THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 11, 1996 TAG: 9609110449
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF AND WIRE REPORT
LENGTH: 114 lines
Calling the vote ``a test of character,'' Virginia Sen. Charles S. Robb stood with a small minority of senators Tuesday in opposition to a bill denying federal recognition of same-sex marriages.
Robb's vote against the Defense of Marriage Act followed a ringing denunciation of the bill on the Senate floor. Delivered in a hushed chamber before an audience that included his wife, Robb's speech had a personal, emotional tone that contrasted sharply with the Virginian's usual subdued treatment of legislation.
The 85-14 Senate vote ensures that the bill will become law. The House passed it in July, and President Clinton has said he will sign it.
Robb, a Democrat, acknowledged that opposing the measure would be politically risky in conservative Virginia. ``It's not easy to take on this issue,'' he said, but ``I would not be true to my conscience or my oath of office if I failed to speak out.''
``A basic respect for human dignity - which gives us the strength to reject racial, gender and religious intolerance - dictates that in America we also eliminate discrimination against homosexuals,''Robb said. ``I believe that ending this discrimination is the last frontier in the ultimate fight for civil and human rights.''
He likened the bill to laws in Virginia and 15 other states that once banned interracial marriages. Those laws were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967.
``Today we know that the moral discomfort - even revulsion - that citizens then felt about legalizing interracial marriages did not give them the right to discriminate 30 years ago,'' Robb said, ``just as discomfort over sexual orientation does not give us the right to discriminate against a class of Americans today.
``If we don't stand here against this bill,'' he declared, ``we will stand on the wrong side of history.''
In an interview after the speech, Robb traced the strength of his feelings on the issue to the racial discrimination he witnessed growing up in Northern Virginia.
His school bus used to roll past stops in a predominantly black neighborhood that was closer to his school than his own home, the senator said. Because of their color, the black students waiting at those stops had to catch another bus and ride to a school elsewhere.
He saw the same discrimination against gays at work years later in the Marine Corps, Robb said, where promotions sometimes were denied to soldiers who were suspected of being homosexual.
A Robb aide said the senator and his staff worked for several weeks on the speech. Its importance to Robb was underscored by the presence of his wife Lynda, eldest daughter of the late President Lyndon B. Johnson, in the Senate gallery as he delivered it.
Robb, who rarely refers in public to his relationship to Johnson, recalled his father-in-law in the speech's concluding paragraph. Johnson was fond of saying that ``it's not hard to do what's right, it's hard to know what's right,'' Robb said. In the case of the marriage act, ``we know it is right to abolish discrimination,'' he said.
Virginia's other senator, Republican John Warner, voted for the Defense of Marriage Act.
A spokesman for Mark Warner, a Democrat running against John Warner, said that the candidate also would have supported the measure.
``Mark would have voted for it, but he believes that some of its advocates are using it as a wedge to divide,'' said Eric Hoffman.
This is not the first time the normally cautious Robb has spoken out for gay rights. A former Marine who was a company commander in Vietnam, he has been a leader in the effort to allow homosexuals to serve in the military.
Robb has advocated going beyond the Clinton administration's ``don't ask, don't tell'' policy to give gay servicemen and women a way to acknowledge their sexual preference.
The Defense of Marriage Act defines marriage in federal law as a legal union between one man and one woman. During debate on the Senate floor, supporters called the bill a common-sense response to a Hawaii lawsuit that could result in that state becoming the first to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.
``The traditional family has stood for 5,000 years,'' Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, said. ``Are we so wise today that we are ready to reject 5,000 years of recorded history? I don't think so.''
Gay marriage ``flies in the face of the thousands of years of experience about the social stability that traditional marriage has afforded civilization,'' said Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.
The bill does not bar any state from legalizing gay marriages. But other states would be freed from having to recognize them as lawful. Homosexual couples would remain ineligible for spousal benefits under the Social Security and Medicare programs or for any other federal benefit now reserved for married couples.
In a separate vote, the Senate rejected a bill outlawing job discrimination against gays.
The anti-discrimination bill failed on a 49-50 vote. It would have banned employers from using sexual orientation as a basis for hiring, firing, promotion or compensation.
Conservatives hailed both votes as validation of their views.
``This is a string of major victories for the pro-family movement that demonstrates on the threshold of a major presidential election that the political debate is moving in our direction,'' said Ralph Reed, leader of the Chesapeake-based Christian Coalition.
Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, one of the country's largest gay political groups, predicted that gays eventually will win the right to marry despite the vote.
``We are appalled over the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act,'' Birch said. ``Denying lesbian and gay Americans equal marriage rights will not stand over the long term in this country. The Human Rights Campaign vows to continue to this fight legislatively and in our country's courts of law and public opinion.''
MEMO: PILOT ONLINE: The text of Robb's speech is on the News page at
http://www.pilotonline.com/
This story was compiled from reports by staff writers Bill Sizemore,
David Poole and Dale Eisman, and by The Associated Press. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
SEN. CHARLES S. ROBB, D.-Va., who opposed a bill denying federal
recognition of same-sex marriages
KEYWORDS: HOMOSEXUALS SAME-SEX MARRIAGE by CNB