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Pennsylvania State Rep Wastes No Time Pushing Marriage Bigotry Amendment

12/30/10-by Sue Kerr
Western Pennsylvania State Representative Darryl Metcalfe (R-Cranberry Township) has lost no time using his new role as incoming Chair of the State Government to issue an anti-marriage equality smackdown on his colleagues in the State House.  From the Pittsburgh City Paper Slag Heap blog:

As its name suggests, Metcalfe’s committee handles legislation that pertains to state government and its powers. Constitutional amendments, campaign-finance and other election reforms … all such mess as that.

And wouldn’t you know it? That’s also the committee that deals with issues like immigration reform, a pet cause for Metcalfe.

The committee also deals with Constitutional Amendments, as in “Marriage Protection.”  Metcalfe has already circulated a memo seeking support for his plan to reintroduce this measure in 2011.  He claims to use language that passed the State House in 2006, but was defeated in the Senate due to tricky political maneuvers.  I am sad to say that far too many Western Pennsylvania Democrats caved to pressure on this issue back in 2006.  Since then keeping the measure in committee has proven useful.  That’s not going to be an option so much with Metcalfe at the helm.

I spoke with Sue Frietsche from the Women’s Law Project about the potential for this amendment to gain traction.  Without actually seeing the proposed language, she can only speculate:

It's more radical than alternative versions because of the provision prohibiting 

recognition of any "identical or substantially equivalent" legal union.  So what 

is a substantially equivalent legal union?  Would it prohibit domestic partnership 

benefits, second-parent adoptions, joint checking accounts, reciprocal powers of

attorney, or what?  Because it's a proposed constitutional amendment, it speaks 

in broad generalities, not the specifics of a statute or regulation.  This version

failed last time because no one had any idea how it would affect all kinds of 

Pennsylvanians: would it harm heterosexual unmarried couples who had some 

equivalent legal structures in place to protect their interests short of marriage? 

Do the Republicans have the political will to pull this off or will it simply build would-be-Lt.-Governor Metcalfe’s conservatve credibility to put forth the effort?   If Frietsche is right, this will galvanize more than the LGBTQ community.  The impact could be far reaching into the lives of unmarried, partnered, heterosexual senior citizens to unmarried adoptive parents and beyond.

Whether those groups can coalesce with progressive allies to prevent this travesty of an Amendment is yet to be seen.