No, I don't think it's hurting your positioning. There are other things that will have a bigger effect on your search engine rankings than that text.
Since it's in there without javascript, it's seen as text on the page. So, that would count as spiderable text that is included just like a paragraph of text would be included on the page. Depending on the keyword density and prominence, it may or may not be helping you--I haven't checked the average keyword densities for pages that you're competing with.
Also, I would check with other web browsers to see if this marquee shows up properly. If it doesn't work in some web browsers, it should be removed.
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