Chris Dodd: “if I can, I wanted to spend a couple of minutes on a matter that this body voted on this morning. I was unavoidably…”

“if I can, I wanted to spend a couple of minutes on a matter that this body voted on this morning. I was unavoidably absent this morning at a family matter in Rhode Island, so I was not here for the vote. But I wanted to just take a minute or so here to say to my colleagues and to others that had I been present this morning, I would have voted no on the motion for cloture, and had cloture been invoked, I would have voted against the amendment. I am speaking of the proposed constitutional amendment that would have banned same-sex marriages. Like many of my colleagues who have spoken on this matter, I believe this is a matter that belongs in the States. This is not a matter that ought to be a part of the Constitution. I have been here for a number of years in the Senate, and over the history of this great country of ours there have been over 11,000--more than 11,000 proposed constitutional amendments. The Congress and the Nation in its wisdom over the years have adopted only a handful of those proposals--27 is the number of amendments that have been adopted since the formation of our country. The reason for that, of course, is the Founders insisted that it be not an easy matter to amend the Constitution and that we ought to amend the Constitution to correct problems in the governmental structures or to expand the category of individual rights such as the first 10 amendments achieved in our Nation.…”