Senate GOP speeds vote on marriage amendment

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republican leaders said yesterday they plan to put a federal ban on gay marriage to a vote by mid-July -- accelerating their schedule for the proposed constitutional amendment and potentially forcing Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and other Democrats to cast a controversial ballot right before the Democratic National Convention.

Senate majority leader Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, said he intends to hold the vote the week of July 11, two weeks before the Boston convention begins. Such timing, Frist said, means senators "won't be able to waffle back and forth" on the issue.

"Now is the time to have that debate," Frist said.

Kerry, told of the scheduling plans as he left a meeting at the Democratic National Committee yesterday, offered little comment.

"Pretty political," he said.

Whether Kerry would leave the campaign trail and return to Washington to vote against the measure is uncertain, his advisers said. Kerry has said he opposes gay marriage, preferring civil unions, but would not approve amending the Constitution to impose a nationwide ban that would rob states of the right to set their own standards. After Frist's remarks, Kerry's senior advisers accused Frist of political gamesmanship on behalf of President Bush.

"The US Constitution is one of our nation's most enduring and sacred symbols and shouldn't be politicized by the president or his surrogates," said Kerry's campaign manager, Mary Beth Cahill. "The only thing this plan will do is continue the president's efforts to further divide an already-divided nation. Like everything else with George Bush, it's all about politics."

At the same time, it is unclear whether Republican leaders will secure the 60 votes needed to bring the measure to the floor of the Senate, let alone for it to pass the Senate overall. For an amendment to the Constitution to pass, it requires a two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate, followed by ratification in three-quarters of the 50 states. Although there is a similar version of the proposed amendment pending in the House, and House Republican leaders have said they would like to address the measure before the Nov. 2 election, there has not been any recent sign of movement.

Democrats say they are increasingly convinced the issue is not as politically perilous as they had feared when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court first cleared a path for homosexuals to get married in the state. Despite widespread opposition to gay marriage among more moderate voters, there is equal queasiness about amending the Constitution for only the 28th time in history to ban it, according to most polls. In a CBS poll last month, nearly three-quarters of people surveyed, 70 percent, indicated they did not think gay marriage should play a role in this year's presidential race, even though a significant number of people, 60 percent, indicated they opposed gay marriage itself and would support a ban eventually.

For now, some Democrats see an immediate vote on gay marriage in the Senate as a political opportunity -- to remind voters of the business Republican leaders have left undone, and to highlight Republicans' social values.

"This really hasn't given them the political juice theyre looking for, but on the other hand, they can't disappoint their base," said Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Newton.

"In fact, frankly, I think it's helped Kerry because it has . . . differentiated Kerry from Bush on the issue," Frank continued. "It's a case where the Republicans went too far on the issue. It allowed Kerry to take a more moderate position and still retain the allegiance of gay and lesbian voters."

According to Republican advisers, there is another potential motivation for ensuring the gay marriage question comes to a vote: dividing African-American turnout in the South, where Republicans believe they can chip away at the traditionally strong Democratic black electorate by emphasizing certain socially conservative and religious issues. Earlier this week, the Southern Baptist Convention announced its support for the federal marriage definition. Republican strategists "claim it is a huge issue," one senior Republican adviser in the Senate said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The goal is to "turn off black voters in the South, and push them toward Republicans," which really counts as two votes, the adviser said -- one vote lost by the Democrats, another gained by Republicans.

But according to Frank, Republicans are less interested in targeting Kerry at the presidential level than stirring up trouble for Senate minority leader Tom Daschle, Democrat of South Dakota, who is up for reelection this year and has seen a tidal wave of Republican support swell behind his challenger, John Thune. Other Democrats believe Kerry is the real focus of the effort, while others still believe the Republican fervor to prove their commitment to a gay marriage ban is a sign that they are facing disgruntlement from the party's right wing and are now trying to prove their loyalty.

Kerry's attendance has become a political issue. Following Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey's demand that Kerry vacate his seat while he is campaigning for the presidency, Frist said yesterday he agreed that Kerry should follow the "Bob Dole standard" and step aside. Dole resigned from the Senate in 1996 to challenge President Clinton.

On Tuesday, responding to Healey's call for his resignation, Kerry said he was "serving the citizens of Massachusetts, and the country, in the proposals I've laid out to provide health care to all Americans, which George Bush has not."

Yesterday, Kerry's spokeswoman, Stephanie Cutter, added: "Does Senator Frist believe that the president is leading the nation well enough when he spends 40 percent of his time on vacation?"

Bush supports the proposed constitutional ban, and the subject is important to his voting base.

The Family Research Council issued a statement yesterday welcoming the scheduled vote. "We look forward to seeing which senators will step up to the plate and take a stand in defense of marriage next month," said the statement by the group's president, Tony Perkins.

Glen Johnson of the Globe Staff contributed to this report from Washington. Anne E. Kornblut can be reached at akornblut@globe.com.