ANNA JO BRATTON / The Associated Press | Posted: Wednesday, June 7, 2006 7:00 pm
OMAHA — U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel said he is opposed to gay marriage, but also opposed to a federal constitutional amendment banning such unions.
The Senate on Wednesday effectively rejected a constitutional ban on gay marriage. The 49-48 vote fell 11 short of the 60 required to send the matter on for an up-or-down tally. Hagel was in Nebraska for President Bush’s visit and did not vote.
He said he would have voted for cloture on the legislation, because he prefers moving most debates to an up-or-down vote. But, had it come to a vote, he would have voted against the constitutional amendment.
“I am opposed to gay marriage. That’s my personal position,” Hagel said Thursday.
But, he said, “I believe it is a state issue, and has always been in the history of our country.”
Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, a Democrat, voted to keep the legislation alive, and said he supported a federal measure to define marriage as a covenant between people of different sexes.
Nelson said he preferred a states-rights approach, but that he supported the federal legislation because courts have “pre-empted the rights of states” in the matter.
President Bush said in a radio address last week that “activist judges and some local officials have made an aggressive attempt to redefine marriage in recent years.”
But Hagel said it should not be a federal issue at this time.
“Not one of the 45 states that have current laws and constitutional provisions defining marriage between a man and a woman, not one of those has ever been overturned in the appeals process,” Hagel said.
Nebraska’s 2000 constitutional amendment banning gay marriage was struck down by a U.S. District court judge in May of 2005. But the case is currently on appeal with the 8th U.S. Circuit of Appeals in St. Louis, which heard arguments in February.
“When I hear people talk about that courts are ripping apart the state’s authority to define marriage between a man and a woman, that’s just not the case,” Hagel said. “It would be the case if the state laws and constitutional amendments started going down in appeals courts.”
He said that if the Supreme Court did overturn a state law, he would re-evaluate his position at that point.
“For 220 years, all of these issues, in particular contracts, especially marriages, have been defined by states, and I think that’s an appropriate purview of the states,” Hagel said.
He said a federal constitutional amendment could put custody battles, divorce settlements and all issues affected by marriage into the federal courts.
“People aren’t thinking very clearly through some of these things,” Hagel said.
Both Nebraska senators also voted Thursday to proceed with legislation that would permanently eliminate the tax on inherited estates.
But the measure fell three votes short of the 60 votes needed to move forward in the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R.-Tenn., said the Senate would vote again this year on the so-called “death tax.”
Hagel said an attempt at a compromise that would remove the tax on smaller estates and lessen the hit on larger ones is likely.