Defining moments

Politics | Efforts to protect marriage continue to gain steam in the states | Edward E. Plowman

National GOP leaders didn't include marriage on their list of priorities for 2006, and President Bush didn't mention it in his State of the Union address last week. But opponents of same-sex marriage are making headway at the state level in their efforts to introduce a "defining moment" in laws that govern marriage.

This year, five more states—Alabama, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Virginia—are scheduled to vote on constitutional amendments that define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. They are expected to pass handily.

Those states would join 19 others that already have enshrined some form of the definition in their constitutions. Votes are pending in at least seven additional states, and voter-initiative campaigns are underway in still other states to get an amendment on the ballot.