Kerry's full statement on the FMA - Good reading.

[Mass]

This is what they should put on his website.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, for the past 3 days, the Senate has been bogged down debating a constitutional amendment on gay marriage.

You might ask yourself, why now? What's the constitutional crisis that needed to be addressed this week? Did the Republican leader bring this legislation to the floor in response to a marriage crisis in the United States?

States, which have had the responsibility of setting marriage laws for two centuries, have taken action on gay marriage as they've seen fit. No crisis there.

No, this amendment is front and center in the Senate in response to a political crisis: a crisis in the Republican Party.

What is most outrageous to Americans is the cost of this debate in opportunities lost to address very clear and present crises in our country. Debating the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage displaces Americans' real priorities--dealing with gas prices and our dangerous dependence on foreign oil, providing health care to the 45 million uninsured, lowering health care costs, advancing stem cell research, securing our ports, bringing our troops home from Iraq, and ensuring our returning veterans have the support they need.

Why the sudden call from so-called conservatives to take the power to regulate marriage away from the States? The Federal Government does not even have the jurisdiction to regulate marriage. Since this country was founded, States have had the authority to regulate marriage and other family-related matters. Currently 49 States limit marriage licenses to heterosexual couples, and 18 States have adopted State constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriages. For over 200 years, this balance of power has worked.

The Federal Government is not in the business of issuing marriage licenses or dissolving marriages. Congress does not dictate the age at which people can get married or the grounds for seeking an annulment or divorce. I do not believe the Federal Government even has the power to legislate such things.

Should this amendment pass, it would be the first time that the Constitution is amended to deny rights to a particular group of Americans, singling them out for discrimination. The discrimination would not be limited to actual marriages either. The wording of the amendment could limit rights afforded under civil unions. When similar State amendments were adopted in Ohio, Michigan, and Utah, domestic violence laws and health care plans for couples--gay and straight--were taken away.

In the past, we have amended our Constitution to protect groups of citizens suffering from discrimination, to ensure that everyone enjoys the same basic civil rights. I strongly oppose any effort by the Senate to change the course of history in such a dramatic way, and I particularly resent that this is being done for raw political purposes.

In 2004 when this amendment was brought up, only 48 Senators supported it. The outcome of today's vote is no surprise. Instead of spending 3 days debating a doomed constitutional amendment, we should have spent these 3 days guaranteeing all American children health care, addressing record-breaking gas prices, stimulating the economy after a month of sluggish job growth, or working out a real plan for dealing with the mess in Iraq. We should have been doing the work of the American people, but instead we debated a constitutional amendment that never had any hope of passing.

Mr. President, I hope that in the future the Senate can get its priorities straight, and I am confident that if it doesn't Americans will find their own way of holding the system accountable.