How low will some gay-marriage advocates go?

Two weeks ago, NOM--and thousands of good people like you--called on national gay-marriage groups to stop using shocking images of children spewing angry obscenities to raise money for their cause.

If you have not seen the video, please do so. (Warning: Even with the profanity muted it's still disturbing, so please make sure no children can see.)

Thousands of people just like you have signed our petition to protect the kids.

NOM's “Pink T-shirt video” is opening a lot of eyes to the hatred-inciting tactics of some prominent gay-marriage organizations who've accepted more than $200,000 raised by this disturbing video.

We're asking: Stop using small children shouting obscenities to make your case and raise money for your cause.

Is that too much to ask?!

The gay press is getting nervous: One gay paper wrote: “The group's first video Prop 8 is H8: Straight Talk on Gay Marriage has been viewed more than 2 million times. But its frequent--some would say excessive--use of the word **** has divided gay rights advocates.” Adam Bink of the Courage Campaign's Prop 8 Trial Tracker (one of the groups profiting from the effort) says he “wasn't thrilled about (a) the strategy of using kids (b) how the video would present to the movable middle.”

But so far, not a single so-called “mainstream” gay-rights group has refused to accept the money.

This campaign is part of a new NOM initiative to take back our culture. Politics matters, and as long as gay-marriage advocates continue to try to push gay marriage in state legislature, so long as Republican elites try to foist pro-gay-marriage RINO candidates on unsuspecting voters, we'll be there to be your voice to fight back--and win!

But here's the truth: We need to fight the good fight on all fronts. We cannot always depend even on the network of conservative media to get our message out, to cover the stories as they unfold. Last year NOM made a great advance, with our “Summer for Marriage” bus tour, in becoming “culture creators” not depending on the mainstream media. Our new “Ironic Steve Jobs” video and the “Pink T-Shirt” video are part of this new initiative.

Gay-marriage advocates, with the help of a supine media, are trying to paint millions of good Americans as haters and bigots because we believe in the great truths of Genesis--and meanwhile the extremists and haters in their own camp go unchecked, because they are never called on the incivility of their tactics.

The Ninth Circuit punted the Prop 8 case this week back to the California Supreme Court, asking that state court for advice on whether or not proponents have standing to challenge Judge Walker's ruling in higher courts.

Here's the good news. The most liberal judge on the federal bench, Judge Reinhardt, called the case for Protect Marriage's standing “strong,” and he also once again rapped the knuckles of alleged superlawyers Olson and Boies for their tricky tactics that have complicated the standing issue. (They did not ask for a statewide injunction, but only in two counties--and in oral arguments virtually admitted they did this to make it harder to find a party with clear standing to challenge Judge Walker’s ruling.)

As I told the press, Judge Reinhardt clearly agrees with us about two things: It is absurd to imagine that a federal trial court judge can use the U.S. Constitution to wipe out the votes of 7 million voters--without any supervision or review by higher courts. Secondly, Olson and Boies are working overtime to prevent any higher court from reviewing their supposedly “invincible” case for gay marriage.

What this means practically is at least a six-month and perhaps a nine-month delay in the case. The elections in 2012 could be crucial in determining the makeup of the Supreme Court by the time the Prop 8 case hits.

The delay raises the possibility that one of the other marriage court cases circulating through the appellate court system might get there first. The Defense of Marriage Act cases are of particular concern because there is no one arguing those cases who really cares to uphold DOMA. (The Obama administration is only pretending to defend the law.)

In more Washington news, at the debate held this week on C-Span, all five candidates for Republican National Committee chairman said that they support marriage as the union of husband and wife. Thanks to Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List for asking the marriage question on behalf of NOM.

Jon Stewart made fun of the debate--that's his job and we love him for it--but notice that while he reported Marjorie asking the question, he didn't bother to report the answers.

Maggie, who attended the debate, graded the candidates on their answer--giving top marks to Reince Priebus and Saul Anuzis.

We're expecting a gay marriage bill to be introduced in Rhode Island shortly. Gearing up for another great battle, working with Rhode Islanders who care about the future of marriage.

It's hard to believe that political elites in Rhode Island really want to have a big marriage battle given the state's serious budget and economic troubles. One thing is certain: They always schedule these fights as far away from an election as possible!

Over at the Manhattan Declaration site, Chuck Colson and company are promoting three upcoming dates: January 16th (Religious Liberty Day), January 22nd (Roe v. Wade Anniversary March), and February 7 to 14 (National Marriage Week USA). You can hear an amazing conference call which Chuck Colson, Professor Robby George, and Centurion Chuck Stetson did on the need to act to protect marriage, life and religious liberty here.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops just announced the new head of the Catholic Church's Defense of Marriage Committee: Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, the “godfather of Prop 8”! We'd congratulate him, but really we are just grateful for all the signs that the Catholic Church is gearing up to strengthen its teachings on marriage by putting brave men in leadership roles.

I hope you've been following the intellectual debate over marriage, which has suddenly heated up thanks in part to the groundbreaking essay, “What is Marriage?” co-authored by NOM's founding chairman Prof. Robby George.

NOM's current chairman has been debating Evan Wolfson this week over at the Economist online.

In both cases the amazing thing is how weak the arguments for gay marriage turn out to be, if you ask proponents to ground them in any coherent idea of what marriage is--and why the law is involved in marriage.

As Maggie writes, gay-marriage advocates cannot--or at least refuse to--explain any of the core features of marriage: Why only two people? Why is marriage a sexual union? Why sexual fidelity? Why not close relatives?

When you sever marriage from its roots in human nature, it becomes incoherent as an idea.

Maggie's whole debate at the Economist is well worth reading. (Or if you prefer to listen to Maggie, check out her hour-long debate at Oregon Public Broadcasting here.)

But let me share with you this bit from her last rebuttal (which I don't think has yet been posted--breaking news here!):

Maggie writes,

For Evan, opposition to gay marriage is rooted only in ignorance, unreason, hatred and bigotry. There is no reason at all that marriage is and has always been a union of male and female throughout most of human history, except a desire to make the lives of gay people difficult.

The sum total of substantive response to the concerns I've raised about how gay marriage changes marriage is his claim that permitting gay couples to marry no more changes marriage than permitting women to vote changes the meaning of “vote.”

For those of you reading this I'd ask of you only one thing: whether you support gay marriage or not, can you at least acknowledge what you are asking of those of us who disagree, who believe our historic marriage tradition is good?

To me, and to millions of other good people, a “husband” means a man who has taken sexual responsibility for a woman and any children they make together with their bodies.

Whatever Evan means by “husband” it is clearly something different. When the law adopts his view of “marriage” and “husband” something will be changed, for millions of people.

I think he and other gay marriage advocate have a responsibility, to truth and decency, to acknowledge that change, and to argue for it as better than the understanding of marriage we have now, rather than to pretend the change is not real.

Pretending that serious moral disagreement is “hate” is part of a strategy to delegitimize all opposition, to create an America where the great truths of Genesis are hate speech.

Here's my promise to you: We will not let that happen. Not without a fight!

And as you know, with the grace and help of God, the one thing about me is: When I fight, I like to win!

Pray for our new leaders, Democratic and Republican, that truth and love will in the end win out over lies and hate,

P.S. We're facing a powerful need for resources immediately--after an election in which we spent our last dime to achieve great victories. Can you help us this week by donating $50 or $100 to refill our coffers in preparation for the fights ahead?
Anything God has given you that you can spare without hurting your core commitments to faith and family, we would be most grateful for and promise to husband and use with great care and responsible stewardship. Please, can you give $5, 10, $15 for marriage today?

That's his job, and we love him for it. But here's the interesting thing: He doesn't dare show any of the ANSWERS that RNC chairman candidates made to the question "what's your best 30-second case for our marriage tradition?"

Kind of telling, huh?

Susan Shell is the guest contributor today to Maggie and Evan Wolfon's debate on marriage. Shell makes the point that the debate over marriage is about marriage, but about other underlying issues as well:

The issue of gay marriage brings to a head a central conflict between two fundamental moral positions that interact, like seismic plates, beneath the surface of contemporary political life. It is commonly thought that this issue pits secular liberals against religious conservatives. While this understanding is accurate up to a point, it is also seriously misleading. [Continue reading on the sidebar at right]

Shell concludes by suggesting that "Before leaping ahead with a radical redefinition of marriage" it would be wise to "think out more fully than has yet been done the likely consequences [of legalizing same-sex marriage] for liberal society more generally, especially concerning provision for the raising of a new generation of well-equipped liberal citizens."

Shell does suggest one limit to what the law may do: "What the law cannot do is to abolish the distinction between couples that can or might together produce children of whom they are the sole biological parents and those that cannot."