Didn’t happen.The U….

Didn’t happen.

The U.S. House of Representatives failed on Thursday to muster the two-thirds majority needed to pass a proposed constitutional amendment backed by President Bush to ban gay marriage.

The largely party-line vote in the Republican-led House was 227-186, 49 votes short of what was required for approval.

In July, Democratic-led foes blocked a similar measure in the 100-member Senate where proponents failed to get even a simple majority against a procedural hurdle.

Backers of the proposed amendment predicted the twin setbacks would help showcase the issue in the Nov. 2 congressional elections.

“This is going to be huge,” said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican, promising to bring the proposal back up for a vote next year. “The American people need to know where their representatives stand.”

That’s an important thing to know going into an election, is it not? This is a very relevant issue in the current political climate, and voters should know how their representatives in Congress stand. Except that Democrats apparently didn’t want you to know.

“This is a partisan exercise to distract the American people from the (congressional) Republicans’ record of failure,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat.

Polls show most Americans oppose gay marriage but are split on whether a constitutional amendment is needed. Surveys also find voters consider many other issues far more important.

First of all, as I said, given the current political climate, and how soon this issue is going to be decided among the states, knowing how the politicians feel on this issue is very relevant. It’s not just some “partisan exercise”.

Secondly, the idea that “voters consider many other issues far more important” has never stopped Congress from giving itself a raise, for example, but I think that voters consider this issue far more important than that. That line is nothing but editorializing in a news story.

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