Senator Shaheen Pushes Democrats to Adopt Marriage Equality Plank

Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire is the first U.S. senator to join the Democrats: Say I Do campaign, which urges the party to include language for the freedom to marry in the platform to be ratified at its convention this September.

Freedom to Marry, which launched the campaign earlier this month, announced the support from Shaheen in a news release Tuesday morning. The organization is working to urge the Platform Drafting Committee to adopt language in the 2012 Party Platform that opposes measures on the federal and state levels to deny marriage rights for same-sex couples.

The proposed platform language reads, “The Democratic Party supports the full inclusion of all families in the life of our nation, with equal respect, responsibility, and protection under the law, including the freedom to marry. Government has no business putting barriers in the path of people seeking to care for their family members, particularly in challenging economic times. We support the Respect for Marriage Act and the overturning of the federal so-called Defense of Marriage Act, and oppose discriminatory constitutional amendments and other attempts to deny the freedom to marry to loving and committed same-sex couples.”

The first woman ever to be elected governor and a U.S. senator, Shaheen serves as co-chair of President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. She has opposed the effort in the Republican-controlled legislature of New Hampshire to overturn the state’s marriage equality law passed in 2009.

http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2012/02/28/Senator_Shaheen_Pushes_Democrats_to_Adopt_Marriage_Equality_Plank/