Wisconsin Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin
has said she believes the GOP is divided on the issue of gay rights.
The openly gay Democrat made her
remarks during a
panel discussion hosted by eQualityGiving.org.
Baldwin said the fact that House
Speaker John Boehner decided against taking a floor vote on whether
to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which bans federal
recognition of the marriages of gay and lesbian couples, now that
President Barack Obama won't, demonstrates that the GOP is divided on
the issue.
“They had two paths they could take:
They could bring a resolution to the floor directing the general
counsel of the House to defend the constitutionality of DOMA, or they
could do what they did do which was convene the five top leaders of
the House – the three Republicans and two Democrats – and vote to
direct the general counsel to defend the constitutionality of DOMA.”
Massachusetts Representative Barney
Frank “pointed out that the significance of their choosing the
latter course of action was that they didn't want their members on
record because it would probably have shown that there was more
support for repealing DOMA today than there was the last time a roll
call vote was taken about this, but also probably this happened
because they were hearing more and more from members of the
Republican party who don't want to take these socially divisive votes
anymore.”
“I think there's less likelihood
today that we will see damaging anti-equality legislation making it
through the House than there was the last time Republicans had
control of the House,” she added.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll
released Friday showed a slim majority (53%) of Americans support gay
marriage. Opponents
quickly labeled the poll biased.
Democrats
on Wednesday introduced bills that would repeal DOMA.