You have doubtless heard of how the House Republicans tried to move the “Marriage Protection Amendment” (HJR 102) out of committee. For those of you who did not, last Thursday the Republicans used parliamentary procedures in the House chambers to force a vote to get the resolution defining marriage as between a man and a woman out of its first committee reference. All they needed was a simple majority, but unfortunately they did not get it despite additional votes from four brave Democrats.

Instead of supporting the move, the Democratic leadership expressed outraged at the Republican’s attempt to get stop committee chairman’s stalling, calling it “pandering” and “grandstanding.”

Delegate Pino (D-Fayette), the resolution’s lead sponsor, angrily stood to fight against the Republican’s attempt to vote on his own resolution! He had sponsored it, he said, with the knowledge that it was not going to go anywhere. This confession is incredible. He used the legislative system to lead a bill he did not like to appease a group he does not agree with so that he could get their favor; obviously with the upcoming election in mind.

The Democrats are right. Someone is pandering, but it is not the Republicans.

House Majority Leader Rick Staton (D-Wyoming) also stood to express his displeasure. He accused the Republicans of being hypocritical, saying he did not see the Republicans dealing with the rising problem of divorce. Actually, the House Republicans sponsored H.B. 4358, providing that adultery be a bar to receiving alimony in divorce proceedings. In the Senate, the Republicans sponsored a bill that would provide a marriage license discount for applicants who complete an approved premarital counseling course.

Not supporting the Republican’s motion and allowing the Constitutional Revision chairman to continue hiding the resolution in committee leaves us to assume that the Democrats do not believe a marriage should only be the legal union between one man and one woman.

They have the right to their beliefs just as long as the voters know. Of course, that is exactly what the Democrats are afraid of.