James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal seeks to understand why marriage polls never register the support for marriage we see in actual statewide votes, and can only find an anonymous source to help explain why -- read to the last line:
Every state where same-sex marriage has been on the ballot, it has lost--usually by considerably larger margins, but mostly in socially conservative states. Forty percent support and majority opposition seems in the right ball park.
A reader whose identity we'll conceal explains why the polls may be unreliable on this question:
With a marriage amendment on the ballot in Minnesota, we have been assaulted by the pro-gay marriage media and social-media coverage. I say assaulted because the message is not a positive argument for gay marriage, but rather a tarring as bigots of those who believe in the traditional definition of marriage. So of course polls would undercount support for the traditional view of marriage.
A person could tell a pollster that he believes in a position and risk the pollster thinking that he is bigoted, or he could toe the media line, give the pollster a fulsome answer of support for the measure and then vote his conscience privately.
I know what I do (and why not, anything more public than this email could risk my career).
NOM co-founder Maggie Gallagher participates in a series by The Daily Beast where readers can ask prominent thinkers anything they want. She answers the question why is protecting marriage against redefinition important along with strengthening marriage against divorce and infidelity:
St. Francis Xavier in Acushnet, Massachusetts, isn’t afraid to insert its voice into the contentious gay marriage debate. The church, which posted a controversial sign voicing its disapproval of gay marriage, is reportedly receiving violent threats as a result of it’s anti-gay marriage messaging.
“Two men are friends, not spouses,” read the contentious sign, which was clearly intended to drive home the church’s view that marriage is an institution that should be reserved for men and women, exclusively.
Monsignor Gerard O’Connor, the head of pastoral services, said that the message was posted to reiterate the Catholic Church’s views on the sanctity of marriage. Additionally, he claimed that the original intention was for the church to offer a response to President Barack Obama’s recent gay marriage endorsement.
... “That’s what the church teaches,” O’Connor said in an interview with CBS Boston. “We understand people disagree with us, but we do it out of love. We never said we hate anybody.”
The message, which was intended to capture attention, has certainly grabbed attention. According to staff members at St. Francis Xavier, authorities are keeping a close eye on the house of worship after someone called and threatened to burn it to the ground.
Charles Krauthammer in his weekly column for the Washington Post:
"... It’s a howling contradiction to leave up to the states an issue Obama now says is a right. And beyond being intellectually untenable, Obama’s embrace of the more hard-line “rights” argument compels him logically to see believers in traditional marriage as purveyors of bigotry. Not a good place for a president to be in an evenly divided national debate that requires both sides to offer each other a modicum of respect.
No wonder that Obama has been trying to get away from the issue as quickly as possible. It’s not just the New York Timespoll showing his new position to be a net loser. It’s that he is too intelligent not to realize he’s embraced a logical contradiction.
... Notwithstanding a comically fawning press, Obama knows he has boxed himself in. His “rights” argument compels him toward nationalize same-sex marriage and sharpen hostility toward proponents of traditional marriage — a place he is loath to go.
Kalley Yanta of the Minnesota Marriage Minute answers the question "isn't it wrong for churches to be involved in campaigns [to protect marriage]"?
She responds: "Churches, like everyone else, not only have a constitutional right but a duty to speak out about important issues in the public square. There is a growing movement in America to silence Churches and people of faith, denying them the fundamental right to speak out about public issues. Shrouded in the widely misunderstood concept of 'separation of church and state' want to confine religious viewpoints to the four walls of the church, this is as un-american as it is unconstitutional."
Columnist Gregory Kane explains how the issue of marriage convinced his mother, a Black Christian, to no longer support President Obama:
President Barack Hussein Obama might be in some deep trouble. He just lost my mom's vote.
I kind of had a hunch that Obama's support of same-sex marriage might go over with my devoutly Roman Catholic mother like ham and cheese sandwiches at a bar mitzvah. I was right.
"He lost my vote," my mom announced as I sat next to her during my annual Mother's Day visit. If other moms and grandmoms react similarly, Obama might be a one-term president.
...She was with him in 2008, but not in 2012.
And all those tired, worn-out accusations about the "bigotry" of those opposed to same-sex marriage won't work this time, at least not with my mom. She'll turn 90 on May 27. She's been a Mass-attending Catholic for decades and supports her church's position on same-sex marriage. She's not going to be swayed by anyone telling her what a "bigot" she is.
What if other senior citizens -- especially those who voted for Obama in 2008 -- feel the same way? What if there are a bunch of such senior citizens? Proponents of same-sex marriage aren't going to sway many senior citizens over to their position. It certainly won't work to tell them how "bigoted" they are.
... My mom will ease into her wheelchair and roll herself to the nearest polling station to vote out the man she voted in four years ago. Do you have a strategy to win her vote back, Mr. Obama? -- The Washington Examiner
James Dobson, Ph.D., is a psychologist, broadcaster, best-selling author, and president and founder of James Dobson's Family Talk:
The president’s statement [in support of same-sex marriage] also lacks internal consistency. He said he favors each state’s right to determine the definition of marriage – yet isn’t that precisely what the people of North Carolina did last week? Was their vote of 61 to 39 percent in favor of traditional marriage a fluke, or was it the result of the citizens of North Carolina making their own choice?
And speaking of states’ rights to define marriage, wouldn’t that wreak havoc on individual families? Imagine the chaos of a couple being married in Texas but not married in Arkansas, or being married in Arizona and not married in Massachusetts. Children in one state would be legitimate, but would be the product of unmarried parents in the next. And what about the jurisdiction of the federal and state courts? Could they continue to override the will of the people, as did the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California? And what about inheritance issues from state to state? You would think the president of the United States would have thought through his position and its implications before impulsively making it known to the nation. If traditional marriage is not the law of the land, the institution of the family will cease to exist. --World Net Daily
Democratic Governor Bev Perdue is not happy that 61% of citizens in her state voted to protect marriage:
The Mississippi Governor, Phil Bryant, thinks Gov. Perdue is being "petty", according to the AP:
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant said Friday it was “petty” for North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue to insult Mississippi while bemoaning that voters in her state approved a ballot measure banning same-sex marriage.
Bryant, a Republican who became governor in January, said he intends to write to Perdue about her comments. She is a Democrat who isn’t seeking a second term.
... In Jackson, Miss., Bryant said Perdue’s comments were “very disappointing.”
“To be able to use Mississippi in a disparaging way on a popular vote in her own state is, I think, something that’s certainly petty and something I think she will reflect on and hopefully apologize for those types of remarks,” Bryant told reporters after an unrelated news conference in Jackson.
A group of leading black clergy and civil rights leaders are asking President Barack Obama to reconsider his support for same-gender "marriage."
William Owens, Sr. is founder and president of the Coalition of African-American Pastors, a group whose goal is to promote and support Christ-centered values in the culture. The CAAP is appalled that radical homosexual activists have managed to hijack the civil rights movement by linking sexual diversity to the historic fight for civil rights by black Americans. What those activists have done, says Owens, is "unacceptable."
"We are really tired of the homosexual community hijacking the civil rights movement," Owens tells OneNewsNow. "I did not choose to be black and you did not choose to be white -- and homosexuals make a choice to be homosexual. So why compare what we went through with your situation? It's not the same thing; there's no comparison."
In a statement released on Tuesday, CAAP leaders said: "For activists, politicians, and now the highest office in the nation to link sexual behavior God calls sin to the righteous cause Martin Luther King gave his life for is abominable in and of itself. There is no civil right to do what God calls wrong."
Owens thinks President Obama will be surprised at how many blacks will not vote for him now that he has come out in support of same-sex marriage.
The Assemblies of God is the largest pentecostal denomination in the world:
The Assemblies of God, in reaction to President Barack Obama's embracing of same-sex marriage, is voicing its dissent and objection. According to Dr. George O. Wood, general superintendent of the Assemblies of God, the Assemblies of God is in complete disagreement with the president's new position and takes exception to the president's taking Scripture out of context to defend his position.
"The Bible clearly teaches that marriage should be a life-long commitment between one man and one woman," states Dr. George O. Wood, general superintendent of the Assemblies of God. "There is no affirmation of homosexual behavior found anywhere in Scripture. However, the Bible is replete with evidence that homosexual behavior is immoral and comes under the judgment of God."
The president also referred to the Bible, claiming Christ sacrificing himself for mankind and the golden rule as reasons for endorsing same-sex marriage.
"Although it has become popular to quote Scripture grossly out of context to serve a personal or political agenda, it still doesn't change what God's Word clearly states," Wood says. -- AG News
A group of black pastors gathered in Memphis to call for President Barack Obama to rescind his view that the gay marriages are a civil right that should be protected.
Some members of the black clergy have taken offense to the fact that the fight for homosexual rights has been compared to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Thirteen pastors met on Thursday to address the comparison between black civil rights and homosexual civil rights.
Rev. William Owens, founder of the Coalition of African-American Pastors, said he's offended by the comparison.
President Obama's endorsement of same-sex marriage is energizing Christian conservative support for Mitt Romney in a way that the likely GOP nominee has so far not been able to do on his own, according to religious leaders and activists.
Pastors in Ohio, North Carolina, Florida and other swing states are readying Sunday sermons inveighing against same-sex unions, while activist groups have begun laying plans for social media campaigns, leafleting drives and other get-out-the-vote efforts centered on the issue. Romney could benefit from a strong turnout among evangelicals and other social conservatives, many of whom have been skeptical of his commitment to their causes.
"So many people were rather lukewarm toward Governor Romney and were really looking for some more tangible reasons to support him," said Phil Burress, president of the Cincinnati-based Citizens for Community Values, who led the ballot drive that banned gay marriage in Ohio in 2004. "Then lo and behold, it just fell out of the sky."
The fallout from Pres. Obama's flip-flop on marriage continues. Sixty-two percent of Americans say, in a new Fox News poll, that it was just a political decision on Obama's part (including a plurality of Democrats, 46 percent to 38 percent).
If so, it was a very bad one.
As NOM's political consultant Frank Schubert told California's influential insider Flash Report:
"After months of very carefully managing expectations about his 'evolving' position on gay marriage, President Obama suddenly found himself last week careening between powerful forces like the steel ball in Elton John's 'pinball wizard.' His own Vice President threw him into the pinball machine, and then his Education Secretary thrust the plunger, launching him into game."
"...The left is jumping for joy at their accomplishment, forcing President Obama out of the closet on gay marriage. Their celebration will be short-lived, though, because they have very likely cost him the presidency."
A NYT/CBS news poll showed that a whopping 40 percent of Americans said Pres. Obama's endorsement of gay marriage would affect their vote. Among independents, by a 2-1 margin they said it would make them less likely to vote for Obama.
As Katrina Trinko of National Review put it, "It looks like Barack Obama's decision to support gay marriage is hurting him in the polls."
In one congressional district in Arkansas, according to a new poll, Obama is leading a virtually unknown candidate (with no funds) by only seven points, 45 to 38 percent, in the Democratic primary. "The president's policies are wildly unpopular in a party which has historically supported mainstream Democrats like Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton," says Republican state representative David Sanders. "He's got some major problems, I think. A lot of it is driven by his new position on marriage."
North Carolina is so important to the re-election chances of Barack Obama that he picked Charlotte as the host city for the Democratic nominating convention.
On May 8, all his careful plans came crashing down when 61% of voters in a North Carolina referendum adopted a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
...Obama's embrace of same-sex marriage will help ensure he becomes a one-term president, and his political demise will begin with North Carolina.
Our victory for marriage was so impressive that the prominent Democratic firm Public Policy Polling sent out this Twitter missive as the results came in: "Hate to say it, but I don't believe polls showing majority support for gay marriage nationally. Any time there's a vote, it doesn't back it up."
Other pollsters and polling experts are beginning to admit the obvious: It's easy to rig polls to get Americans to say they support gay marriage. But those polls do not reflect the real underlying support for gay marriage.
When offered the "out" of civil unions, for example, just 37 percent of Americans say they support gay marriage in the Fox New polls. This doesn't mean they are actually for civil unions, as the North Carolina vote makes clear. It means they want a way to express support for marriage without expressing hatred towards gay people as human beings, with real, genuine civil rights.
The media is not acknowledging that marriage supporters don't reject being respectful and civil towards gay people—that's very clear. The Dan Savages of the world have reduced any expression of disagreement with gay marriage to the status of hateful, ignorant and bigoted assaults on gay people. The most committed stand up to the pressure.
The mushy and uncomfortable middle tells fibs to pollsters, who are then repeatedly and predictably surprised by election results.
The same week that Pres. Obama endorsed gay marriage, the vitriol and hatred directed as people who oppose his marriage flip broke out into the news media in two different ways.
Young Bristol Palin innocently blogged against Pres. Obama's marriage flip-flop, especially the way he cited his children as his moral authorities in the matter. The result, she says, is a torrent of hatred and death threats.
"People claim they're just trying to protect the right of two people to love each other—a right I don't contest, by the way—and then spew the worst words imaginable at someone they disagree with," Palin, the eldest daughter of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, writes. "If the agenda is love, why do you hate so intensely?"
Near the bottom of the post, Palin displays some of the worst feedback she's received, including death wishes against her and her family.
"You all, including your son, deserve a slow, painful and miserable death," one commenter wrote. "Your backwards thinking is so sad because the world is moving forward and you will certainly be left behind. May death be upon you."
Palin wonders why her remarks—in which she criticized President Obama for consulting his daughters about gay marriage—prompted such nasty backlash.
(The Palin flap prompted our co-founder Maggie Gallagher to blog, "Unwed Moms for Marriage Unite!" on the Corner at National Review.)
Popular pro-wrestler C.M. Punk himself blogged death wishes to his fans who opposed his endorsement of gay marriage after our great win in North Carolina, according to LifeSite News:
To one objecting fan Punk replied, "Kill yourself." He told another supporter of the nuclear family to "drink bleach."
...In another tweet, Punk castigated the amendment's supporters as "So many stupid people. Bigots."
I was perhaps most shocked by the news that a Hollywood shopping mall has banned the world's greatest boxer, Manny Pacquiao, from appearing on its property—because he spoke out against gay marriage.
(The press falsely reported he had wished death to gay people, which he quickly denied and the reporter who interviewed him confirmed.)
Our Next Gen leader Thomas Peters went on Seattle radio to talk back to all the Dan Savages of the world. You can hear it here:
We are just 945 signatures away from breaking 40,000 in our DumpStarbucks.com campaign. If you haven't signed, can you just take a second to do so now?
In a press story designed to calm fears, Starbucks CEO Howard Schulz admitted that investors are worried, and they're asking about his decision to have Starbucks corporately endorse gay marriage as key to their brand.
Keep the pressure on! Get one friend to go to DumpStarbucks.com today!
The press did not report it, but NOM was at the Bank of America's annual shareholder meeting, which took place in Charlotte, NC one day after the great victory for marriage there.
Bank of America is the company which fired Frank Turek for having written a book opposing gay marriage:
After NOM sent a letter to the board, the corporation sent a letter back making it clear that firing people for their views for or against gay marriage was against company policy, for which we thank them.
In Charlotte, we asked the company to make this policy clear to all their employees—and their bosses. Thomas Strobhar introduced from the floor this shareholder resolution:
Freedom of Speech Resolution
Whereas, the Bank of America Corporate Social Responsibility Report of 2010 says, "Employees with diverse backgrounds and perspectives enrich our business, engage us to better serve our customers and make us a better community partner."
Whereas, the Bank of America Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action Statement states it recruits and hires candidates without regard to race, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, veteran status, marital status, medical condition or disability.
Whereas, we do not offer similar assurances of non-discrimination to job candidates or employees who publicly speak out on issues of concern to them.
Whereas, by not providing free speech safeguards we potentially deprive our company of the unique intellectual heritage, characteristics and perspectives each person brings to the job.
Resolved, the shareholders request the Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action Statement specifically include protection to engage in free speech.
This is the start of something big!
What happened to Manny Pacquiao is an example of the mismatch in our laws and policies at the moment. He was banned from shopping at a Hollywood mall because he opposes gay marriage.
Huh?
Well, I suppose the world's greatest boxer will get over that and shop somewhere else.
But I know of no one, not a single person who opposes gay marriage, who would support banning gay people or gay-marriage advocates from appearing at shopping malls.
Meanwhile, at Liberty College, Gov. Mitt Romney received thunderous applause for speaking up for marriage from tens of thousands of young people the media never interviews: Watch it for yourself!
In his new column, Patrick Buchanan points out that Pres. Obama has only one pathway to deliver on gay marriage: the Supreme Court.
"But Obama needs one more justice. If elected, he will get it, and same-sex marriage will be forced on all of America. If Romney wins, the Supreme Court will likely leave the issue of same-sex marriage to be decided by the people and their elected representatives."
Lutherans are the largest Protestant denomination in Minnesota. Some of them write to the Duluth News Tribune:
A headline in the News Tribune last week read, “Northland Lutherans oppose Minn. marriage amendment.” The story reported on a resolution passed by the Northeastern Minnesota Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, or ELCA, in opposition to the Minnesota Marriage Protection Amendment, an amendment that would simply put into our state constitution our current law’s definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.
However, there are many other Lutherans who support the amendment. It is not only the case that many pastors and congregation members of the ELCA support the amendment, but there are also many other Lutheran pastors and church bodies that strongly support the marriage amendment.
Just as one example, a couple weeks ago at its tri-annual convention, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s Minnesota North District, which covers the northern two-thirds of the state, passed a resolution encouraging its pastors and congregation’s members to support, promote and vote for the amendment.
Other Lutheran church bodies and congregations, including the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), the Association of American Lutheran Churches (TAALC), the Association of Free Lutheran Churches (AFLC), and Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC), also support the marriage amendment.
We are representatives of different Lutheran church bodies who agree with the historic and traditional definition of marriage. We believe the definition of marriage in the amendment as “a union of one man and one woman” is in agreement with God’s institution of marriage in the Scriptures (Genesis 2:24), a definition reaffirmed by Jesus Christ himself (Matthew 19:4-5; Mark 10:6-8), and used by Paul and others as a reflection of Christ and His bride, the Church (Ephesians 5:23-32).
Marriage as God designed it is foundational for our society. Redefining what marriage is will have adverse effects on children and on the order and stability of our broader community.
"... I know I promised y’all a post on why I don’t think the analogy between interracial marriage and same-sex marriage succeeds. I’m going to have to point you to my friend Frank Beckwith, who analyzes the issue from a legal point of view.
Excerpt:
It is clear then that the miscegenation/same-sex analogy does not work. For if the purpose of anti-miscegenation laws was racial purity, such a purpose only makes sense if people of different races have the ability by nature to marry each other. And given the fact that such marriages were a common law liberty, the anti-miscegenation laws presuppose this truth. But opponents of same-sex marriage ground their viewpoint in precisely the opposite belief: people of the same gender do not have the ability by nature to marry each other since gender complementarity is a necessary condition for marriage. Supporters of anti-miscegenation laws believed in their cause precisely because they understood that when male and female are joined in matrimony they may beget racially-mixed progeny, and these children, along with their parents, will participate in civil society and influence its cultural trajectory.
In other words, the fact that a man and a woman from different races were biologically and metaphysically capable of marrying each other, building families, and living among the general population is precisely why the race purists wanted to forbid such unions by the force of law. And because this view of marriage and its gender-complementary nature was firmly in place and the only understanding found in common law, the Supreme Court in Loving knew that racial identity was not relevant to what marriage requires of its two opposite-gender members. By injecting race into the equation, anti-miscegenation supporters were very much like contemporary same-sex marriage proponents, for in both cases they introduced a criterion other than male-female complementarity in order to promote the goals of a utopian social movement: race purity or sexual egalitarianism.
In other words, it all turns on the question: “What do you say marriage is?”
St. Francis Xavier in Acushnet, Massachusetts, isn’t afraid to insert its voice into the contentious gay marriage debate. The church, which posted a controversial sign voicing its disapproval of gay marriage, is reportedly receiving violent threats as a result of it’s anti-gay marriage messaging.
