Bush backs constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages

US President George W Bush yesterday backed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage — a move he said was needed to stop judges from changing the definition of the “most enduring human institution”.

“After more than two centuries of American jurisprudence and millennia of human experience, a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilisation,” the president said in urging Congress to approve such an amendment.

Marriage cannot be severed from its “cultural, religious and natural” roots, Mr Bush said. It was a statement sure to please his conservative backers.