John Cornyn: “First, Madam President, my remarks pertain to the issue of marriage. Of course, I have been here this morning while the…”

“First, Madam President, my remarks pertain to the issue of marriage. Of course, I have been here this morning while the distinguished Senator, the current occupant of the chair, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, comprehensively laid out the reasons why this is an important debate. I have also heard Senator Allard from Colorado and Senator Smith from Oregon speak about this issue. I would like to associate myself with each of those comments. But I want to explain briefly my own reasons why I believe this is such an important issue. First, I would like to respond to the comments made by the ranking member, the Senator from Vermont, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. This is something that the chairman of the Judiciary Committee has already touched on, but I think it is so important. We keep hearing the same argument over and over again, so we really need to hit this issue hard. But I think it is so important. It is amazing to me to hear the Senator from Vermont and others say we have no time to talk about the issue of marriage and the American family because there are more important issues we ought to be debating. The truth is, while there have been Members on this side of the aisle talking about this issue all morning long, there has been virtually dead silence on the other side of the aisle.”