Neil Abercrombie: “Mr. Chairman, as long as Hawaii has this incredible power to be able to mandate whatever it decides on the rest of the…”

“Mr. Chairman, as long as Hawaii has this incredible power to be able to mandate whatever it decides on the rest of the Nation, I was thinking that perhaps we could mandate the Hawaii health care system for the other 49 States, so that we would not have to worry about national health care, and we would mandate the weather, if we could, but I think that is even beyond our powers. There is a serious note to be engaged in here, because the amendment offered by the gentleman from Massachusetts has to do with the definition. If Members are in fact intending to define marriage nationally in the terms that have been related in the debate so far, they have indicated it is an institution in which we have a secular, sacred duty to maintain the union between a man and a woman. If that is the case, and Members really intend to do this, and we are sincere about covering this as a national definition of marriage, then why do Members not have a national divorce clause in here as well, forbidding it? Where are the criminal penalties associated with adultery? I have heard a continuous drumbeat from some Members here about this union of a man and a woman. If that is the case, I presume, then, Members are going to forbid divorce and most certainly impose penalties with adultery. But I do not see it in here.”