Sponsor of Federal Marriage Amendment on Senate Debate

This is a partial transcript of "Special Report with Brit Hume," July 13, 2004 that has been edited for clarity.

Watch "Special Report With Brit Hume" weeknights at 6 p.m. ET

BRIAN WILSON, GUEST-HOST: The debate over a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage appears to be going nowhere fast in the United States Senate. The debate has been vigorous.

But Fox News correspondent James Rosen reports the amendment is expected to be blocked in what's known as a procedural vote tomorrow.

Joining us for me on this issue is the sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment, Colorado Republican Senator Wayne Allard.

Senator, thanks you for joining here. We greatly appreciate it.

SEN. WAYNE ALLARD, R-COLO.: Thank, you. It's good to be with you.

WILSON: You knew going in you didn't have 67 votes?

ALLARD: Well, we knew that it would be a struggle for us to get a cloture to even move forward to require 60. We hope that eventually over the years, as we move this amendment forward to be able to get the Constitution amended.

WILSON: Now, let me make you that everybody understands the math here.

ALLARD: Sure.

WILSON: It takes 67 votes to pass a constitutional amendment in the Senate. You need 60 votes to get it off dead center.

ALLARD: That's right to break a filibuster.

WILSON: That's called breaking -- you know, invoking cloture. And you didn't have that.

ALLARD: That's correct.

WILSON: So, then what was the purpose of doing this? If you weren't going to get the 60, why go there?

ALLARD: Well, you need to start at some point in time. And if I had my preference, I would much rather have gone on May 17. That's the day that Massachusetts beginning to issue same-sex marriage licenses, and began to have an impact on its neighboring states.

WILSON: Will you have 50 votes?

ALLARD: I think we will probably have 50 votes. We're going to have some Democrats; we're going to have some Republicans. It's a bipartisan issue. We certainly have bipartisan support out by the American people. You know, the Black-Americans, the Hispanics, as well as Asian families all agree that we need to maintain the idea of a traditional family. It's real popular with them. And plus, the support of the Republicans throughout the country, I think, we've got a good movement going.

WILSON: So you get 50 votes to break closure. That doesn't -- that's not a vote on the merits of the constitutional amendment.

ALLARD: No, it's just a vote to move forward and allow my amendment to be voted on up or down, and that is what the vote will be about tomorrow.

WILSON: But Senator Frist has said, the majority leader says, this is really kind of a test vote to see where people's votes are. Is it accurate to say that?

ALLARD: I think it is, because everybody knows in the Senate that if we are able to win the vote tomorrow, that means that we move forward, under the Senate rules to begin to vote on a marriage amendment on the Senate floor.

WILSON: Let me throw up the actual language of the Federal Marriage Amendment. We have it here on the screen. "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither the Constitution nor the constitution of any state shall be construed to require that marriage, or the legal incidents thereof, be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman."

Some have suggested what you need here maybe is a more simple piece of language that would say marriage is between a man and a woman, period.

ALLARD: Well, you know, if we have an amendment on the floor to my amendment, it may very well be an amendment that would just limit it to the first sentence. There's a lot of debate among constitutional scholars, which is the appropriate way to go.

We put a lot of thought in this amendment, talking with constitutional scholars. The finishing touches were actually put on by the staff in the Judiciary Committee before we brought it to the floor. This has had a lot of thought and consideration. I'm comfortable with it.

But right now we're trying to figure out what it is that we need to have in order to get a consensus. We're in a consensus-building process, and what it is that we can get the votes that we need in order to amend the Constitution.

WILSON: Now, the Democrats are suggesting this is all about politics. This is so that you can come up with those 30-second ads for people who are running for re-election. What say you?

ALLARD: Well, we started having hearings on this way last fall. We've been considering it over 10 years. We've had seven committee hearings. The thing that's driven this is the activism in the courts this year, and particularly, what's happened in Massachusetts. And now people of Massachusetts was facing the deadline on May 17, which then said that the state of Massachusetts had to allow same-sex couples to get a marriage license.

WILSON: If you don't get a constitutional amendment, what's your greatest fear?

ALLARD: Well, my greatest fear is that the United States Supreme Court will eventually rule on this. And they will rule that we cannot -- no longer have the definition of a traditional marriage as being a union between a man and a woman. And as a result of that, that will disrupt thousands of years of family tradition. And I think it will have a fundamental impact on this country. And the fact that when we look at other foreign countries that have made their marriage definition more lenient, they've seen a tremendous increase in the number of people that are born out of wedlock.

WILSON: And to those who say this is anti-gay?

ALLARD: Well, this is not anti-gay. What this is about is that we respect gays to choose whatever lifestyle they want. But we certainly don't want to give them the right to change the definition of marriage that affects all the other families in America.

WILSON: So let's say you get 50 votes when this finally gets down to a closures vote tomorrow on the Senate floor. What happens next? I mean obviously that kind of ends it for a while. Doesn't it?

ALLARD: Well, if we get the cloture votes, then we'll move forward.

WILSON: But you probably won't, right?

ALLARD: We don't think we'll have the 60 votes, but the Democrats are being very coy on this. And so we'll have to wait and see. And that's the reason we have votes, to get people on record.

WILSON: When you say they're being coy, what do you suspect?

ALLARD: They didn't enter into the debate at the start. There's a lot of people have not expressed their views on the floor, so we don't have any idea where their position may be. And so, once we get this vote tomorrow, then we'll have a little better idea where everybody feels. The Democrats have been a little reluctant to come forward on the Senate floor and express their views.

WILSON: Is this election year politics?

ALLARD: No, this is all about what's happening in the courts and our need to respond to it. And the sooner we respond to that, the better. Unfortunately, it's on an election year. And any time you bring up an issue in an election year, you are subject to those kinds of charges.

WILSON: Senator Allard, thanks for joining us.

ALLARD: Thank you.

Copy: Content and Programming Copyright 2004 Fox News Network, L.L.C. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 2004 eMediaMillWorks, Inc. (f/k/a Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.), which takes sole responsibility for the accuracy of the transcription. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No license is granted to the user of this material except for the user's personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon Fox News Network, L.L.C. and eMediaMillWorks, Inc.'s copyrights or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.