Pro-Family Public Hails Passage of Kansas Marriage Amendment
by Jenni Parker
April 6, 2005
(AgapePress) - Kansans voted overwhelmingly yesterday (April 5) to amend their state constitution with a ban on same-sex marriage and civil unions. The newly adopted measure reaffirms Kansas' long-standing policy of only recognizing unions between a man and a woman, exclusively, as marriage.
The Kansas Marriage Amendment passed in 104 of the state's 105 counties, including many traditional Democrat strongholds. In Wichita, voters approved the amendment by a margin of 91 percent. And, as one Bott Radio Network report noted, voter turnout was even more astounding than the statewide 70%-29% margin of victory for the pro-traditional marriage measure.
Associated Press reports that critics of the Kansas legislation are already predicting that it will spawn legal challenges. According to National Gay and Lesbian Task Force executive director Matt Foreman, the marriage amendment can be expected to generate lawsuits in Kansas courts as homosexuals and unmarried heterosexuals encounter problems. He believes the new law raises myriad questions -- such as, for instance, what impact it will have on custody agreements, living wills, and powers of attorney.
However, Rev. Terry Fox, senior pastor of Wichita's Immanuel Baptist Church and a leading proponent of the amendment, believes the marriage protection measure will withstand scrutiny and hold up against its opponents' legal attacks since the majority of Kansans have firmly established traditional marriage as the will of the people.
Fox is quoted by AP as commenting that he and other amendment advocates have long felt that "if Kansas were given an opportunity to vote, they would vote strongly to protect marriage and defend marriage in the way it has traditionally been defined."
But Judy Smith, state director of Concerned Women for America of Kansas, acknowledges that this pro-family victory is the result of a long and arduous fight. "This battle has spanned two legislative sessions and has taken the combined efforts of legislators, family groups, pastors and the people to prevail against a formidable foe threatening to undermine the wall of protection around our children and our future," she says.
"Many more battles are ahead," Smith adds, "but the stronghold of marriage is a safe refuge for our families, much as the forts scattered across Kansas in territorial days offered a safe haven for weary travelers looking for new homes. God has done a mighty work in protecting the institution of marriage in Kansas; now it is up to us to strengthen that institution; to make it a stronghold that will be a safe haven for our future."
[Photo compliments of Concerned Women for America]
Bob Knight
Bob Knight, director of CWA's Culture and Family Institute, believes the Kansas vote reflects a growing awareness among Americans about the objectives of homosexual activism. "They are waking up to the fact that gay marriage is not about tolerance," he asserts, "but about mandating businesses to support homosexuality, and schools to teach children that there is no longer any right or wrong sexual relationship and that marriage itself is meaningless."
Knight says CFI has been encouraged to see "pastors, especially African American pastors, drawing a firm distinction between real civil rights and the radical homosexual agenda." He contends that many pro-family Americans feel freer, as a result, to support traditional marriage and to ignore name-calling from homosexual activists and their liberal supporters.
Same-Sex Marriage Finds Support in Liberal-Dominated Areas
Meanwhile, however, the California chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is supporting the "Religious Freedom and California Civil Marriage Protection Act," a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage in that state. The endorsement marks the first time the venerated civil rights group has officially thrown its influence behind this hot-button issue -- one that has proven divisive within the black community in America.
While the California chapter's support for same-sex marriage is consistent with the national NAACP's generally liberal leanings, some black leaders very vocally oppose attempts by homosexual activists to equate their agenda with the struggle for racial equality. Rev. Walter Fauntroy, a veteran of the civil rights movement who planned Martin Luther King, Jr.'s march on Washington in the 1960s, is now an active advocate for the biblical and traditional definition of marriage.
Fauntroy, a former congressman who is currently involved in a pro-family effort called Alliance for Marriage, says as a Christian he does not endorse or condone homosexual activity, and considers it "the essence of sin." He says he adamantly opposes efforts by the homosexual community to redefine what marriage is and notes, "The best sermon that can be preached to our children is the instructive example of a loving mother and father committed to one another, and to their duty to rear their children."
But California NAACP president Alice Huffman contends that, in her state and places like it, activists cannot possibly work for civil rights if they do not work for homosexual rights as well. "You either believe in the rights of everyone or you are in the wrong business," she says.
Members of the California State Conference of the NAACP voted to support the pending pro-civil union legislation at their convention last fall but did not publicly announce its position until this week, in advance of the bill's first legislative hearing.
And elsewhere in "blue America," Connecticut lawmakers announced Tuesday that they believe they have enough votes to pass a bill that would make that New England commonwealth the second state in the U.S. to recognize civil unions between same-sex couples, and the first to do so without intervention from the courts.
If the bill passes, Connecticut would join Vermont, which sanctioned homosexual civil unions in 2000, and Massachusetts, which legalized same-sex marriage in May of last year, as the only states recognizing the validity of same-sex marriages or marriage-like unions thus far.
But despite the advance of homosexual activist causes in some regions, pro-family advocates are confident that support for traditional marriage is growing all over America. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released last week reported that 68 percent of those surveyed oppose the legalization of same-sex marriage, and a majority now support a federal constitutional marriage amendment.
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