Ending a Democratic filibuster lasting more than 36 hours, the Missouri Senate has given preliminary approval to a controversial bill that shields religious groups and individuals who have religious objections to same-sex weddings.
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The amendment must be voted on again in the Senate next week before passing to the lower house, where Republicans have a majority, and then to the state’s voters, Hieger said.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, praised lawmakers for their efforts.
The GOP-led Missouri Senate has given initial approval to a proposal to amend the Missouri Constitution to provide further religious protections for those objecting to gay marriage.
But critics say Onder’s measure would create a legally dubious double-standard because it singles out one type of person – gay couples – for discrimination. Onder said the Missouri measure is more narrowly crafted than some that have faced a backlash – for example, a proposal in IN that was criticized by businesses.
In less serious moments of the talk-a-thon, the senators have riffed on Tyler Perry movies, shoes and Jews who eat pork, according to The New York Times.
Debate on the measure began around 4:20 p.m. Monday and stretched without a break into Tuesday.
“Laws that promote discrimination are anti-democratic, harm Missouri families, and – as we’ve learned in IN – are bad for our economy”, said ACLU of Missouri Executive Director Jeffrey Mittman.
The Democrats also had a lot to say about the bill itself.
But gay rights groups said Missouri’s bill targeted same-sex couples by preempting the inevitable discrimination lawsuits that could arise from denial of services to those couples. Per the rules of the legislature, the bill will have to make it through another vote in the Senate before it gets sent down to the House. We should not demean our State’s constitution by scrawling a right to discriminate into it. Among the largest of those is the St. Louis-based agricultural firm Monsanto, which called on other businesses to join it “in speaking out against discrimination here in our home state”.
The 39-hour filibuster is the longest in recent history.
After nearly 40 hours, a heroic filibuster led by Missouri Senate Democrats came to an end Wednesday.
He told his colleagues in the Senate that the bill “protects churches, pastors, religious organizations in a very well-defined class of individuals from being penalized, targeted, persecuted on the basis of their religious beliefs”.
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The resolution addresses no real problem in the state as no federal or state law requires religious organizations or clergy to sanction or perform same-sex marriages.
