A police officer interviewed in this story pegged the crowd at 1,000 -- ABC 6's Chief Political Reporter Mark Curtis sees this as a sign that the people of Rhode Island want to protect marriage:
Hundreds of opponents of same sex marriage rallied in the [Rhode Island] Statehouse rotunda, led by clergy members who say gay marriage is wrong.
Hundreds more lined up outside the Committee room, many hoping to testify.
Bilma Delcompare, an opponent of same sex marriage said, "Because God established a man and a woman, only."
Luis Hernandez, another opponent of gay marriage said, "It's should be defined man and woman. Man and woman."
At its peak, one police officer estimated the hall way crowd at one thousand people.
ABC6 Chief Political Reporter Mark Curtis said, "The large numbers of people who turned out here in opposition, are probably a strong indicator of why supporters of same gender marriage want to see this done by the General Assembly, and not by voters in a ballot initiative." (ABC 6)
The university quietly reinstated Angela McCaskill over the holiday recess, after some gay marriage activists called for her to be fired simply for petitioning to allow the people of Maryland to vote on the question of marriage:
Gallaudet University has reinstated its chief diversity officer after a 3-month paid suspension for signing a petition circulated by opponents of gay marriage in Maryland.
University President T. Alan Hurwitz announced the reinstatement of Angela McCaskill in an email to the campus community on Monday. The statement doesn't elaborate on the reasons for the reinstatement, and university officials declined further comment.
Gallaudet is the nation's leading university for the deaf and hard of hearing, and the Washington campus has a prominent gay community. McCaskill was placed on leave in October after administrators became aware that she had signed the petition. The petition drive led to a referendum on gay marriage in Maryland, where McCaskill lives. Voters upheld the law, and same-sex couples began marrying in the state this month.
“I am not anti-gay. I never have been and I never will be,” says McCaskill. (AP)
A socialist government official in Andalusia, Spain, called for a local Catholic bishop to be “muzzled” for arguing that men and women are both different and complementary.
Bishop Demetrio Fernandez of Cordoba should be silenced for leveling attacks against “real and effective equality between men and women,” charged Miguel Angel Vazquez, a member of the Socialist Party and spokesman for the Andalusian provincial government.
In a Jan. 4 post on his personal blog, Vazquez labeled Bishop Fernandez “a true representative of religious fanaticism” and said that the prelate provokes “controversies that are at odds with the individual and collective rights embodied in the constitution.”
Calling the bishop’s defense of marriage and the family “backwards,” Vazquez said that he would “rather burn in hell (if it exists) than renounce equality.”
In a recent pastoral letter, Bishop Fernandez critiqued sexual philosophies that hold the differences between men and women to be a social construct rather than a biological reality.
NOM's Chairman John Eastman was on FoxNewsHQ this Sunday speaking about the National Cathedral's decision to offer ceremonies to same-sex partners.
"The step that [the National Cathedral] has taken ... is directly in violation of international Anglican law and the Book of Common Prayer. So they can do this if they want but redefining marriage to be something it was never understood to be is going to have dramatic consequences both in this country and in their church."
Illinois Review has learned that the Illinois Republican Party's State Central Committee may very well have the votes needed to force Chairman Pat Brady's resignation. We're told that the SCC is working out a plan for IL GOP Vice Chairman Carol Donovan to step in as the interim chairman, and will oversee a deliberate, thoughtful process to pick the next permanent party chair.
Insiders are frustrated that Chairman Brady's calls to GOP state senators in support of gay marriage have distracted from discussions about the state's fiscal and pension crisis.
Three-fifths of the State Central Committee's weighted votes are needed to oust a sitting chairman. Several 2012 Platform Committee members, one GOP lawmaker and the Grundy County GOP have called for Brady's resignation.
The second Illinois county Republican organizations has called for Chairman Pat Brady (photo right) to resign. Passed Thursday night, the Clinton County GOP's resolution calls for Brady to step down, and the 17th CD's State Central Committeeman Bob Winchester to officially call for Brady's resignation. County Chairman Marc Hoffman will transmit the resolution Friday.
Clinton County GOP Western Vice-Chairman Doug Gruenke told Illinois Review the resolution's passage was because Brady undermined the ILGOP platform when he lobbied state senators to support same sex marriage legislation during the recent lame duck session.
Here are even more IL GOP state committee members expressing their disapproval of Brady's comments on gay marriage.
More than 1000 priests have signed a letter voicing concerns about how same-sex marriage will threaten religious freedoms and may even lead to Catholics being excluded from jobs.
In the letter, which is one of the biggest open letters of its type ever written,the priests claim that same-sex marriage could threaten freedoms in a way that was last seen during centuries of persecution of Catholics in England.
The letter, signed by 1054 priests as well as 13 bishops, abbots and other senior Catholic figures, expresses fears that the simple acts of practising or speaking about their faith will be severely limited.
They even claim the freedom to speak freely from the pulpit could be at risk.
Published in The Daily Telegraph, the letter goes as far as to compare David Cameron's proposed changes to the meaning of marriage to those of Henry VIII, whose efforts to divorce Catherine of Aragon sparked centuries of upheaval between Church and State.
Their fear is that Catholics who believe in the traditional meaning of marriage would effectively be excluded from some jobs - in the same way as Catholics were barred from many professions from the Reformation until the 19th century.
It said: 'After centuries of persecution, Catholics have, in recent times, been able to be members of the professions and participate fully in the life of this country.
'Legislation for same-sex marriage, should it be enacted, will have many legal consequences, severely restricting the ability of Catholics to teach the truth about marriage in their schools, charitable institutions or places of worship.
'It is meaningless to argue that Catholics and others may still teach their beliefs about marriage in schools and other arenas if they are also expected to uphold the opposite view at the same time.'
The Equal Marriage Bill, allowing couples of the same sex to marry, is due to be published this month.
Our Communications Director Thomas Peters writes in response to the comments made by the IL GOP Chair Pat Brady about young voters and their views on marriage.
He argues that "An abandonment of traditional marriage by the GOP would leave 12 million Millennials without a party that reflects their views on marriage":
Illinois GOP chairman Pat Brady thinks gay marriage is the secret to Republicans’ winning Millennial voters, but he’s wrong.
Brady lamented to a reporter this week that GOP support for traditional marriage is driving away young voters: “How are we ever going to get the vote of anyone under 40?” he asked.
As a 27-year-old ardent supporter of traditional marriage, my question to Pat Brady is, “How does the GOP deserve to get the vote of anyone under 40 if they don’t act decisively to strengthen marriage now?”
Here’s some hard data: Despite all of the Obama campaign’s advantages among young voters, Romney actually won under-30 white men by 13 points. He won under-30 white women by a point. He won 93 percent of under-30 white Republicans, while Obama only managed to get 91 percent of under-30 white Democrats. Romney also won under-30 white independents by two points.
Was Romney’s support for traditional marriage crippling for him among under-30 white voters? Clearly not. (NRO's The Corner)
I write to you from France, where a pro-marriage rebellion is underway!
Francois Hollande, the ultra liberal President of France, swept into power last May, promising among many other things a swift legalizing of same-sex marriage and adoption.
But the people of France did not want this to be.
You see, the French people know in their bones that every child deserves a mother and father. And so they took to the streets – hundreds of thousands of them!
I am proud to be a part of this historic moment in France. See for yourself:
The pro-marriage movement in France is passionate, diverse, uncompromising and inspired. They are also calm, rational and persistent.
This was the biggest pro-marriage demonstration to date. Conservative estimates number the crowds in the hundreds of thousands.
They held signs that read "Une papa, une maman pour TOUS les enfants! — which means "A dad, a mom for ALL children." Some children held signs that read "Made in papa + maman": "Made in mom and dad."
I have been so excited to be part of this new international solidarity movement in defense of marriage, children and family.
I will certainly be reflecting more on this experience on my flight home. And I would ask you to join me in thinking about more creative ways we can proclaim our pro-marriage views with passion and conviction...and in the public square where our fellow Americans can see our fervor and resolution.
I can't wait to come back to the country I love.
But I am inspired to see that those of us in America who hold the institution of marriage sacred truly have so many friends overseas and around the world.
A new day is dawning for marriage.
As I said when I ended a speech last night before a group of French leaders in the fight to protect marriage: Vive le Marriage -- Vive la France!
More photos of today's historic marriage rally from Le Parisien:
[translation] ...All came equipped with signs, banners, balloons and clothes for the occasion. The police department expects to manage an influx of 250,000 to 300,000 protesters.
Several hundred thousand people are expected to march through Paris on Sunday against the planned legalisation of same-sex marriage in the first mass protest against the unpopular President Francois Hollande.
Strongly backed by the Catholic hierarchy, lay activists have mobilised a hybrid coalition of church-going families, political conservatives, Muslims, evangelicals and even homosexuals opposed to gay marriage for the show of force.
So many are expected to converge on Paris from around France that police had organisers split it into three separate columns starting from different points around the city and meeting in the Champ de Mars park at the Eiffel Tower.
... Gay marriage opponents such as Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, head of the Catholic Church in France, have asked why Hollande is pushing through a divisive social reform called "marriage for all" when voters seem more concerned about "jobs for all."
Vingt-Trois spearheaded the opposition with a critical sermon in August. Other faith leaders -- Muslim, Jewish, Protestant and Orthodox Christian -- soon spoke out too.
A massive rebellion against gay marriage is brewing in France. I'm here now, and I'll report to you first hand from the rally planned for Sunday.
To read the news accounts in the U.S., you would think gay marriage is inevitable here. Like everywhere.
That's what they always say, right? Recognize that argument for what it is: a tactic to make you feel helpless and impotent and therefore submissive. To get you to give up and just submit to whatever they have planned.
There are only two things we know for sure about the future: it hasn't happened yet. And for those of us who are people of faith—we know that God is in charge.
But to be here is to recognize something extraordinary is happening, something totally unpredicted when French President Francois Hollande set out to pass gay marriage: a massive popular rebellion.
The Sights To Be Seen
I just witnessed something I never expected to happen: a Communist party member (yes!?) here in France who is going to vote "no" on gay marriage. (Stay tuned for more!)
The new elected ruler of France has no plans to marry his current partner. After all, he never married, in thirty years, the mother of his four children, with whom he split up recently. His current partner is legally married to another man.
Perhaps you can't expect a man with those views and values to understand that marriage is, for so many, a sacred value (even for many without explicit religious belief); to understand that marriage is society's way of expressing not just a personal relationship but an intergenerational compact: the need to bring together male and female so that children can know the love of their mother and father.
But these truths, written on the human heart by Nature and Nature's God, are not so easily obliterated from the face of this Earth.
The Voices To Be Heard
The New York Times likes to portray this as a purely religious debate; France, though secular, is still Catholic, the New York Times headline brays.
I wish.
The truth is more complicated and interesting. Yes, Christian and Catholic leaders have taken strong stands opposing the legal deconstruction of marriage. Yes, Muslims leaders—a fairly large minority in France—are raising their voices. Yes, the Chief Rabbi of France has written eloquently (as Pope Benedict himself noticed) about the moral issues raised by gay marriage in France and elsewhere.
But some of the most fascinating and powerful critiques of gay marriage are coming from French gay men.
The French website is homovox.com. We first noticed them from unofficial translation published by a Professor Robert Oscar Lopez at the American Thinker.
We are now in the process of bringing translations of these videos to you. Keep checking the NOM blog!
Here, for example, is Jean Pier: a 49-year-old self-described homosexual filmmaker, explaining why he opposes gay marriage in France:
I am a documentary author for TV and I'm homosexual.
I have to wonder, "who's this law for?" I say to myself, "Is it made for homosexuals?" I live in Provence and I work in Paris. I know very few homosexuals who wish to marry beyond the PACS (civil unions) they already have. In fact, the number of people in PACS unions in France, couples of the same sex, is minimal. Therefore, who's this law for? If it's for the 5,000 people who live in the district of Le Marrais, then it's just a militant act. But behind it all, it must be a question of the child.
I've had this business of freedom and equality. Then I pose this question: What of the freedom and equality of the child? The child won't have its equality vis-a-vis its friends in school. Its peers may have divorced and blended families, but they have, at least, a father and mother.
He concludes, "Finally, when I look at this proposed law, I conclude that it's a law for gays, but not for homosexuals. I do not want to support it."
Phillipe has some interesting insights on gay marriage and how it relates to issues of 'equality': "There are bad/wrong equalities. We call that conformism, uniformity. A lack of recognition to the realities of people. The gay activists who treat equality as sacred do not differentiate between equal rights and the equality of identity. Equality of the law, and equality of self-respect or dignity."
Meanwhile, Stateside
In Illinois, where gay marriage advocates tried and failed to quickly shove through a gay marriage bill in the lame duck session, a rebellion of another kind is brewing: against GOP turncoat Pat Brady, head of the Illinois Republican party, who unilaterally gave cover to liberal Democrats by endorsing gay marriage and accusing his own party of bigotry and discrimination!
NOM took the leadership on holding him accountable for his betrayal, calling for his resignation, and promising a quarter of a million dollar against any Republican who votes for gay marriage.
Brady is doubling down now with ever more hateful rhetoric directed against his voters:
"If people want to throw me out because I took a stand on an issue of discrimination [as] the chairman of the Republican Party, the party founded by Abraham Lincoln, then that's — that's up to them and they're free to do it," Brady said. "But I'm not backing down."
Thanks to your support of NOM, we're keeping up the pressure — and Brady's betrayal is not passing unnoticed.
WBEZ reports, "Facing Rebellion, state Chair rejects calls to resign over gay marriage support":
State GOP Chairman Pat Brady faces growing calls for his resignation… Conservative groups and activists pounced on Brady shortly after he released a statement last week offering his "full support" of a bill before the General Assembly that would legalize same-sex marriage. But now the public demands for his ouster are coming from party leaders themselves.
"Pat Brady is a total disgrace," said Bobbie Peterson, a Republican state central committeewoman from Beecher, Ill.
"He's a pretty face for TV. He can speak well. Period," Peterson said. "But what's coming out of his mouth is not what the Illinois Republican party is about."
Four committeemen told the news organization they have asked Brady to resign, representing nearly half of the votes needed to boot him out.
State Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Rockford, who sits on the Republican State Central Committee, criticized Brady for dividing the party just when it was trying to focus on resolving the state's serious fiscal issues: "His role as chairman should be to concentrate on uniting the party, and not dividing the party," Syverson said.
A party official that decides he hates the party's most loyal supporters, and is willing to stand with those who drive Christian charities out of the public square and excludes Christian views from public respect… such a public official won't be long with his party.
America's Church?
Meanwhile, in Washington D.C., more evidence of that exclusion of Christians looms. Washington National Cathedral is a private church and they are free to do gay marriages if they want. But as this historic cathedral in our nation's Capital repudiates historic Christianity, the full reach and impact of gay marriage is becoming increasingly clear.
President Obama accepted the withdrawal of Pastor Louie Giglio from Obama's inauguration ceremonies, after the gay lobby insisted he either repudiate a sermon he preached in the 1990s or withdraw.
They called on him to repudiate, according to leftist Think Progress, particularly this statement in the sermon: homosexuality "is sin in the eyes of God, and it is sin in the word of God."
Now, I know many good people who oppose gay marriage who do not believe this. (I doubt Phillipe Arino does!) If you oppose gay marriage for nonreligious reasons—welcome to our coalition! Whether you are homosexual or straight, you are not alone!
Of course, we must never forget the basic dignity of all human beings, including gay people, even as we fight against wrongs such as same-sex marriage.
Nonetheless, Pastor Giglio's view is the standard view of sexual morality in orthodox Christianity (and Judaism, and Hinduism, and Islam, and Buddhism) for thousands of years.
His withdrawal under political pressure demonstrates the New World Order at the White House: traditional Christianity must be excluded; the wrath of gay advocates is more important than national unity or the principle of tolerance and inclusiveness.
The White House announcement was made quietly. The mainstream news is not going to let you know this stuff.
But—thanks to your help and all you've done—we're able to get the word out!
And thank you as well for another, tremendous victory—also totally unreported by the news media!
The Center for Military Readiness reports Congress took steps on significant new religious liberty protections for military chaplains. (President Obama also opposed these new protections incidentally, saying they were not necessary. And we know this fight isn't over—not by a long shot.)
Still, we've won a victory for now. We let you know about these proposed protections, and you stepped up to the plate—in a big way! After we asked you, on Dec. 6, to write to Congress and insist on religious liberty protection for chaplains in the National Defense Authorization Act, you sent than 12,500 letters as a response to this call! And guess what? Congress noticed!
Power to the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from this earth! Not if you and I have anything to say about it—and this proves once again that we do!
The hour is late. The battles are tough—you and I both know this.
Now is the time for the tough to stand tall and proud and fearless for the good of marriage.
I am personally so grateful to you for the fellowship we share.
Please pray for the Center for Military Readiness, which took great leadership in this victory, for the Family Research Council—and for all those at the front lines of this marriage fight.
United we stand with justice on our side, for the deepest and most important truths about human nature.
Here is a fourth voice -- Jean Marc -- a mayor who is yet another gay voice in France who opposes President Hollande's proposal to legalize gay marriage.
As before, we offer an approximate English translation below, done by one of supporters:
I’ve been living with a (guy) for 20 years. As well, I’m mayor of my village, here in Bergueil… Speaking of the planned law (for gay marriage), I have an unusual position. My view isn’t being heard in the media.
What to say about the LGBT movement?
The LGBT movement that speaks out in the media… Nobody voted for them. No homosexual voted them in. They don’t speak for me. They don’t speak in place of me.
What reasons for your opposition?
As a society we should not encouraging this. It’s not biologically natural. We (gays) do not have the fertility, in the sense of making a baby. We have plenty of other forms of fertility. Artistic, for example, and other forms of fertility. In my case, I feel I’ve connected with my village, and I’ve reinvigorated a village that was dying, fading. I know how to create ties within my community. In summary, the law I advise would be whatever’s best for the child. One must favor what is best for the child. Nobody can deny, I believe, that it’s best for a child to have a mother and a father who love each other as best they can.
As French Catholics prepare to mobilize on January 13 for a national march against the creation of homosexual “marriage,” the country’s education minister is warning Catholic schools against participating, claiming that it could cause “homophobia” against homosexual students.
National Education Minister Vincent Peillon has written a letter to all of the country’s 8,300 Catholic school principals, claiming that they have the responsibility to maintain “neutrality” regarding the debate over homosexual “marriage” in their institutions, according to reports by Le Monde and the French Press Agency.
“It is your responsibility in effect to ensure that the debates that are occurring in French society not be expressed, in the schools and establishments, by the phenomena of rejection and homophobic stigmatization,” wrote Peillon.
... Peillon also asks principles to inform him “as quickly as possible regarding eventual incidents and regarding any initiative contrary to these principles, within the public institutions as well as the private institutions under contract.”
Hundreds of opponents of same sex marriage rallied in the [Rhode Island] Statehouse rotunda, led by clergy members who say gay marriage is wrong.
Gallaudet University has reinstated its chief diversity officer after a 3-month paid suspension for signing a petition circulated by opponents of gay marriage in Maryland.
More than 1000 priests have signed a letter voicing concerns about how same-sex marriage will threaten religious freedoms and may even lead to Catholics being excluded from jobs.
He argues that "An abandonment of traditional marriage by the GOP would leave 12 million Millennials without a party that reflects their views on marriage":
