May 18, 2006 08:00 AM UTC

Federal Marriage Amendment Resurrected

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• by: Colorado Pols

It looks like the battle over gay marriage won’t just be a local issue this year. From the Rocky Mountain News:

The U.S. Senate has set the stage to renew the battle over Sen. Wayne Allard’s proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, though critics dismiss next month’s scheduled vote as nothing but an election-year ploy. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted along strict party lines today to advanced the Federal Marriage Amendment for a Senate floor vote, expected for the week of June 5.

The amendment would define marriage as the union of a man and a woman and is a reaction to a Massachusetts Supreme Court decision that first allowed same-sex marriages in that state.

Allard, a Loveland Republican, is hoping to have more success than he did in 2004, when the amendment won only 48 votes on a procedural vote and was shelved for the year. It requires 60 votes to pass cloture, ending debate and bringing the measure up for final consideration. It then would take 67 votes for Senate passage.

Allard believes he has a better chance this year, since he has added 10 new Senate co-sponsors, including five first-term Senators who replaced lawmakers who voted against the amendment in 2004, Allard spokeswoman Carolyn Williams said Wednesday. But critics dismiss the scheduled vote as an election-year ploy simply designed to rally social conservatives during the run-up to the November elections.