Talk:Federal Marriage Amendment

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[edit] Bush pro-civil unions?

A recent edit claimed that Pres. Bush was in favor of marriage-like civil unions, and gave a link to a brief news article from last October to back this up. I remember the controversy at the time and I seem to recall that, after some clarification, his position was as follows: he supports the right of states to create a civil union legal status on the federalist grounds that this is something within the purview of the states to do. However, he personally opposes civil unions, and if he were still governor of Texas, he would veto civil union legislation. Does anyone else remember how this thing ended up? --Jfruh 6 July 2005 14:50 (UTC)

You are correct. Bush has also reiterated his continued support for the FMA in his second term, notably in his 2005 State of the Union Address. Sandover 6 July 2005 15:32 (UTC)

[edit] Kerry/Edwards absence text misleading?

From the article (emphasis mine):

On July 14, 2004, a cloture motion to force a direct vote on the FMA was defeated in the Senate by a margin of 50 nay votes to 48 yea votes.[1] The two missing votes were those of John Kerry and John Edwards, who chose to remain on the Presidential campaign trail.[citation needed] The 48 votes in support of the cloture motion were 12 votes short of the 60-vote supermajority (three-fifths) needed to end debate and force a vote on the Amendment itself.[1] A number of Republicans joined Democrats in voting against the cloture motion, citing concerns about the Amendment's wording and the principle of extending federal power into an area of policy traditionally managed by states.[citation needed]

The wording of the bolded seems to indicate that the missing votes being present would have changed the outcome, especially since the difference between the vote counts was two. From the rest of the text, it appears the vote would have become 50v50 instead of 50v48, and since the requirement was 60 votes the outcome would have been the same.

First, please correct me if I'm wrong on the above.

Second, is a senator being absent for a cloture vote unusual? If not, I'd remove this sentence entirely. If it is unusual, could it be moved to the end of the section, and re-worded to: John Kerry and John Edwards did not vote on the motion, remaining on the Presidential campaign trail. The reasoning is that it seems logically grouped with the party voting lines, and less substantive; and also that the supermajority description should follow the vote count.

Sorry to be so verbose, this seems like it might be politically sensitive ;) ❪User:tunah❘✎❫ 07:35, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Umm...

"yea" and "nay" votes? Is that correct? Shouldn't it be more formal? --Heero Kirashami (talk) 04:26, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

In the U.S., that is the formal for voting. Kingturtle (talk) 12:09, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The "Unmarried heterosexual couples" section

I see that this section has been nominated to be checked for its neutrality. Although I'm no specialist on this subject (in fact, not even American) I gave it a quick once-over... and my view is that the first half of the section isn't too bad, but that after that it descends into very clear POV. The markers for "weasel words" are one thing, but I think that second half needs a complete overhaul and rewrite by editors familiar with the subject, and that any such rewrite must have full references from the start. Phrases like "has proven to be a farce" have no place on Wikipedia outside of quotes. Loganberry (Talk) 03:24, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I would propose removing the section altogether. While opponents of the FMA have brought up the "unmarried heterosexual couples" argument time and time again, they have been proven wrong when it comes to a matter of law. Specifically there are WP:Weight issues to make reference to the decisions of two of the appellate Courts in Ohio, since the other 8 appellate Courts specifically disagreed with that holding. When the issue was finally decided by the Ohio Supreme Court, the lower court decisions are no longer binding in any way. Additionally, no other State had a Domestic Violence Statute similar in nature to Ohio's, so it would have been legally impossible for the FMA to affect DV laws as opponents indicate. Ghostmonkey57 (talk) 06:07, 29 December 2007 (UTC)Ghostmonkey57
I did some re-wording, removing all the sections that contained weasel word and neutrality tags. Ghostmonkey57 (talk) 06:13, 29 December 2007 (UTC)Ghostmonkey57