Constitution upheld - you can marry your brother ... but not your dog .. yet.

The Senate has rejected a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage Wednesday, delivering a stinging defeat to President Bush and other Republican zealots, homphobes and neo-con Zionists revelationistas head bangers who hoped the issue will rally GOP voters for the November elections.

The senators' vote was 49-48 to limit debate and bring the amendment to a yes-or-no decision. That was 18 short of the 67 needed, killing the measure in the Senate for this year.

The US constitution requires a 2/3rd vote in both houses of Congress to send a proposed amendment to the states for ratification. 58 % of Americans said in an ABC News poll this week that same-sex marriages should be illegal. Only 40 % said they support amending the Constitution to ban them. A majority said states should make their own laws on gay marriage.

Forty-five of the 50 states have acted to define traditional marriage in ways that would ban same-sex marriage — 19 with state constitutional amendments and 26 with statutes.

7 Republicans voted to kill the amendment. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Susan Collins of Maine, John McCain of Arizona, Olympia Snowe of Maine and John Sununu of New Hampshire.

"The Republican leadership is asking us to spend time writing bigotry into the Constitution," said Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, which legalized gay marriage in 2003 ... which is probably the smartest thing the drunk puffball, river swimmer has ever said.