The first lady and the vice president's daughter speak up for Gay Weddings

First lady, vice president's daughter talk about gay marriage WASHINGTON The first lady and the vice president's daughter are among those weighing in on the issue of a constitutional amendment on gay marriage. Laura Bush told "Fox News Sunday" that she thinks the American people want a debate on the issue. But, she said, it requires "a lot of sensitivity" and shouldn't be used "as a campaign tool." The proposed amendment would define marriage as the union between a man and a woman. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist tells C-N-N's "Late Edition" that the Senate will begin debating the matter early next month. President Bush supports the amendment, but Vice President Cheney doesn't. Cheney's daughter, Mary, is a lesbian and has been speaking out against the marriage amendment as she promotes her new book. On Fox today, Mary Cheney called the amendment "fundamentally wrong." She says it would amount to "writing discrimination into the Constitution." Mary Cheney wrote that she almost quit working on the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004 because of Bush's position on gay marriage. Asked Sunday about reports that White House political adviser Karl Rove and other Republicans want to use the issue to mobilize conservatives for the midterm election, she said she hoped "no one would think about trying to amend the Constitution as a political strategy." "I certainly don't know what conversations have gone on between Karl and anybody up on the Hill," she said on Fox. "But you know, what I can say is look, amending the Constitution with this amendment, this piece of legislation, is a bad piece of legislation. It is writing discrimination into the Constitution, and, as I say, it is fundamentally wrong." But Frist said he would defend the amendment even to Dick Cheney. "I basically say, Mr. Vice President, right now marriage is under attack in this country," Frist said on CNN. "And we've seen activist judges overturning state by state law, where state legislatures have passed laws defining marriage between a man and a woman, and that's being overturned by a handful of activist judges around the country. And that is why we need an amendment to come to the floor of the United States Senate to define marriage as that union between one man and one woman." Men On Mobile

Tags: gay_weddings laura_bush homophobia george_w_bush equal_rights gay_rights