This Tuesday the Pennsylvania Senate Judiciary Committee cast an historic vote to keep discrimination out of the State Constitution. In a bipartisan 8-6 vote, the committee voted to "table" the bill. Though through procedure the bill may be brought up again this session, the discriminatory and divisive bill is effectively dead.
The bill, sponsored by Senator John Eichelberger Jr. (R-30), would have amended the constitution to read, “Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid and recognized as a marriage in this commonwealth.”
The vote before a “packed hearing room” crossed political and regional boundaries as three Republicans joined five Democrats in a vote to table the bill. According to the Judiciary Committee Chairman Stewart Greenleaf--who voted against the motion to table--the bill was a “referendum on gay marriage” and “the measure would not be brought up again this session.”
While this marks the third time in four years that the issue of same-sex marriage has been taken up in the legislature it is the first time that proponents of equality won on a straight up-down vote. This also marks the first time that Sens. Mary Jo White (R-21) and Lisa Boscola (D-18) voted against a bill that would have led to a Constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
Though a state law passed in 1996 currently prevents same-sex marriages, those in favor of the resolution had expressed concern that a lawsuit might be able to overturn the law unless a ban was written into the constitution. Equality Pennsylvania’s Mason Lane said that there was “no legal case waiting to challenge the state law.”
The only current avenue of achieving marriage equality in Pennsylvania would be Senator Daylin Leach’s SB 935, which currently has only a single co-sponsor.
We’ll continue to keep you posted on news of marriage equality in Pennsylvania.
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