Right revives effort to amend Constitution to ban gay marriage

House conservatives will seek to reintroduce a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage following the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act on Wednesday.

Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) said he and other lawmakers would begin efforts to revive the Federal Marriage Amendment in the coming days.

{mosads}“A narrow radical majority of the court has, in my opinion, substituted their personal views for the constitutional decisions of the American voters and their elected representatives,” Huelskamp said at a conservative event sponsored by the Heritage Foundation.

The push to enact a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman gained traction around a decade ago with the support of former President George W. Bush. But with a considerable shift in public opinion toward support of gay marriage, the effort is unlikely to win anywhere close to the required majorities in Congress.

Huelskamp praised Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) for leading a legal defense of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, despite the loss in the Supreme Court.

At the same event, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) criticized the 5-4 court decision as “ideologically driven and legally inconsistent.”