Same-sex marriage on rocks with voters

[Soldier4Christ]

Same-sex marriage
on rocks with voters
20 out of 20 times, Americans choose
to protect institution from changes


Yesterday's stunning decision by Washington's Supreme Court upholding traditional marriage is not the only setback dogging same-sex marriage advocates.

In fact, 20 out of the 20 times it has come before voters, Americans have chosen to protect by constitutional amendment the idea of limiting marriage to one man and one woman.

So this year as it's brought before voters in another six – or eight – states, what do opponents plan to do to get their first single?

Obfuscate.

"The best that they (traditional marriage opponents) can do is confuse the issue," States Issues Analyst Mona Passignano, of the Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family Action, told WorldNetDaily in an exclusive look-ahead at this fall's election season.

"What they're running up against is that people just want traditional marriage protected," she said.

"We have six states that will have marriage amendments on their ballot (in 2006)," Passignano said, identifying them as Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Two more, Arizona and Colorado, still have yet to reach either deadlines for turning in petition signatures or decisions for whether enough signatures have been turned in. Arizona's marriage supporters turned in 300,000 names, for a requirement of 184,000, but they still are being verified. In Colorado, the deadline to turn in names is Aug. 7, and 68,000 verified names are needed, she said.

"The atmosphere (around the issues) right now is actually positive," she said. "But you can expect that to change in October." Then, the campaigning will get confusing.

Colorado's potential battle already is typical of what she expects.

There probably will be four ballot initiatives on the fall Colorado ballot addressing marriage or civil unions and the like. One would think that would be confusing, and Passignano said that's the plan.

"The campaign in Colorado already is to confuse the voters. The more confusion, the better the chance (for same-sex marriage being endorsed)," she said. "It's not exactly a new campaign, it's exactly the strategy that unfolded in Texas last year."

During that battle, same-sex marriage supporters actually "tried to get people to vote against the marriage amendment by pretending they were from the attorney general's office and telling people they were going to nullify actual marriages with their vote," Passignano said. Senior citizens, especially, were targeted.

She said she took calls in her office at Focus Action from Texans who would hesitate. "I think I voted the wrong way," they would tell her. "Yes, you did," she told them.

The salvation of the Texas amendment came from Christian pastors, she said.

"What's going to be the key is church participation," she said. "The IRS has said pastors have the right to talk about that, despite what we commonly hear, because it is a nonpartisan ballot issue. Pastors can talk about it all they want.

"Just because you're a Christian doesn't mean you checked your rights at the door," she said.

Focus Action is a cultural action organization that is separate from Focus on the Family, the Christian broadcasting, publishing and ministry powerhouse. It was set up for Christians to have a platform for informing and rallying about moral issues.

Baptist Press earlier had cited a homosexual publication's report about a multi-point plan devised by the Democratic National Committee to combat the marriage protection plans.

Damien LaVera, a spokesman for the DNC told Baptist Press the committee opposes Republican efforts to use the issue to get voters to ballot boxes. But he didn't confirm or deny the homosexual publication's report about a plan that calls for labeling such initiatives "divisive" and training operatives in all 50 states how to campaign against them.

That report also said the plan included working with a homosexual advocacy group and campaign organizations in each state fighting marriage protection plans.

During 2005, Texas and Kansas voters approved marriage protection amendments, and in the sweep of the 2004 vote, 13 states took the same action, including voters in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Utah, Michigan, Ohio and Oregon who did so on the same night. Five states had done so in earlier elections and another two dozen states have taken the same action, but by statute, not constitutional amendment.

Representatives are especially tenacious in pursuing this particular issue, too. In Wisconsin state lawmakers went through the process a second time after first passing a Defense of Marriage law in 2003, only to see Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle veto it. The second time around, for this year's election, they pursued the constitutional amendment process, which does not require a governor's signature.

State lawmakers in Washington also battled back to overturn a veto by Gov. Gary Locke in their pursuit of their 1998 Defense of Marriage Act, which limits marriages to couples of one man and one woman.

That battle was crowned with victory this week when the state's Supreme Court affirmed its constitutionality. The court noted that there may be homosexual weddings at some point in the future, but it will be because people have brought it about, not because of a judicial opinion.

The underlying conclusion of the Washington state court was that the Legislature had a legitimate interest in protecting traditional marriage and that action did not violate equal protection and other laws.

Even in Massachusetts, where the state's highest court created a right to homosexual marriage to become the only state ever to recognize such situations, supporters have collected 170,000 signatures and court approval and hope to have a marriage amendment on the ballot in 2008.

One defeat for the traditional marriage supporters came in June in the Senate, which failed to endorse a change in the U.S. Constitution limiting marriage to one man and one woman. But that wasn't even on an up-or-down vote; only a procedural move.

It is "inconceivable" the U.S. Senate refused to even vote, said Jan LaRue, chief counsel of Concerned Women for America.

"If the founders could have imagined a time when same-sex 'marriage' would be forced upon the people by judicial fiat, they would have established a uniform rule of marriage in the Constitution just as they did for naturalization and bankruptcy," she said.

However, just in the past few weeks, other courts in Georgia, Nebraska, Tennessee and New York have endorsed the legality of protecting marriage.

[Soldier4Christ]

Canadian Professor Fined for Stating Opposition to Homosexuality


(AgapePress) - A Canadian professor has been fined two weeks pay by a Nova Scotia university for telling a student that homosexuality is an unnatural lifestyle. But despite the disciplinary measures imposed against the educator, he says he refuses to succumb to the administration's "intimidation."

Cape Breton University (CBU) fined veteran history professor David Mullan $2,100 in response to two human rights complaints filed by a homosexual student who coordinates the campus' Sexual Diversity Office. The student took umbrage at two letters the professor had written to his former Anglican bishop two years ago.

The letters posted on Mullan's website criticized the bishop and the Anglican Church of Canada for their acceptance of homosexual "marriage." CBU student Shane Wallis was offended by the content of the professor's letters and lodged a formal human rights complaint with the university.

After the first complaint was lodged, Mullan responded to an unsolicited e-mail from Wallis, responding to the charge of a human rights offense and stating that "homosexuality is a repudiation of nature and the apotheosis of unbridled desire." The student then filed another complaint, and CBU officials decided to punish the professor.

Mullan claims CBU has "declared war on free speech." University officials "are trying to send a message about their seriousness concerning this harassment and discrimination policy," he says, "and I do believe the administration wants to use me 'pour encourages les autres' (to encourage the others) to toe the line. Well, it's an outrage, and I am grieving it."

The history scholar suggests that the same pro-homosexual attitude behind the university's actions seems to be at work throughout his country. He says giving protected status to homosexuals is a "national obsession" in Canada.

"I think a lot of the human rights material and also the substance of many cases in this country, that substance does seem to revolve around the 'homosex' business," Mullan observes. "And there have been many cases across the country," he adds, "both in institutional and provincial human rights tribunals, and also a number of cases going to provincial Supreme Courts and even to the Supreme Court of Canada."

Despite being punished by Cape Breton University officials, Professor Mullan says he does not intend to stop speaking his mind. The school's Faculty Association, which is recognized as a union, is filing a grievance on his behalf.

[Soldier4Christ]

Dems Have a Plan to Counter Growing Success of State Marriage Initiatives


(AgapePress) - The Democratic Party has apparently decided to take a different tack in its efforts to bring legalized homosexual "marriage" to every state in the country. Determined to provide more coordinated support to advocates of same-sex unions, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) recently announced it has adopted a five-point plan for fighting state ballot measures defining marriage as between one man and one woman.

In 2004, the Democratic Party made it clear it stood opposite President George W. Bush on defending traditional marriage. "We repudiate President Bush's divisive effort to politicize the Constitution by pursuing a 'Federal Marriage Amendment,'" it says on page 38 of The 2004 Democratic National Platform for America. In the statement prior to that, the party says such an issue should be left to the states. "In our country, marriage has been defined at the state level for 200 years, and we believe it should continue to be defined there," it says.

Since that platform was written, the number of states installing the traditional definition of marriage as part of their constitution has grown to 20 -- and as many as seven more are set to consider similar initiatives this fall. Sensing that its "leave it to the states" approach needs some tweaking, the DNC has apparently decided to add more structure to the state-level efforts to legalize same-sex marriage.

For example, the DNC recently contributed $10,000 to opponents of the pro-marriage "Protect Marriage Illinois" initiative in the state of Illinois. A spokesman for the pro-homosexual group National Stonewall Democrats -- in an interview with the Washington Blade, a pro-homosexual publication -- confirmed that contribution, adding that homosexual activists in the state were "very pleased" with the DNC's help.

In the same article, DNC spokesman Danien LaVera spelled out the Committee's five-point plan for fighting state ballot measures that would ban same-sex marriage:

   1. Label "anti-gay" ballot measures as "divisive" ploys by the Republicans and others to deflect voter attention from other important issues, including "the Bush administration's failed policies."
   2. Begin a state "party-building" operation that includes specific training for state party operatives in all 50 states on how to campaign against ballot measures banning homosexual marriage.
   3. Work closely with the National Stonewall Democrats to "develop strategy and talking points" to combat state measures defining marriage as being between one man and one woman.
   4. Work cooperatively with homosexual organizations fighting ballot measures in each state where they surface, providing campaign advice, expertise, and logistical and financial support.
   5. Empower and organize GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender] communities around the country through the help of Brian Bond, the DNC's new "gay outreach organizer."

According to LaVera, a number of these actions are already in place. The state party-building effort (Point #2), for example, was begun by DNC chairman Howard Dean, who is on record saying that the July 7 pro-marriage ruling by the New York Supreme Court "relies on outdated and bigoted notions about families." LaVera also tells the Blade that the DNC's involvement in the Illinois marriage initiative shows how "highly successful" cooperation between his organization and pro-homosexual groups can be.

The DNC will not be alone in its efforts to combat marriage protection initiatives at the state level. The Blade quotes spokespersons from two high-profile homosexual rights groups -- the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force -- who say the groups are committing several million dollars toward ballot measure fights. Their goal, says a NGLTF official, is to gain legalization of same-sex marriage in ten states over the next ten years -- "either through legislative or judicial action."

As of late, neither avenue has proven successful for advocates of same-sex marriage. Their most recent setback came out of Washington State, where on Wednesday the state Supreme Court ruled the Defense of Marriage Act passed by voters in 1998 is constitutional -- and said that in a democracy, marriage should be defined by elected governmental representatives, not by judges.

Currently, Massachusetts is the only state in which homosexual marriage is legal; the state of Vermont recognizes "civil unions." States considering constitutional marriage amendments in November include Arizona (pending certification of petition signatures), Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

[Shammu]

Arizona's marriage supporters turned in 300,000 names, for a requirement of 184,000, but they still are being verified.

The work on verifing them so far has taken over a month so far.   My name is on the petition.