By Carl Weiser
Enquirer Washington Bureau

Carl Fox (left) and Terry Bond, of Newport Ky., have been together since September of 1996. They wear wedding rings that they exchanged during a ceremony three years ago. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

Click to view map (PDF file) showing which states bar recognition of same-sex marriages. | ZOOM |

WASHINGTON - After escaping August's heat for its annual recess, Congress is set to dive into one of the most sizzling of hot-button issues: gay marriage.

The House and Senate both plan hearings; White House lawyers are studying how to keep legal marriage strictly between a man and a woman.

A constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is picking up increasing support, including the sponsorship of three Greater Cincinnati lawmakers.

For those fighting to protect traditional marriage, like Rep. Ken Lucas, amending the constitution is the only way stop federal judges or state courts from one day, probably soon, allowing gay couples to marry.

Allowing that would further erode the nation's traditional moral values, the Northern Kentucky Democrat said. "It's time to stand up and be assertive about this."

But for many Cincinnati area gay couples - some together for years who would marry if they could - the efforts to stop gay marriage are frustrating, perplexing and demeaning.

For Montgomery Maxton of Loveland, it means the "Cinderella wedding" he envisioned never would happen.

For Drew Hoffman of Newport, it means his congressman and country are telling him that he's second class.

For Carl Fox, who co-owns the Crazy Fox Saloon in Newport, it means Congress will busy itself with one more divisive social issue when so much else needs to be done.

"We're at war, for God's sakes," Fox said.

"If someone wants to hate me, they have that right in this country. Hate away. Waste your time. That doesn't mean you have the right to deny me what is a basic civil right in this country," said Fox, 45.

He calls his partner of seven years, Terry Bond Jr., his husband.

"What this has to do with making America a better place to live is beyond me," said John Schlagetter, an openly gay architect and Cincinnati City Council candidate. "It's all reactionary. It's a little diversionary."

Local gays say they can't understand why the same people who denounce gays as promiscuous try to hinder them when they attempt to emulate heterosexuals by getting married and raising children.

"Gay and lesbian families are real families, too," said Doreen Cudnik, spokeswoman for the Stonewall Cincinnati gay rights group.

"The Constitution is supposed to ensure the rights of people, not to single out a group of people for discrimination. That's what this federal amendment would do."

Several recent developments are fueling the increasingly heated debate:

• The Supreme Court's June ruling protecting gay sex rights, which some see as a sign the high court is ready to further broaden gay rights.

• Moves in Canada and European countries to legalize gay marriage.

• A ruling, expected any day, from the highest court in Massachusetts, which both sides expect to come close to, if not actually, legalizing gay marriage there. Similar cases are pending in New Jersey and Indiana.

"It seems like everything's coming to this head all at once, and we really didn't plan it all this way," Cudnik said.

Mixed signals in Congress

What will happen to any constitutional amendment partly will depend on Congress' Republican leadership. And the signals there have been mixed.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he supports the amendment. Just before Congress left town, the Senate's Republican Policy Committee issued a 12-page paper on "The Threat to Marriage," concluding that the only way to ensure marriage remains between men and women is a constitutional amendment. But no senator has introduced a version of the amendment.

In the House, the marriage amendment has picked up nearly 80 co-sponsors.

But no top leaders have signed on, and Rep. Rob Portman, the Terrace Park Republican who chairs the Republican Leadership, said flatly: "There are no current plans for consideration of (the amendment) or similar legislation this year."

He said no action is necessary unless the federal Defense of Marriage law is struck down.

Defenses of marriage laws have passed in 37 states. They declare that marriage is between a man and a woman and that other marriages will not be recognized.

Congress overwhelmingly passed and President Clinton signed a national Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, declaring that for federal programs like Social Security only man-woman marriages would be recognized. It also declared that no state will be forced to recognize same-sex marriages.

But lawyers now worry that the federal law and state laws are on shaky ground legally. They say same-sex couples will marry in the first state that permits it and sue other states and the federal government to recognize it.

If Massachusetts or any other state were to legalize gay marriage, the amendment to ban gay marriage probably would pass Congress quickly, said Rep. Steve Chabot, a Westwood Republican.

Ohio even could be forced to recognize gay marriage, said state Rep. Bill Seitz, a gay marriage opponent who tried unsuccessfully to get Ohio to pass a defense of marriage bill.

Gay rights can be a sticky issue for both parties.

President Bush has tried to make the GOP more welcoming to minorities, and even at the news conference where he declared his opposition to gay marriage, he urged Americans to be tolerant and "respect each individual."

If Democrats endorse gay marriage, they risk alienating moderate voters. None of the leading Democratic presidential candidates has endorsed gay marriage.

The issue is being fought not just in courts and Congress, but on the Internet.

The American Family Association has collected 600,000 signatures on its petition in support of the amendment.

The rival "marriage resolution" in favor of gay marriage boasts the signatures of Madonna; Coretta Scott King; and Lucy Lawless, television's Xena.

One Christian Web site sells "No Gay Marriage" hats, T-shirts and coffee mugs.

Virtually the entire Tristate delegation has declared marriage should be limited to a man and a woman.

Not all have declared support for the amendment, but not one is publicly opposing it.

"My position is marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman. I personally think the public is in favor of recognizing a marriage as between a man and a woman," Chabot said.

His principal complaint is that politicians, not courts, should dictate who can get married.

He chairs the House subcommittee on the Constitution, and expects to have a hearing this fall on gay marriage and the amendment.

His Senate counterpart, John Cornyn, R-Texas, announced just before Congress left town that he'll have a hearing on gay marriage as soon as Congress returns.

Gay couples in legal limbo

A July USA Today-CNN-Gallup Poll found that 50 percent favored the federal marriage amendment, while 45 percent opposed it. A CBS-New York Times poll found a majority - even among Democrats - oppose allowing gays to marry.

But the public, according to polls, is more open to "civil unions" that give gay couples similar rights as married ones, without calling it marriage.

Only two states, Texas and Nebraska, have laws specifically barring civil unions, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

Without marriage rights, gay couples often find themselves in legal limbo. They constantly face the loss of rights that married couples take for granted, said Cincinnati lawyer Scott Knox, who represents a number of gay couples, including many with children.

With married couples, no one questions that a husband can make the decisions in a medical emergency; that a wife can take up to 12 weeks of leave to care for a husband; that a husband can petition for a wife to be allowed to immigrate; that a husband can pick up a sick child at school.

But for gay couples the legal protections aren't there, Knox said, a problem especially in homes with children.

In many cases, "that person who's been raising that kid for 10 years is a legal stranger to that child."

While some wills and power-of-attorney forms can help, gay couples aren't any more thorough about doing that than straight couples, he said.

Tristate gays say religious beliefs, not logic or law are influencing the delegation. Lucas, like many other co-sponsors, says they consider homosexuality a sin.

"They are too foolish to see that this is a civil rights issue and not a religious issue," said Maxton, the Loveland poet and writer.

"Since the majority of Americans agree that homosexuality is wrong, they have the power to alter constitutions and laws to make laws what they want."

The amendment

The text of the proposed marriage amendment to the constitution:

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

A key year

Nationally and in Greater Cincinnati, the fight over gay rights has been making headlines in 2003. Some recent events:

February: Cincinnati adds sexual orientation to the city's hate crime law.

March: The Covington City Commission votes to expand the city's human rights ordinance to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

May: Kentucky Gov. Paul Patton bans discrimination against state government employees or job applicants on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

June: The Supreme Court, acting on a Texas case, strikes down sodomy laws in 13 states, calling them an invasion of privacy.

June: The Presbyterian Church tosses out the Rev. Stephen Van Kuiken for performing same-sex marriages at Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church.

June: "Corpus Christi," a play depicting Jesus as a gay man, draws protests during its run at an Over-the-Rhine theater.

July: The Vatican calls on politicians to block laws allowing marriages or adoptions by gays.

July: President Bush says marriage should be between a man and woman, and White House lawyers are looking at legislation that would deny gay men and lesbians the right to marry.

August: The U.S. branch of the Episcopal Church confirms an openly gay bishop, dividing the church.

---

E-mail cweiser@gns.gannett.com