  According to what urlLink Andrew Sullivan says in his blog today, it looks like Senator Rick Santorum will try and get a vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment in the Senate just before the Democratic Convention.
That's not surprising, after all the Defense of Marriage Act was also introduced in the summer before a presidential election in 1996. It's all about strategy. A way to gather up social conservative votes and energy before elections. But can they get the necessary 67 votes? Lets hope not. However, in my opinion, this changes not only the entire perspective, but the topic as well.
Santorum and friends are no longer really focusing on gay marriage but rather changing the constitution. I am not for such an amendment. I have no problem with same-sex marriage. I think it is only fair that gay people receive the same legal benefits that straight people do. This is a topic that for some reason fascinates me. I've done numerous papers on this topic for school, so excuse me as I rant for a second. What scares me about this amendment is how anti-American it is. In more then two hundred years of American history, the United States Constitution has been amended only 17 times since the Bill of Rights, and in each instance (except for Alcohol Prohibition, which was repealed), it was to extend rights and liberties to the American people, not restrict them.
For example, the Constitution was amended to end slavery, and later to guarantee women the right to vote. However, this new proposal is based on discrimination because it would ensure that same-sex couples are denied the equal protections that marriage brings to American families. For the first time, everybodys rights are being violated because never before has an amendment granted the courts the right to make vast, sweeping changes in the law to reform society. The mere suggestion that the government has the right to dictate such a social innovation should outrage all Americans on the basic principle that this country's government is founded on a liberal ideology. Marriage is a basic human right and an individual personal choice. "The right of the individual to marry within his sex is covered by the same right of privacy that protects the individual's right to marry outside his race, to take birth control, or to procure an abortion.
It goes to the heart of our right to make fundamental decisions regarding our individual lives ... Accordingly, it is a paradigmatic freedom that ought to be, and hence is, protected by the Fourteenth Amendment" (West). The fact of the matter is, gays are asking Americans to recognize their relationships as kinship bonds, and there is no good reason why they shouldn't be so recognized.
I believe with all my heart in freedom of religion, separation of church and state, and equality of opportunity for all humans. It is preposterous to me that people oppose gay marriage because it threatens, mocks, or does something to the "sanctity" of marriage. Yeah, like any marriage in Las Vegas can be considered sacred. The truth is, marriage exists because society finds it to be a valuable institution. It is a relationship based on love; so therefore, it can not possibly be limited to only heterosexuals. Unfortunately, those who oppose gay marriage do so with vehemence. It's not simply that they see it as an abomination, but rather that they regard it as perhaps the greatest moral and social evil to occur since the legalization of abortion.
Well, I don't mind telling you that sometimes most Americans are just wrong. 
