Don Nickles: “I am pleased today to bring before the Senate the Defense of Marriage Act, along with Senator Byrd and I think 30…”

“I am pleased today to bring before the Senate the Defense of Marriage Act, along with Senator Byrd and I think 30 cosponsors. We have introduced a measure which I believe is simple, it is limited in scope, and it is based on common sense. It shares broad bipartisan support, including that of President Clinton. The bill does but two things: First, the bill restates the current and long-established understanding that marriage means a legal union between one man and one women as husband and wife. The act also defines spouse as a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife. These definitions apply only to Federal law. Second, the bill says that no State shall be required to give effect to a second State's acts, records, or judgments respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of that second State. There is nothing earth-shattering here. No breaking of new ground. No setting of new precedents. Indeed, there provisions simply reaffirm what is already known, what is already in place.”