Senate will block US gay marriages

US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist vowed on Thursday that the Senate would block any effort to legalize same-sex marriage, a day after Massachusetts' top court ruled the state must allow homosexuals to wed.

"I want to be very clear. We reject intolerance, we reject hatred. We must treat all our fellow citizens with civility and kindness," Frist, a Tennessee Republican, said in speech on the Senate floor. "But marriage should not be redefined by the courts and we in this body can't let it, we won't let it."

Massachusetts' Supreme Judicial Court, which last year struck down a state ban on same-sex marriages, on Wednesday said lawmakers must allow marriage for gay couples because anything less would make them "second-class" citizens.

That apparently closed the door on civil unions - a parallel form of legal partnership for gays and lesbians - that some states have tried to use to bridge deep political, religious and social divides over the hotly-contested issue.

"We must protect, preserve and strengthen the institution of marriage against activist judges," Frist said. "If that means we must amend the constitution, as seems increasingly likely, then we will do just that."

Congress in 1996 passed a law, the Defense of Marriage Act, denying federal recognition of same-sex marriages and giving US states the right to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages licensed in other states. But opponents of same-sex marriage are now also pressing for a constitutional amendment declaring that marriage is an institution reserved for one man and one woman.

President George W. Bush has never quite committed himself to supporting such an amendment, but White House officials said he was actively considering throwing his full support behind the idea in light of the Massachusetts decision.