Tag: same-sex marriage

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Anti-Gay Activists Warn That Same-Sex Marriage Will Lead To “Criminalizing Christianity”

Steven Hotze speaks at Janet Porter’s “Restrain the Judges” press conference in front of the Supreme Court where they delivered “restraining orders” to the Supreme Court demanding that the justices not hear arguments on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans.

Via Right Wing Watch:

The activists, including Scott Lively, Peter LaBarbera and Bill Owens, also announced that they were filing a motion asking Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan to recuse themselves from the case because they, in Lively’s words, “deliberately officiated at so-called homosexual wedding ceremonies.”

Steven Hotze of Conservative Republicans of Texas, a Roy Moore acolyte who has been advocating for a bill in his state barring the use of funds to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples if the state’s marriage ban is struck down, declared that gay marriage is “not a marriage, it’s a mirage, because it’s counterfeit, it’s a lie, it’s untrue.”

A decision in favor of marriage equality, he warned, “would force individuals to have to condone, accept, even celebrate sexual immorality among certain elements of the population and teach it to the children.”

“It would criminalize Christianity,” he added. “The pastors would be forced to have to marry those of the same-sex.”

They are literally making lies up now. Bald-faced lies. Not one LGBT activist has ever said pastors should be forced to officiate a same-sex wedding. Nor has anyone raised the idea of “criminalizing Christianity.”

But they just keep lying and lying and lying.

Ignore them, please. Just be aware of this kind of negativity and hate exists.

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Sen. Marco Rubio: “There Is No Constitutional Right To Same-Sex Marriage”

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, currently running for the 2016 GOP nomination for president, to David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network this weekend:

“There is no federal constitutional right to same sex-marriage. It doesn’t exist.

“There is no federal constitutional right to same sex-marriage. There isn’t such a right.

“You would have to really have a ridiculous and absurd reading of the U.S. constitution to reach the conclusion that people have a right to marry someone of the same sex. There is no such constitutional right.

“Can a state decide to change their laws? Yes, but only through the political process, not through the court system and that’s what is happening now. The advocates of same-sex marriage refuse to go to the legislatures because they can’t win that debate, they don’t want to have a debate in society. They want courts to impose it on people and they are not even satisfied with that.

“They have now gone further. They want to stigmatize, they want to ostracize anyone who disagrees with them as haters.

“It’s very simple. This is not a policy against anyone. I believe, as do a significant percentage of Americans, that the institution of marriage, an institution that existed before government, that has existed before laws, that institution should remain in our laws recognized as the union of one man and one woman.”

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Freedom To Marry Makes It’s Closing Arguments For Marriage Equality

As the Supreme Court prepares to hear oral arguments on the freedom to marry on April 28, Freedom to Marry is running this ad nationally on TV and online showing that “It’s time. America is ready for the freedom to marry.”

The new ad will run in the Washington, D.C., market during the Sunday morning news shows: Meet the Press, This Week, CBS Sunday Morning, and Fox News Sunday.

The ad also will run in the D.C. market during 60 Minutes on Sunday evening, according to the group, and nationwide this week on cable news channels CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News.

For more information, visit www.scotusmarriage.org.

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Mat Staver: Christians Will Have ‘No Choice’ But To Disobey Supreme Court Ruling On Gay Marriage

The National Organization for Marriage’s hate march was held today in Washington, D.C., and as expected it was a sad, embarrassing failure for the virulently anti-gay group.

I’m not inclined to go into much detail about the event as it’s pretty much what you would imagine: just a few dozen haters cheering each other on pretending the rights of LGBTs to marry somehow infringes on their lives. Which, of course, they does not.

But I will share just this one clip from the hate speech that went on.

Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver stood before the crowd to say he would have “no choice” but to disobey such a “lawless” decision.

“As much as I’m an attorney and I respect the rule of law, I also respect the higher law. And when an earthly law collides with the higher law, we have no choice to obey the higher law.”

“Marriage is the union of a man and a woman,” he added. “As a policy matter, any other union says that God’s design is flawed. As a policy matter, any other union says that boys don’t need fathers and girls don’t need mothers.”

The “boys need fathers” and “girls need mothers” line is supposed to argue that marriage HAS to be between a man and a woman because “children.”

What Staver and the rest of his ilk never address is that if marriage is about children,  why do they only attack same-sex marriage? They never argue that infertile couples shouldn’t marry. Or that seniors who marry past child-bearing years shouldn’t adopt.

It’s only the gays.

The good news is this: Today was most probably the last Hate March NOM will ever hold as the Supreme Court will most probably rule on the issue of same-sex marriage by the end of June.

Watch Staver’s angry act below:

(via Right Wing Watch)

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Marriage Equality Can’t Wait

Heart-breaking video from the Liberty Education Forum shares the story of David, who lost Mike — his partner of more than 40 years — to cancer earlier this year.

The couple married in the hospital room shortly before Mike’s death, a union not legally recognized in their home state of Ohio.

David explains that if he could speak to the Supreme Court, he would: “…ask one favor of them, and that’s to allow me to be on [Mike’s] death certificate as his spouse or husband. I would bend a knee to them and, seriously, say make an exception: Let it be that we are together on that death certificate.”

While many argue that state-by-state rulings on marriage are sufficient, David’s story is a painful reminder that nationwide marriage equality can’t wait.

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Rep. Steve King Wants To Strip Out Article III of US Constitution

Iowa Congressman Steve King has filed legislation, the “Restrain the Judges on Marriage Act,” with the aim of stripping federal courts of the ability to interpret the Constitution in cases of marriage equality.

King’s bill would strip away Article III of the Constitution, which gives federal courts the jurisdiction to hear or decide any question pertaining to the interpretation of, or the validity under the Constitution of, any type of marriage, reports The Hill.

The bill would also prohibit federal funds from being used for any litigation in, or enforcement of any order or judgment by, any federal court.

“For too long, federal courts have overstepped their constitutionally limited duty to interpret the Constitution.” King said in a news release. “Rather, federal courts have perverted the Constitution to make law and create constitutional rights to things such as privacy, birth control, and abortion. These Unenumerated, so-called constitutionally-protected rights were not envisioned by our Founding Fathers.”

King said his bill would stop the courts from “destroying traditional marriage.”

I’m not sure, but I don’t think a bill in Congress would have the jurisdictional “weight” to “strip out” Article III of the Constitution.

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New England Journal Of Medicine Supports Same-Sex Marriage

The New England Journal of Medicine issues this statement today in support of same-sex marriage in advance of next week’s oral arguments at the Supreme Court:

Eleven years ago, Massachusetts became the first state in the country to give same-sex marriages full legal recognition.

Today, same-sex marriage is legal, through legislative or judicial action or by popular vote, in more than 35 states and the District of Columbia. It is recognized by the federal government. And polls consistently show that it is supported by a clear majority of Americans.

However, in Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan, and Tennessee, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of laws and constitutional amendments that define marriage as a union between a man and a woman only, denying recognition of same-sex marriage.

Given the conflicting lower-court rulings, the Supreme Court has taken the issue under consideration. The Court will hear oral arguments on April 28 and is expected to hand down its ruling by the end of the current session, in June.

We believe that the Court should resolve this conflict in favor of the full recognition of same-sex marriage throughout the United States.

[snip]

The Supreme Court should require the full recognition of same-sex marriage throughout this country. If the Court rules otherwise, whatever the legal logic, a clear injustice will result. And that injustice would damage the health and welfare of millions of Americans.

There’s much more at the link.

NEJM is the most widely read, cited, and influential general medical periodical in the world.

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Poll: Support For Same-Sex Marriage Hits Record High 61%

A new Washington  Post/ABC News poll shows support for same-sex marriage among Americans hitting record high 61% one week before the U. S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the issue.

By the numbers:

• Overall support for marriage equality stands at 61% with 35% opposed

• 61% of Americans oppose individual states deciding the issue of same-sex marriage

• Likewise, a super-majority – 62% – feel states should be required to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states

• 78% of Americans under 30 support same-sex marriage

• Among seniors 65 and older support has risen from 18% in 2005 to 46% today