From
the March 9, 2004 JOURNAL OF THE HOUSE:
Rep. Wenke, having reserved the right to explain his nay
vote on the proposed marriage amendment, made the following statement:
“Mr. Speaker and members of the House:
I am grateful for this opportunity to clarify my position on the
proposed marriage amendment. I wish to thank The Kalamazoo Gazette
and Julie Mack for a two-hour interview that resulted in an accurate
and honest report. Other individuals who have made no attempt
to speak with me have misrepresented my stance. For more than
30 years I have been a husband and father and a business owner.
I have spent eight years as a Kalamazoo county commissioner and
have completed one year as a state representative. None of these
experiences, either singularly or collectively, has received as
much examination as my position on the marriage protection amendment.
I do not support gay marriage. I do not endorse using the word
marriage to define a relationship between members of the same
sex. I do, however, support the creation and recognition of a
legal arrangement between same sex couples. I am not alone in
my conclusion as Governor Granholm and about half of all Americans
favor civil unions for homosexuals. I cannot support the marriage
protection amendment because the clear intent of this amendment
is to discriminate against a specific segment of our population
– that being gay men and women. This amendment will prevent
same sex couples from forming a legal union and therefore deny
them the same benefits granted to their heterosexual counterparts.
I will not vote to discriminate against any group of citizens.
The Constitution of Michigan should not be amended for the purpose
of limiting access to equal rights.
Proponents of this amendment sincerely believe they are protecting
marriage from its current rapid decline as an integral element
of our society. I respect their position. It has never been my
intention to preach to others on this issue. In fact, my focus
in the legislature, as Chair of the House Tax Policy Committee,
has been equitable taxation, employment and the economy. My position
on this amendment, while unpopular with some, is a matter of conscience,
research and a thorough examination of the issues regarding homosexuality.
I have also gleaned much information from acquaintances and friends
who are gay – including my best childhood friend. Many families
have homosexual members – most extended families do. Are
we to believe these family members are less valued? Do they pose
a threat to the family institution?
I believe that homosexuality is a state that generally we do not
choose, but with which we are born. Same sex attraction is based
in human biology. This is the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church
as well as the Christian Reformed Church in which I was raised.
We do not choose our sexual preference when we attain the age
of puberty. I ask, ‘Why would anyone choose to be gay when,
in our society, that choice usually brings great heartache to
the individual and his or her family?’
People who have a religiously based position against homosexuality
will have a difficult time acknowledging gay men and women as
deserving of equal rights. The Constitution is not the place to
implement discrimination against those with whom we have a religious
difference. With good reason, our country has embraced the concept
of separation of church and state. I will not remove a single
brick from the wall that separates the church from the state.
As a representative, I have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution
of the State of Michigan. That oath requires me to protect the
rights of all citizens, including homosexuals. I believe homosexual
partners are entitled to health benefits, social security benefits
and the protections afforded by estate planning. Amending the
Constitution for the purpose of excluding specific groups of individuals
is unacceptable. Prominent conservatives, including George Will,
oppose gay marriage but still do not support amending the Constitution
to deal with this issue. The Constitution should advance, preserve
and protect the rights we cherish and not be used as an instrument
to withhold rights.
I represent all the citizens of my district including homosexuals,
and it is my responsibility to ensure justice and equality for
all. I cannot walk out of the Capital Building – where the
American flag, a symbol of American freedom and justice waves
overhead – having voted for an amendment that is clearly
discriminatory.”
Rep.
Drolet, having reserved the right to explain his nay vote on the
proposed marriage amendment, made the following statement:
“Mr. Speaker and members of the House:
Back in junior high school we used to play a game at recess called
‘smear the queer’. The game didn’t have any
real rules but went like this; an unpopular boy would be targeted
by a group of other boys and labeled ‘queer’. The
group of boys would then chase down and surround the victim, ending
the game by piling on top of the targeted boy. Rarely was any
real harm done physically, but some children feared recess because
of the game, and other boys felt they had to play in order to
avoid being targeted as ‘queer’. I am ashamed to say
that I sometimes joined in the game. But then I grew up, and I
forgot about the game.
What reminded me of the game was the Committee on Family and Children
Services hearing held two weeks ago on the resolution before us
now. This resolution, if adopted and voted into the Constitution,
would have longstanding and significant impact on the lives of
many gay and lesbian citizens of Michigan. One might expect that
a proposed constitutional amendment dealing with human rights
would be carefully evaluated by lawmakers who would also solicit
testimony from the citizens of the state. Sadly, that was not
the case at the committee hearing. The committee allowed only
40 minutes of public testimony. The great majority of citizens
who drove to Lansing from throughout Michigan were not permitted
to speak. Regardless of your position on the resolution before
us, what happened in that committee hearing was demeaning and
dismissive to the citizens of the state of Michigan.
What role should government play in marriage? Certainly not to
regulate or enforce any person’s relationship with God.
Our country’s first immigrants came to these shores to escape
governments that regulated their relationship with God. Nor can
the government regulate or enforce the personal and private emotions,
thoughts and intimate actions between two people.
Marriage is primarily a contract between two people and, if they
choose, God. Society, as in neighbors, friends and family, may
choose to accept two people’s relationship or reject it
as morally invalid regardless of any decree from politicians or
bureaucrats.
The only role for government, if it is to be in the marriage business
at all, is to enforce and regulate the contract of marriage in
its’ civil capacity. The crux of the amendment before us
is to prohibit the state from recognizing a voluntary contract
made between two adults. Why would we single out some people for
unequal contracting rights?
Proponents claim that homosexual people need to be singled out
for unequal contracting rights in order to protect the institution
of marriage. Let me see if I have this right: Forty years of skyrocketing
divorce rates and nobody proposes a constitutional amendment to
deal with divorce. Thirty years of recognizing ‘common-law’
marriages and nobody proposes a constitutional amendment to deal
with people who ‘shack-up’. The USA Today reported
just this past Friday that out-of-wedlock births have tripled
over the past 30 years; but no one has proposed we amend the constitution
to prohibit premarital sex. Decreasing stigmatization of infidelity,
yet no constitutional amendment. In 1994, Bill Bennett said the
following to the Christian Coalition, ‘In terms of damage
to the children of America, you cannot compare what the homosexual
movement has done to what divorce has done. It is not even close.’
But for some reason, gay marriage is such a threat that an amendment
to the constitution is required. You know what I think? We have
found a minority that can be made into a scapegoat so that we
don’t have to seriously address the detrimental actions
of the majority.
‘It’s not the log in OUR eye, but the splinter in
THEIRS! It’s not OUR fault that marriage is a troubled institution,
it is other people’s fault!’ That is how this amendment
can be interpreted. The heterosexual majority would never propose
to use government force to prohibit divorce, infidelity or ‘shacking-up’
because those are things that many heterosexual people choose
to do.
But loving and committing to someone of the same sex is something
that only a small minority chooses to do. So it is easy to blame
them. We are back in the playground still playing ‘smear
the queer’.
Allow me to make my position on human rights very clear; I support
equal constitutional rights for each and every individual Michigan
citizen. I do NOT support group rights, special rights based on
any factor, race or gender preferences, or special protections
such as ‘hate-crime’ laws. Every citizen deserves
true equal protection under the law.
Americans have fought too long and too hard to eliminate constitutionally
mandated discrimination against ethnic groups, women, and other
minorities. Already, polls show younger Americans are much more
prone to support equal treatment under the law for homosexuals
than older Americans. These young Americans, and history, will
not judge this constitutional amendment well.
I ran for the state legislature because I believe that the size,
scope and cost of government should be reduced. It is not the
proper role of government to interfere with peoples’ relationships,
nor to discourage or encourage love or commitments between consenting
adults who harm no one. This amendment is designed to demonstrate
governmental disapproval of some people’s relationships
and will do nothing to protect or strengthen the marriages of
heterosexual people.
Of course, initiatives like this amendment aren’t new. Efforts
to single out gays and lesbians for unequal treatment have been
proposed and often adopted many times in the last 30 years. Back
in 1978, a conservative state senator in California named John
Briggs began an initiative to prohibit homosexuals from holding
jobs as teachers. Now, I grant that this was California, but remember
it was also 1978 and early polls showed 2 – 1 support for
the Briggs Initiative. But something unexpected happened in August
of that year, as the initiative headed toward a vote. The Governor
of California wrote a newspaper editorial opposing the Briggs
Initiative on the grounds that it singled out a group of people
for unequal treatment under the law. The Governor wrote that the
initiative had, ‘the potential of infringing on basic rights
of privacy and perhaps even constitutional rights.’ Who
was this ‘activist’ governor? Was it Governor Jerry
‘Moonbeam” Brown? No, that governor was named Ronald
Reagan. Governor Reagan’s opposition to the Briggs Initiative
is credited with turning the tide and when the final votes were
cast, the Briggs Initiative was defeated. Writer Jonathan Rauch
wrote in The New York Times that ‘Mr. Reagan single-handedly
turned the tide against the measure.’
For Reagan, on the cusp of launching his bid for President of
the United States and asking for Republican delegate votes in
Alabama and Mississippi, opposing the Briggs Initiative was a
breathtakingly courageous act of principle. I will always admire
and be inspired by Ronald Reagan’s unswerving commitment
to principle; whether standing up to an evil Soviet Empire, or
standing against antigay ballot initiatives.
We don’t know where Ronald Reagan, if he had all of his
faculties, would stand on the resolution before us today. He may
have been in support. But before you assert that he would be,
listen to what best-selling conservative author Dinesh D’Souza
writes in his biography of Reagan, Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary
Man Became an Extraordinary Leader, a biography highly praised
by Rush Limbaugh, Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley and
P.J. O’Roarke. D’Souza writes, ‘Reagan’s
views on homosexuality were not entirely compatible with those
of his evangelical Christian supporters or with those of the gay
rights community. Before he became President, he once confessed
his belief that homosexuality is a “tragic illness”…Yet,
as we might expect, Reagan knew lots of gays in Hollywood, and
he and his wife socialized with people who were avowedly homosexual.
Reagan did not support state-sponsored discrimination against
homosexuals as a group.’
Reagan Biographer Lou Cannon, who covered Reagan as a reporter
for the Washington Post and San Jose News for 36 years wrote in
his book Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power about Reagan’s
views on gay issues. Cannon, when referring to the later accounts
of gay couples, friends of Nancy’s that would spend the
night with their partners at the White House, wrote, ‘The
sentiment about Reagan’s tolerance is accurate – Reagan
would a decade later play a pivotal and courageous role in defeating
a ballot initiative that discriminated against homosexual teachers.’
Again, I stress that I have no idea what President Reagan would
do or say about this resolution before us today, if he could be
here with us. But I do know that the number of well-known and
highly regarded conservatives who oppose both state and federal
constitutional amendments to define marriage is growing rapidly.
Those already on the record opposing such amendments include:
George Will, William Safire, Former Republican Congressman Bob
Barr, Lyn Nofzinger who was President Reagan’s press secretary,
commentator Andrew Sullivan, David Horowitz, Republican Rep. Bob
Simmons, and a growing number of elected Republicans and conservative
writer and talk show hosts.
My friends, today, before us we have an important choice. We can
vote with the courage of our convictions, or we can vote out of
fear.
I urge my colleagues to reject scapegoating, political expediency
and hypocrisy. Please stand up for equal protection under the
law and for human equality by voting ‘No’ on this
proposed amendment. And may the venomous serpent of discrimination
and unequal treatment of people never again slither through the
doors of this chamber. Thank you.”
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