Gay marriage has occupied the attention of much of the United States over the past several years, and currently holds an active, though declining, place on the public agenda.  Various federal legislators have sponsored and supported federal marriage amendments over the past several years, which provide an explicit heterosexual definition for marriage and disqualify alternative formulations.  Here I outline how the problem, policy, and political streams flowed together to bring this to the government agenda.  

Using the status of bills and the press coverage of particular topics, we can see that the Federal Marriage Amendment held a more significant position two years ago.  Searching LexisNexis for articles in major newspapers containing the words "Federal Marriage Amendment" for the past year turns up 23 articles.  Expanding the time frame to the past two year produces 248 articles, meaning there were more than nine times as many articles appearing in the prior year.  Similar results show up when searching Presidential and Vice-Presidential speeches.  This suggests that the federal marriage amendment featured far more prominently two years ago. 

Several focusing events raised awareness of gay marriage.  A few state supreme courts and local officials made the possibility of gay marriage real.  In 1993, 1999, and 2003, the Hawaii, Vermont, and Massachusetts supreme courts ruled that equal protection clauses in their constitutions required that the states allow for gay marriage.  Several local officials, most prominently mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco in 2004 brought attention to gay marriage by issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples.  

The increased awareness simultaneously changed two different conditions into problems for two distinct sets of people.  For some, the growing cultural acceptance of homosexuality had gone too far, and they wanted their governments to stop gay marriage.  For others, it demonstrated the possibility of receiving equal legal recognition for the commitments they made to members of the same sex and they wanted their governments to endorse gay marriage.  

The opposition to gay marriage has pursued several policy approaches.  Various states have proposed or passed amendments to their constitutions banning gay marriage.  The federal government instituted the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.  Two versions of the Federal Marriage Amendment have been proposed with slightly varying language.  Both define marriage as the union of a man and a woman.  The first amendment proposal declares that no state constitution or law may require granting "marital status and its legal incidents" to unmarried couples. The other version, introduced by Representative Musgrave similarly declares that neither federal nor state constitutions may require the conferring of the status or legal incidents to anything other than a man and a woman.  Interestingly, the traditional policy community, including the Brookings Institution and Cato Institute argue against these Amendments.

Recent political changes have advanced the cause, but do not reach the level necessary to pass a federal amendment.  Bush has been an active supporter of this legislative action, and the Republican majority in both houses of Congress would seem to favor this generally partisan issue.  However, passage of a constitutional amendment requires a two thirds majority in both houses, which the supporters have been unable to muster.  With the increasing support over time for gay marriage, particularly among younger members of society, it seems unlikely that the amendment will pass.  However parties may continue to use it for political advantage into the future.

not a strict pluralist view, more of a new institutionalist framework, hoping to promote values through govt action.