Most interesting part of Huelskamp's proposed ban on gay marriage? Who's not cosponsoring it this time around.
http://t.co/...
— @jbendery
The last time the House voted on a ban against marriage equality
was 2006. It failed with 236 votes in favor and 187 against (it needed two-thirds for passage, because it was a constitutional amendment).
Flash forward to Friday, when Republican Congressman Tim Huelskamp of Kansas introduced the same constitutional amendment. There hasn't been a vote on it yet, so we can't compare vote totals, but we can look at how many cosponsors the amendment has, and the difference is amazing: In 2006, the anti-equality amendment got 134 cosponsors; in 2013, it has only gotten 28. That's an 80 percent drop, and it's not just because we have a different Congress now than we did seven years ago.
In fact, it turns out that 67 members of Congress who cosponsored the 2006 amendment are still in the House. Of those 67 members, just 14 have signed onto the new measure. 53 of them—nearly 80 percent—have abandoned ship. Odds are that some of those 53 congressmen (most of whom are Republicans) will add their names to the new amendment in the coming days, but even so, it's a vivid illustration of the dramatic shift in politics in just seven years.