Home
|
Contact Us
|
NOM BLOG
Home » April, 2011

Monthly Archives: April 2011

Urgent Marriage Alert: NY to Vote on Same-Sex Marriage Bill

April 13, 2011 – 4:41 pm

The New York State Legislature is expected to vote on a same–sex marriage bill soon. Please take action today urging your Senator and Assemblyman to stand for marriage.

Urge Your Senator & Assemblyman to Support Marriage Today!

Today the legislature begins a 2–week vacation, returning to Albany on May 2nd. Reports out of Albany are indicating that the legislature will vote on same–sex marriage shortly after they return.

That gives us two weeks to contact legislators in defense of marriage! Please join us today by sending an email to your state senator and assemblyman.

Two years ago, your phone calls and emails helped block same–sex marriage in New York, as even the New York Times acknowledged that key legislators voting against the same–sex marriage bill did so because of “overwhelming opposition to same–sex marriage among their constituents.” The same thing happened in New Jersey, and earlier this year, in Maryland and Rhode Island.

The message is clear. When the people stand up, same–sex marriage advocates have to back down. Despite carefully crafted PR campaigns, gay marriage advocates simply cannot muster the votes when legislators start hearing from their constituents.

We can do it again, but only if you do two things today:

  1. Click here to send an email to your state senator and assemblyman today. Or click here to look up their phone number. Never underestimate the power of your phone calls or emails, especially over these next two weeks while they are at home in their districts.
  2. Forward this message to at least 5 friends today. Or share this email via Facebook and Twitter. We need thousands of New Yorkers contacting their legislators over these next two weeks. Please help get the word out!

Together we can send a powerful message to our elected officials. Please join us today!

By Brian Brown | Posted in Same Sex Marriage | Comments (20)

NOM Responds to News Judge Walker Violated Judicial Rules, Released Video in Defiance of Supreme Court

April 13, 2011 – 4:23 pm

“What more evidence do we need that Judge Walker is a rogue judge with little regard for ordinary judicial process and fair play?" - Brian Brown, President

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Prop 8 proponents today filed a motion in response to Judge Vaughn Walker’s illegal decision to release part of the videotapes of expert witnesses’ testimony in the Prop 8 trial. In response, Brian Brown, President of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), released the following statement:

“By releasing the videotape on the eve of leaving the judicial bench, Judge Walker violated a judicial ethic, a clear promise he made to the witnesses, and defied the Supreme Court itself. What more evidence do we need that we have on our hands a rogue judge with little regard for ordinary judicial process and fair play?” said Brian Brown, NOM’s President.

“Allegations of prejudice and the appearance of bias on the part of Judge Walker are becoming increasingly hard to ignore, given this reckless disregard of normal judicial rules of behavior,” added Brown.

Key excerpts from the Motion:

On February 18, 2011, Judge Walker delivered a speech at the University of Arizona in which he played a portion of the video recording of the cross- examination of one of Proponents’ expert witnesses in the trial of this case. The speech was video taped by C-SPAN, and it was subsequently broadcast on C- SPAN several times beginning on March 22 ... The speech is available for viewing on C-SPAN’s website.

By publicly displaying the video recording of a portion of the trial testimony, Judge Walker (1) violated his own order placing the video recording of the trial under seal; (2) ignored the clear terms of the district court’s Local Rule 77-1-3, which prohibits the broadcast or other transmission of trial proceedings beyond “the confines of the courthouse”; (3) contravened the longstanding policies of the Judicial Conference of the United States and the Judicial Council of this Court prohibiting public broadcast of trial proceedings; and (4) defied the United States Supreme Court’s prior decision in this case ruling that an earlier attempt by then- Chief Judge Walker to publicly broadcast the trial proceedings “complied neither with existing rules or policies nor the required procedures for amending them.”

The Motion can be read in its entirety here.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Press Releases, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (15)

Prop 8 Supporters Go After Judge Walker's Ilegal Release of Videotape

April 13, 2011 – 2:57 pm

Supporters of Proposition 8 in California have filed a motion in response to Judge Walker's decision to show video recordings of the Prop 8 trial testimony which since have become public and widely disseminated.

UPDATE: "NOM RESPONDS TO NEWS JUDGE VAUGHN WALKER BLATANTLY VIOLATED JUDICIAL RULES, RELEASED VIDEO IN DEFIANCE OF U.S. SUPREME COURT"

A key excerpt from the Motion:

On February 18, 2011, Judge Walker delivered a speech at the University of Arizona in which he played a portion of the video recording of the cross- examination of one of Proponents’ expert witnesses in the trial of this case. The speech was video taped by C-SPAN, and it was subsequently broadcast on C- SPAN several times beginning on March 22...

By publicly displaying the video recording of a portion of the trial testimony, Judge Walker (1) violated his own order placing the video recording of the trial under seal; (2) ignored the clear terms of the district court’s Local Rule 77-3, which prohibits the broadcast or other transmission of trial proceedings beyond “the confines of the courthouse”; (3) contravened the longstanding policies of the Judicial Conference of the United States and the Judicial Council of this Court prohibiting public broadcast of trial proceedings; and (4) defied the United States Supreme Court’s prior decision in this case ruling that an earlier attempt by then- Chief Judge Walker to publicly broadcast the trial proceedings “complied neither with existing rules or policies nor the required procedures for amending them.”

Here is is the complete text:

Motion to Order Return of Video Recording

By NOM Staff | Posted in California, Prop 8, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (10)

Chuck Colson and Timothy George on Catholics and Evangelicals Working Together for Religious Liberty

April 13, 2011 – 2:02 pm

Chuck Colson and Timothy George - two primary figures, along with NOM Founding Chairman Dr. Robert George - behind the Manhattan Declaration (which now has almost half a million signatures) write about the "improbably alliance" between Catholics, Evangelicals and other people of faith regarding issues of religious liberty:

The most recent meeting of Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) witnessed not just another theological discussion, but the birth of an alliance that only two decades ago would have seemed improbable. Here were Catholic and evangelical theologians seeking common ground on religious liberty, an issue that has caused frequent strife between the two groups.

Now, we are standing together to defend the religious liberty of all believers, which is under assault around the world and in the U.S. Consider the Proposition 8 case, the proposed ban on gay marriage in California. In striking down the referendum, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker wrote that Christian beliefs "harm gays and lesbians." Just months later, tech trendsetter Apple picked up the same refrain in removing a Manhattan Declaration app from its iTunes store.

If Christian teaching is degraded in this way, either in the courts or in corporate culture, Christians, as well as Muslims and Jews with similar views on this subject, could soon be charged with "hate speech" for simply stating what their religious traditions have held for millennia. (Christianity Today)

By NOM Staff | Posted in Marriage, Religious Liberty | Comments (5)

RI Minority Leader Lays Down Gauntlet to Speaker Fox: Let the House Vote!

April 13, 2011 – 12:29 pm

Speaker Gordon Fox, who promised to hustle a gay marriage bill through the House in February, is now dragging his heels and not permitting the House to vote on the bill.

RI House Minority Leader Robert Watson, who opposes gay marriage, in a dramatic exchange yesterday, called Fox out on this point, arguing that the House should vote and then get on with the budget.

Why would Fox hold up the bill?  Only one reason: he doesn't have the votes.

"I will agree to vote that bill out of committee as an ex-officio member," Watson shouted as his microphone was cut off at Fox's request. "Once and for all, Mr. Speaker, we should get our focus on the budget."

... After the session ended, Watson approached Fox, who looked at him and asked, "What was that?" before exiting the chamber.

Rep. Arthur Handy, who introduced this year's gay marriage proposal, was standing nearby and remarked to Fox: "You know, he has a point."

By NOM Staff | Posted in Rhode Island, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (2)

Video: Child Psychiatrist Tells CA Senate Committee How LGBT Courses Harm Kids

April 13, 2011 – 10:19 am

Dr. Miriam Grossman is a board certified child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist. She lectures internationally and has first-hand experience working with children with SSA and transgender feelings.

Recently she testified to the California Senate Judiciary Committee on SB48, which would introduce LGBT issues into schools beginning in kindergarten:

The Senate Committee ignored her advice and passed the bill. It will next be debated by the full CA Senate.

By NOM Staff | Posted in California, Children, Education, Prop 8 | Comments (10)

Who's your daddy? It's complicated, says U. of Michigan study

April 13, 2011 – 10:13 am

Diane Swanbrow writes for the University of Michigan:

The first national study of the prevalence of multiple partner fertility shows that 28 percent of all U.S. women with two or more children have children by more than one man.

... having children by different fathers was more common among minority women, with 59 percent of African American mothers, 35 percent of Hispanic mothers and 22 percent of white mothers with two or more children reporting multiple partner fertility. Women who were not living with a man when they gave birth and those with low income and less education were also more likely to have children by different men.

... "Raising children who have different fathers is a major factor in the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage," Dorius said. "Juggling all the different needs and demands of fathers in at least two households, four or more pairs of grandparents, and two or more children creates a huge set of chronic stressors that families have to deal with for decades." (Spero News)

By NOM Staff | Posted in Children, Parenting | Comments (2)

Rich Lowry on the social threat of a stratified marriage culture

April 13, 2011 – 9:00 am

Rich Lowry writes at NRO on America's deepening (and troubling) class divide when it comes to marriage and other societal indicators:

Murray identifies what he calls the “founding virtues,” such as marriage, industriousness, and religiosity, which have always been considered the social basis of self-government. He looks at whites aged 30–49 and divides them into the top 20 percent socio-economically and the bottom 30 percent. The top tier is basically the upper middle class, the bottom the working class. He finds two worlds, increasingly separate and unequal.

... In 1960, everyone was married — 88 percent of the upper middle class and 83 percent of the working class. In 2010, 83 percent of the upper middle class is married and only 48 percent of the working class. This gap “amounts to a revolution in the separation of classes.” In 1960, births to single mothers in the working class were just 6 percent; now they are close to 50 percent.

These trends mean, just as it is suffering economically, the working class is getting cut off from the richest sources of social capital: marriage, two-parent families, and church-going.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Culture, Marriage | Comments Off on Rich Lowry on the social threat of a stratified marriage culture

Newsbusters notes WaPo's biased reporting of Maryland marriage victory

April 13, 2011 – 8:00 am

Tim Graham of Newsbusters (which aims to expose and combat liberal media bias):

On February 24, Washington Post reporter John Wagner sympathetically covered leading Maryland Democrats (and Catholics) for crossing their hierarchy to lobby for "gay marriage" -- without seeming to contact this hierarchy. So when Wagner sympathetically profiled House Speaker Michael Busch -- again -- at the top of the April 11 Style section, the primary question was: How was this "news," a full month after the gay lobby failed to pass it?

... Wouldn't it make more sense to take the occasion of the gay-marriage bill failing to cover the winning side, even just to gauge how that result occurred?

... Post readers are supposed to be thrilled by Wagner's recounting of how Busch converted -- in effect, how he left Catholic church teaching in the dust and embraced hard-left identity politics. The Catholic hierarchy is a distant villain, never to be contacted.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Maryland | Comments (2)

4 Days Remaining! Protect our Right to Speak!

April 12, 2011 – 5:00 pm

Earlier this year, gay marriage advocates petitioned CNN to silence pro-family advocates and censor their "dangerous anti-gay rhetoric" from the airwaves.

Three weeks ago, radical activists in Michigan tried to get a young woman fired–for the second time!—for a letter to the editor she wrote 3 years ago. She's already been wrongfully fired by one employer over the letter, and now they're trying to get her fired from her next job.

And now the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest same-sex marriage advocacy group, is pressuring 200 of the nation's top law firms to boycott the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) by refusing to represent the House of Representatives in the legal defense of marriage.

Starting to see a pattern?

DefendDOMA

DOMA needs our defense today! Click here to help save DOMA in 3 easy steps.

Gay marriage groups haven't had major new arguments for a long time. And the American people have heard the equality argument over and over again, but still reject same-sex marriage in powerful numbers.

When you run out of arguments, the only thing left is to silence your opposition. And that's what they're determined to do.

Shame people into silence. Censor those who refuse to back down. And boycott anyone willing even to associate with those of us who stand up for the great good of marriage.

Those are the tactics we're up against. It's not just a fair fight in the battlefield of ideas anymore–we have to fight even for the right to speak up for marriage.

There is one federal law blocking the path to same-sex marriage throughout the United States. That federal law is known as the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). DOMA says that wherever the word "marriage" or "spouse" is used in federal law, it means the union of a husband and wife–one man and one woman. And DOMA also says that no state can be required to recognize same-sex marriages from another state.

Can you give $20 to help save DOMA today? Don't let HRC get the upper hand! Your gift today will help to make sure that DOMA receives the best legal defense available–all the way to the Supreme Court.

In late February, President Obama betrayed DOMA, refusing to defend the very law he had sworn to faithfully execute. Yet another attempt to make sure the courts hear only one side of the argument. But with your help, Congress is taking action to intervene on behalf of marriage, giving marriage the legal defense the President refused to provide.

This case—with implications for laws and state constitutional amendments all across the country–could become our generation's equivalent of Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 abortion case that took human life out of the hands of state legislatures, forcing an abortion regime on the entire nation. If we don't act now, the Supreme Court could soon force a same-sex marriage regime on the entire nation, overruling 30 state marriage amendments and the votes of 30 million Americans in a narrow 5-4 ruling–and it could come as quickly as next year.

Time is short, and with your help we can guarantee that marriage and the Defense of Marriage Act never suffer for lack of resources. Thanks to a generous donor, every gift between now and midnight Friday will be matched, up to a total of $1 million dollars. Please, if you can afford a gift of any amount, whether $20, $200, or even $2000, please do it right now, doubling the impact of your gift.

Please click here to make your gift today, and if you haven't yet signed the petition in support of DOMA, please take a moment to send your own message to Washington.

And finally–the only way we have an impact is through the voices of tens of thousands of Americans. Please pass this message on to three friends today, or post it on Facebook or Twitter. When you help spread the word, our cause grows stronger.

As always, thank you for standing firm in defense of marriage. I promise you that we will never, ever give in to those who would take away our very right to speak up for that which is good, and true and right. I'm so proud to have you standing with us.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Same Sex Marriage | Comments Off on 4 Days Remaining! Protect our Right to Speak!

Study: In India, Pre-Marital Chastity Remains the Norm

April 12, 2011 – 4:01 pm

Just one in six Indian men, and less than one out of 20 Indian women, have had premarital sex according to this survey of six provinces.

That's not what this media report highlighted, but it is what the report says.
By NOM Staff | Posted in Culture, Marriage | Comments (7)

European Commission may force EU-wide recognition of SSM

April 12, 2011 – 3:15 pm

An alert from the European Dignity Watch:

The European Commission is pushing for “automatic mutual recognition” of public documents in all EU Member States. Among them are marriage and adoption documents.

Automatic recognition, as practical as it may seem at first a glance, entails a severe danger: that of a forced recognition of civil unions, same-sex marriages and corresponding adoption rights by all Member States – even if this goes against their national laws and public order.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Europe | Comments (12)

Law School Dean: Judge Walker's admission warrants vacating Prop 8 ruling

April 12, 2011 – 12:27 pm

John C. Eastman is the Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service and former Dean at Chapman University School of Law. He is also the founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence. He writes in the San Francisco Chronicle:

... Walker's admission [last week] requires that his decision in the case be vacated. He is either a direct beneficiary of his ruling in the case, or a person with a close-enough personal interest in the case that his impartiality might reasonably have been questioned if the required disclosures had been made. In Liljeberg vs. Health Services Acquisition Corp., the U.S. Supreme Court held that vacatur is required even when the disqualifying relationship only became known to the parties 10 months after the judgment entered in the case had been upheld on appeal. Where an objective observer would have questioned the judge's impartiality, recusal is required, and the appropriate remedy is to vacate the judgment because of the risk of injustice to the parties and of undermining the public's confidence in the judicial process.

By NOM Staff | Posted in California, Prop 8, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (13)

Canadian Lawyer: Anti-Polygamy Law 'Relic' that Predates Rights Charter

April 12, 2011 – 10:54 am

Via the Canadian Press:

The federal prohibition on polygamy is a relic from another time that imposes Christianity on all Canadians and violates their right to religious freedom, says a lawyer arguing against the law.

... [the lawyer] said the Charter of Rights and Freedoms offers two protections regarding religion: laws cannot have a strictly religious purpose, and they can't actively discriminate against people of faith because of their religious practices.

He said it does both.

Even if the law was passed today, under the guise of protecting women and children, [he] said it would still be unconstitutional.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Canada | Comments (2)

Cook County to House Biological Males in Women's Jails if They Identify as Female

April 12, 2011 – 10:44 am

The worthy goal is to protect transgendered folks from abuse. But the means? Requiring women to live with biological males in jail. The story includes this priceless quote:

"You've got people who are in every way a woman — but for their genitalia — who are being placed in male prisons," said John Knight, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Project of the ACLU of Illinois."

By NOM Staff | Posted in Culture | Comments (3)
Home NOM Blog Donate Advocacy Center
Copyright 2011