The Marriage Protection Amendment: R.I.P., 6-6-6
 

May 26 2006
Counterbias.com
MEL SEESHOLTZ
 

The Marriage Protection Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is scheduled for a vote in the Senate on June 6, 2006. That’s 6-6-6, an appropriate date indeed.

Forget the disaster in Iraq. Forget the enormous – and still growing – deficit. Forget that the federal government is spying on private citizens. Forget the Abramoff scandal (that involved prominent figures in the Christian Right). Forget that public schools are failing and sex education is governed by political ideology. Forget that 43 million Americans have no health insurance. Forget the homeless. Forget the poor. Forget working Americans. Forget that every program of the “values voters’” president has failed miserably.

All energies, monies and political lobbying must once again be focused on preventing a small percentage of 2-4 percent of the population from entering into the state-sanctioned civil union called “marriage.”

The Christian Right is again playing the homophobia card as they crank up new efforts to write discrimination and religious dogma into the U.S. Constitution. The call has gone out:

Volunteers Needed to Protect Marriage

A grassroots effort is under way to tell U.S. senators that America wants marriage constitutionally protected.

 

A coalition of pro-family groups is looking for volunteers to tell senators that America overwhelmingly supports an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

The article was written by Wendy Cloyd, assistant editor of Focus on the Family’s CitizenLink newsletter: “If you’d like to volunteer to help get the federal Marriage Protection Amendment passed by Congress, visit this Web site and click on the button that says ‘We Need Your Help – Volunteer Form.’” The web site referenced is that of The Arlington Group, but Ms. Cloyd’s article concluded with this parenthetical: “(Paid for by Focus on the Family Action.)”

Focus on the Family Action is the “official” political arm of James Dobson’s syndicate. Michael Crowley, senior editor at the New Republic, called Dobson “The religious right’s new kingmaker.” In “James Dobson: Focusing on Himself,” Brian Elroy McKinley used the “kingmaker’s” own words to show how Dobson has set “himself up as the moral authority of the nation.”

Dr. Dobson made his anti-gay irrationality abundantly clear in his 2004 book Marriage Under Fire in which he offered eleven “reasons” to oppose same-sex civil marriage. According to Dobson, if gays and lesbian are allowed to legally marry, “The culture war will be over, and the world may soon become ‘as it was in the days of Noah.’” How’s that for fanatical?

Dobson’s other ten “reasons” were just as ludicrous and debunked in “Out of Focus on the Family: A Response to Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage,” Popular Culture Review, 16:1 (February 2005), 45-75.

Despite calling themselves “mainstream,” these high-profile fanatics are not. From The New York Times:

An interfaith coalition of clergy members and lay leaders announced a petition drive on Monday aimed at blocking a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. …

 

About 35 representatives of the coalition, Clergy for Fairness, said at a news conference that more than 1,600 clergy members had signed an online petition against the amendment. The group’s Web site has postcards that lay people can print out and send to members of Congress. …

 

Among those represented by the coalition are clergy members and groups affiliated with mainline Protestant churches; the Interfaith Alliance; Jewish groups including the Anti-Defamation League, the Union for Reform Judaism and the National Council of Jewish Women; Sikh groups; and the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. …

 

“When one group is singled out for discrimination, it’s not long before other groups will be singled out, too,” said Rabbi Craig Axler of Congregation Beth Or in Maple Glen, Pa. “It’s the first time we see the Constitution in danger of enshrining discrimination against one party, one class, and to remain silent as a Jew is unconscionable.”

The same was reported elsewhere even more bluntly:

Clergy opposed to a constitutional ban on gay marriage say social conservatives who support the proposed federal marriage amendment are bigots.

 

Several dozen Christian and Jewish leaders held a news conference on Capitol Hill, where they're lobbying senators to reject the amendment when it comes up for a vote about two weeks from now.

 

The measure defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman is supported by Roman Catholic bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention.

 

But Rev. Paul Simmons said the amendment “has the smell and feel of Salem,” comparing its supporters to the colonial Puritans who burned witches.

 

Rev. Kenneth Samuel, a Georgia pastor and NAACP officer, said many black pastors oppose gay marriage because they’ve been “bought out” with faith-based initiative money. [links added]

Rev. Simmons, a Baptist minister and University of Louisville professor, also made another astute observation: “There is a broad and profound opposition to the proposed amendment among religious people. … The thunder of the Religious Right should be resisted as misguided and prejudicial.”

And that thundering has been loud. Don Wildmon, head of the American Family Association which launches a boycott against any company that promotes civil equality for gays and lesbians, issued one of his patented frantic “Call to Action”:

U.S. Senate To Vote On Homosexual Marriage June 6TH

The most important vote in the Senate this year! The future of our children is at stake.

 

On June 6th the U.S. Senate will vote on the constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

 

Time is short! It is critical that you contact your senators and ask them to vote for the Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA).

 

Once homosexual marriage is legal, our religious liberties will be stripped away. …

The claim that same-sex civil marriages will strip away “religious liberties” is as phony and self-serving as these groups calling themselves “pro-family” when they ardently work against American families headed by gays and lesbians. Churches will still be able to set their own dogma-based rules for performing or not performing marriages, as the Catholic Church and all other denomination now do in relation to opposite-sex marriages.

The badly misnamed “Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission” of the Southern Baptist Convention is calling on member churches to observe “Marriage Protection Sunday” on June 4, 2006:

“Supporters of traditional marriage need to bombard their senators’ offices with e-mails and phone calls,” ERLC President Richard Land told Baptist Press, “and preachers across America need to let the pulpit ring forth in clear and no uncertain terms on Marriage Protection Sunday, June 4, and help create a groundswell of support for this amendment.” …

 

On its website, the ERLC includes suggestions for the activities churches might consider for June 4:

 

– Information on “same-sex marriage” could be distributed.

 

– Pastors might preach on the issue.

 

– Those in attendance could be encouraged to call or e-mail their senators June 5 or 6 to urge them to vote for the MPA.

 

The ERLC collaborated with Focus on the Family Action in April to urge Southern Baptist pastors to promote support for the amendment.

“Collaborated with Focus on the Family Action.” What a surprise.

But that “thunder” should be heard and welcomed, as a death-knell. Rev. John Shelby Spong explained why:

No prejudice is ever debated that isn’t already dying. The reason we debate a prejudice is because it isn’t holding anymore. We saw black people as being less than human. But we began to see them as human beings. It took a while to work that out. We used to define women as dependent, weak, emotionally hysterical, incapable of bearing responsibilities. Women began to challenge that in the 20th century. The same thing is happening with gay people.

A Gallup poll released on May 22, 2006 showed a marked change in Americans’ attitude toward same-sex marriage: “only half favor a constitutional amendment to bar it,” which is significantly down from just two years ago. It seems America’s conscience is finally stirring.

The Senate debate will, no doubt, be filled with sanctimonious ranting from the likes of Rick Santorum, whose political future looks as bright as the Marriage Protection Amendment’s. And, no doubt, the Christian Right will continue their anti-gay campaigns, but they and their political sycophants are losing. You can hear the thunderous death-knell now:

“Is that a very Christ-like attitude to have?”

 

Brent Childers was startled by the question his 62-year-old mother asked three years ago in response to his venomous dinner-table declaration that “You don't want queers taking over society.”

 

Childers, a conservative Christian living in North Carolina, was forced to reflect upon his uncharitableness, self-righteousness and acid tone. His mom’s words, he says, were like “an alarm going off. It was like, ‘Hold on. Let’s think about this a bit.’”

 

Some months later, Childers remarked to another conservative Christian, “I don’t think a homosexual can practice that lifestyle and be a Christian.” The woman immediately disagreed and told him about a friend who was both gay and devoutly Christian.

 

Nudged for the second time, Childers seriously began to wonder how he could reconcile his attitude that those of us who are gay are “wicked, unclean people with no chance of eternal life” with the loving underpinnings of his Christian faith. His questions propelled him along a spiritual journey that took him away from prejudice. …
 

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