One day after the Maryland Senate voted to approve same-sex marriage, representatives from national organizations, including the Family Research Council and the National Organization for Marriage, were in Annapolis lending their support to the fight against same-sex marriage in the state.
Opponents on Friday were well organized and said Thursday's vote in the Senate does not represent the opinion of the majority of Marylanders.
"There's no question that the numbers are there to overturn this...we believe that there are a lot of people who are sitting timid and quiet and not speaking out on this issue. We're not going to fail," said Rev. Pierre Bynum, chaplain for the Family Research Council and a Maryland resident.
Family Research Council leaders are expecting Maryland's churches "will be animated and mobilized," and will be the source of most of the 53,650 signatures needed to get same-sex marriage on the 2012 ballot.
"There are churches in our coalition that have 20,000 people in their church, so it's a question of just circulating it (a petition) among a few churches," Bynum said. (source)
The gay press is reporting that thanks to a "ferocious campaign" by "anti-gay Christianists" a House vote in Maryland that was thought to be an easy win is now in jeopardy:
The coming marriage equality vote in the Maryland House of Delegates is now thought to be in jeopardy due to a ferocious campaign by anti-gay Christianists. Only a couple of days ago the vote was considered to be an easy win. Lou Chibarro reports at Washington Blade:
Backers said that as of this week, the number of delegates who have publicly declared their support for the bill was just short of the 71 votes needed in the 141-member House. "There's an effort to derail this bill like none I've seen before," said gay State Sen. Richard Madaleno (D-Montgomery County), the author and one of the lead sponsors of the marriage equality bill in the Senate. (source)
There's been an avalanche of news relating to the President's decision to stop defending DOMA. NOM has been on the front ranks responding and taking the next steps to defend marriage at this critical time. Here's a summary of our activities so far:
For all the effort we've put into fighting for the right to do it, the dirty little secret is that many gays are simply not sure about same-sex marriage.
... there's a subtler, even more insidious anxiety lurking beneath the surface of our gay-marriage win. It's the unsettling possibility that we've spent the past couple of decades fighting to fit into an institution that doesn't necessarily fit us. (source)
Last Friday Maggie testified at the SSM hearing in Maryland. We'll have audio of her testimony up here soon so you can judge for yourself.
From the Baltimore Sun "Maryland Politics" blog:
Pastors, lawyers and the chairwoman of the National Organization for Marriage were among the opponents to testify this afternoon. "Most of my adult relationships are untouched by the law," said Maggie Gallagher, chairwoman of the National Organization for Marriage. Of heterosexual marriage, she said, "these are the only unions that create new life." (weblogs.baltimoresun.com)
From the Washington Blade:
Several witnesses testifying before the House panel, such as Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization of Marriage, also testified at the Senate hearing.
“None of us have the right to redefine marriage,” Gallagher testified on Friday. “You need to bring together male and female to keep the human race going.” (www.washingtonblade.com)
And this, from an interview Maggie gave to the Southern Maryland online:
"We expect to take a major role if the House votes wrong and the governor signs it," said Maggie Gallagher, chairman of the board of the National Organization for Marriage.
"I think this is going to end up with the people of Maryland if the House passes it. There were polls in California that showed that Prop 8 would fail by 10 points. But we're really confident that we can get this issue to the public and that the people of Maryland will do what people in every other state have done," Gallagher said. (www.somd.com)
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor says he was "taken aback" by President Barack Obama ordering his administration to stop defending the constitutionality of a federal law that bans recognition of gay marriage.
The Virginia Republican said Thursday that he'd never been around when a president decided not to defend a law on the books. He says the U.S. Congress is mulling its options on the 15-year-old Defense of Marriage Act. [source]
The newly elected county clerk of Imperial County has asked the 9th Circuit for the right to intervene.
This is very big. The reason Imperial County was held to lack standing is that it was only the assistant clerk and not the elected county clerk who asked to intervene in the first place.
The administration seems to be coordinating these efforts [to defeat DOMA] with the assault on marriage in the states. Yesterday, within two hours of the President's statement, a document was quietly filed in the Proposition 8 lawsuit. And not just any document, but a 23-page motion that noted the Justice Department's withdrawal from the DOMA case as a reason to lift the stay on Judge Vaughn Walker's ruling.
Why is that significant? Because legal documents of this magnitude take days, if not weeks, to review. Obviously, Ted Olson's team had inside knowledge from someone at DOJ that this decision was coming down--and made sure the Prop 8 challengers were strategically positioned to capitalize on it. If this is true, and Olson's team was fed information before Congress or even the Speaker of the House was made aware, there's something fishy going on.
In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV Friday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said President Barack Obama’s decision not to fully enforce the Defense of Marriage law eventually could lead to a constitutional crisis, as he has directly violated his constitutional duties by arbitrarily suspending a law.
Gingrich even suggested that, if a “President Sarah Palin” had taken a similar action, there would have been immediate calls for her impeachment. (Continue reading.)
From this his nationally syndicated radio talk show, Sean Hannity points out how NOM's Maggie Gallagher & Brian Brown are absolutely right about Obama's unconstitutional power grab on marriage.
Source: www.Hannity.com
By NOM Staff|Posted in DOMA, Marriage, President Obama, Same Sex Marriage|Comments Off on AUDIO: Sean Hannity Singles Out NOM's Correct Assessment of Pres. Obama's DOMA Power Grab
Maggie Clark:
