Pennsylvania Marriage Amendment Defeated

Attempts to pass a resolution to amend the Pennsylvania constitution to define marriage as a union of one man and one woman was defeated in the senate judiciary committee on Tuesday by a vote of 8-6, with three Republicans suddenly crossing party lines at the eleventh hour.

Keystone Progress, a Pennsylvania LGBT rights group, reported on their blog yesterday,

"This is your victory. We had over 120,000 emails sent to senators, over 75,000 in the last 24 hours! In addition, our allies and friends generated thousands more phone calls, emails and letters.

We should celebrate, but we need to remain vigilant. It is unlikely, but it is possible that the bill could come to life again. Especially if they think we aren't going to act again."

Philadelphia Gay News reported yesterday that although similar bills have been defeated in the past, the Judiciary Committee did approve the measure two years ago by a vote of 10-4, but it was eventually defeated.

PGN reported yesterday: Sen. John Eichelberger (R-30th Dist.) introduced the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment earlier this year after first pledging to spearhead such a measure last spring.

“We knew this was coming in the last couple of days because some of the people had switched their votes,” Eichelberger said, noting that even though the table motion could allow for the bill to be resurrected before the end of this session, that’s not going to happen. “The people who voted for this were voting to kill it. That’s the realistic picture. Why they did it, I don’t know, because they are some of the people who were in support of this effort in the past.”

As I reported yesterday, blogger John Morgan of the Pennsylvania Progressive threatened to out closeted gay legislators who voted in favor of the bill. You could speculate on whether or not this was a factor, but it is interesting to note that all it took was for three politicians to suddenly change their votes for the bill to be defeated. Could the threat of being outed have caused these three to out themselves? I don't think we've heard the last of this.

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