Bush Expected to Endorse FMA

Over to you, Andy.

HINGTON, Feb. 4 ? President Bush condemned the Massachusetts court ruling on gay marriage on Wednesday, and conservative groups said the White House had informed them that the president would soon endorse efforts to pass an amendment to the United States Constitution defining marriage to be between a man and a woman.

Mr. Bush, in a statement issued by the White House on Wednesday night, stopped just short of explicitly backing a change to the Constitution, but left little doubt that he is heading in that direction.

The ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court "is deeply troubling," Mr. Bush said.

"Marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman," he said. "If activist judges insist on re-defining marriage by court order, the only alternative will be the constitutional process. We must do what is legally necessary to defend the sanctity of marriage."

Conservative activists who have been in touch with the White House on the issue said they now had no doubt that Mr. Bush had made up his mind to back their call for a constitutional amendment.

"After conversations in recent days with the appropriate people, I have absolutely no doubt the president will in fact take this step in order to ensure that marriage in the United States remains between a man and a woman," said Gary Bauer, the conservative activist who was a Republican presidential candidate in 2000.

Mr. Bauer, who spent the last two days in meetings with conservative groups to develop a strategy for pushing an amendment, said he expected Mr. Bush to make an announcement "sooner rather than later."

Glenn T. Stanton, a policy analyst for the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, said its founder, Dr. James C. Dobson, heard in a conversation on Tuesday night with the president's senior adviser, Karl Rove, that Mr. Bush had decided to back an amendment.

"We heard last night that President Bush is going to come out very clearly advocating the passage of a federal marriage amendment and he is looking for the opportunity to do that," Mr. Stanton said on Wednesday. "It is not a question of if but when."