state courts in Hawaii, the marriage issue came up in that year. The issue was whether the Hawaiian Constitution protected the right to same-sex marital relations.
If Hawaii’s Supreme Court were to rule that this was the case, the other 49 states could have been forced by Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution to recognize those marriages. That section says: “Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.”
Republican Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia introduced The Defense of Marriage Act to stop some state judges from legalizing same-sex marriage across the country.
This bill was straightforward and simple. It would amend “the Federal judicial code to provide that no State, territory, or possession of the United States or Indian tribe shall be required to give effect to any marriage between persons of the same sex under the laws of any other such jurisdiction or to any right or claim arising from such relationship,” said its official congressional summary.
It would establish, said the summary, “a Federal definition of: (1) ‘marriage’ as only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife; and (2) ‘spouse’ as only a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or wife.”
The House Judiciary Committee submitted to the House its report on the Defense of Marriage Act on July 9, 1996.
“The effort to redefine ‘marriage’ to extend to homosexual couples is a truly radical proposal that would fundamentally alter the institution of marriage,” said the committee’s report. “To understand why marriage should be preserved in its current form, one need only ask why it is that society recognizes the institution of marriage and grants married persons preferred legal status.”
“At bottom,” said the report, “civil society has an interest in maintaining and protecting the institution of heterosexual marriage because it has a deep and abiding interest in encouraging responsible procreation and child-rearing.
“Simply put,” it said, “government has an interest in marriage because it has an interest in children.”
The moral significance of the debate was also not overlooked by the committee.
“Civil laws that permit only heterosexual marriage reflect and honor a collective moral judgment about human sexuality,” said the committee report.
“It is both inevitable and entirely appropriate that the law should reflect such moral judgments,” it said. “H.R. 3396 serves the government’s legitimate interest in protecting the traditional moral teachings reflected in heterosexual-only marriage laws.”
The Defense of Marriage Act was up for a vote in the House on July 12, 1996. Bill Lipinski, a Democratic Representative from Chicago, supported it.
“The issue of homosexual marriage is a major concern to many Americans, and I feel that the time has come for Congress to take a stand,” said Lipinski. “What we say today and how we vote on this bill (will) have both legal and moral ramifications for years to come. We cannot sit by and do nothing.”
“Marriage is the foundation of our society; families are built on it and values are passed on through it,” said Lipinski.
“Our Nation’s moral fabric is based on this sacred institution,” he said. “Homosexual marriages would destroy thousands of years of tradition which has upheld our society. No-fault divorce, pregnancies outside of wedlock, as well as sexual promiscuity have already weakened marriage. Allowing for gay marriages would be the final straw, it would devalue the love between a man and a woman and weaken us as a Nation.”
After Lipinski and other witnesses had presented their views on the Defense of Marriage Act (the Defense of Marriage Act), the House voted 342-67 in favor of it. The House Democratic caucus voted 118 to 65 in favor.
Schumer was one among those 118 Democrats that voted for it. Schumer would win a seat to the Senate two years later.
Senator Ted Kennedy, a Democratic Senator from Massachusetts, led the opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act being considered by the Senate on Sept. 10, 1996.
“I oppose the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, and I regret that the Senate is allocating scarce time at the end of this Congress to consider this unconstitutional, unnecessary, and divisive legislation,” Kennedy said.
“We all know what is going on here,” said Kennedy. “I regard this bill as a mean-spirited form of Republican legislative gay-bashing cynically calculated to try to inflame the public 8 weeks before the November 5 election.”
“It is a cynical election year gimmick,” Kennedy said, “and it deserves to be rejected by all who deplore the intolerance and incivility that have come to dominate our national debate.”
Kennedy was not persuasive. The Senate approved the act by a vote of 85 to 14. Biden was one of 85 people who voted in favor.
The bill was signed by Clinton at 1 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 21, 1996. His reelection campaign then began broadcasting a radio advertisement.
The Associated Press reported that “the Clinton campaign in its radio ad lists Clinton’s signing of the Defense of Marriage Act as evidence that ‘President Clinton has fought for our values and America is better for it.”
In 2015, Obergefell, v. Hodges, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a bizarre 5-4 Supreme Court opinion, arguing that the 14th Amendment (1868), had created a constitutional right for same-sex marriage.
Fearing that the Supreme Court might reverse the opinion and adopt the position Clinton and Schumer held back in 1996, last week’s House vote was 267 to157 to approve “Respect for Marriage Act”.
It essentially repeals the Defense of Marriage Act, removing “provisions that define, for purposes of federal law, marriage as between a man and a woman” and “provisions that do not require states to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.”
It has now been sent to the Senate, whose Democratic leader is Schumer—and, who like Clinton and Biden, once acted to defend traditional marriage.
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