NOM BLOG

First Things Editor Takes on "Republican Party Illusions About Gay Marriage"

R. R. Reno, Editor of First Things:

Ken Mehlman is either deluded or disingenuous. The former chairman of the Republican National Committee is among those now trying to bring the Republican Party around to the cause of gay marriage. In today’s Wall Street Journal he made his case.

... Even more ridiculous is the notion that redefining marriage makes government less intrusive. The notion of civil rights that fuels the push for “marriage equality” requires pumping up the power of the state to bulldoze older traditions and attitudes that stand in the way of the full acceptance and affirmation of homosexuality. It’s going to lead to litigation, regulation, mandated school programs and “inclusivity” seminars, and lots of other legislation.

... Mehlman needs to either open his eyes or be honest: the gay rights movement can’t succeed unless and until the apparatus of the state is brought to bear on traditional institutions that don’t treat homosexuality and heterosexuality equally. It’s not just religious institutions. Basic cultural practices such as sex-segregated bathrooms and locker rooms will be revised—and always under pressure from the courts and government bureaucracies tasked to ensure LGBT rights.

This is in the nature of all progressive projects. The push toward redefining marriage involves creating a new possibility that would not otherwise come to pass if traditional institutions and attitudes were left alone. How will this change be effected. What will have sufficient power to overcome the always substantial solidity of the status quo? Government, of course. That’s why the progressive project is always essentially political.

... Case in point: by Mehlman’s way of thinking, the most basic institution of civil life, marriage itself, is a creation of the modern state to be redefined as the political will sees fit. If we can redefine marriage at such a fundamental level, then what is there in society other than individual choices and the power of the state?

Politically Powerless? HRC's Griffen Demands Obama Appoint "First Openly LGBT Cabinet Secretary, G-8 Ambassador" and "Judges as Well"

Are gay and lesbian people politically powerless, i.e. a suspect class who deserve strict scrutiny under the law?

Chad Griffen, president of the $40million-per-year Human Rights Campaign, fresh from four state vote victories and the re-election of a pro-gay marriage president, claims the political power to demand more appointments of lesbian and gay people to the highest political offices in the land:

"...The Human Rights Campaign's Chad Griffin, president of the largest LGBT equality-rights advocacy group and political lobbying organization in the US, is calling for inclusion in the cabinet and other positions.

'We made historic progress with President Obama in terms of our openly LGBT appointments across the board,' Griffin tellsBuzzFeed. 'We now have the opportunity, and I hope this president and this White House will seize the opportunity to have the first openly LGBT Cabinet secretary, the first openly LGBT G-8 ambassador, and across the board with administrative appointments and judges as well." -- GayStarNews

"Protest Votes Against Same-Sex Marriage Help End 32-Year Reign" of NY Senator Saland

The Observer gives credit where credit is due -- to pro-marriage voters in New York who ousted Steven Saland for betraying them on marriage!

"When Terry Gipson stood on a chair to announce that he had been declared the winner by Gannett publishing in his race to unseat state Senator Stephen Saland, he received a warm ovation from the crowd at the Election Night party at Shadows on the Hudson in Poughkeepsie.

... And while the final ballot count is still not in, the Gipson victory comes as a surprise to many who were unsure that anyone could unseat Saland, a Republican who has been in the state Legislature for 32 years, especially after Saland was endorsed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo after he voted to approve same-sex marriage. The endorsement and a letter from the governor to voters’ mailboxes came in the final days of the campaign.

In response to those actions, the Gipson campaign had pointed out that Saland opposed many of Cuomo’s other key priorities and that Gipson, who is pro-choice and supports same-sex marriage, would be a better match to the governor’s agenda.

“It’s quid pro Cuomo,” said one Democratic committee member not affiliated with the campaign who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution. “Saland finally voted for same-sex marriage after years of helping block it, and it got him the endorsement.”

Saland has not yet been mathematically eliminated from the race and has not conceded."

Tellez: "Marriage is Worth Fighting For and We Can Win"

Luis Tellez, President of the Witherspoon Institute, writes in Public Discourse about marriage and the myth of its inevitable redefinition:

Election Day was a drubbing for marriage. The ballot initiatives to protect marriage lost by over 4% in Maine, Minnesota, Washington State, and Maryland. Those who support same-sex “marriage” reportedly spent over $33 million, while those who defend marriage spent just over $10 million.

Many friends have said that same-sex marriage is inevitable. It is not. I have confidence that fence-sitters will enter the fray in support of traditional marriage. As we continue to debate this issue, three important forces can shift the outcome in favor of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Consider first, public opinion; second, the methods and the message of LGBT activists; and third, reality.

... Ultimately, the future of marriage will not be decided by our likes or our dislikes. Human suffering will periodically remind us that losing a healthy marriage culture produces all kinds of practical costs and penalties. These are measured by those social pathologies that impose a great weight on our society, such as depression, addiction, violence, and illness, as well as missed educational and economic opportunities. However you slice it, the intact biological family continues to be the best “Department of Health, Education and Welfare” when it comes to raising the next generation. Marriage is worth fighting for, even if we lose. Because remember, LGBT activists will lose too as they bring us all down. And that is a sobering thought.

Politically Powerless? "Openly Gay Leaders Will Control Legislative Chambers in Five States"

Gay advocates often claim that lesbian and gay people should be considered a "suspect class" that deserve strict scrutiny. One of the criteria used to determine whether a class of people qualify for this designation is if they are widely considered to be "politically powerless".

Here is one example that would suggest that gay and lesbian people are not politically powerless:

Rep. Tina Kotek of Oregon will become the first out lesbian to lead a state legislative chamber after being elected House Speaker by her Democratic colleagues Thursday.

The Associated Press reports on the vote, which needs to be formally ratified in January. Kotek told the AP that she knows her success as an openly lesbian official has inspired other LGBT people.

"We all look for people out there who look like us," she said. "I have had emails and text messages from people who are very excited."

Openly gay leaders will control legislative chambers in five states, according to the AP, up from two before the election last week. -- The Advocate

Soros-Funded Group Accuses Catholic Bishops of "Electioneering" for Romney

Do faith leaders have First Amendment rights?

A liberal pressure group has accused the U.S. Catholic bishops of breaking tax law by faithfully proclaiming the non-negotiable issues of Church teaching, including the right to life.

These teachings, the organization argues, disadvantage President Barack Obama.

On Friday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) asked for “an immediate Internal Revenue Service investigation into the activities of the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops for using their position as leaders of the Catholic Church to persuade parishioners to vote against Barack Obama in Tuesday’s election.”

The USCCB “may be engaged in prohibited electioneering,” which would require the IRS to revoke its 501 (c) 3 tax-exempt status, according to CREW.

... None of the bishops endorse a candidate. However, each reminded Catholics of the importance of preserving religious freedom against the HHS mandate, protecting innocent life, and defending the institution of marriage. -- LifeSiteNews

UK Gay Activists Name Archbishop of Edinburgh "Bigot of the Year"

Intolerance and name-calling:

Christian believers and others in Britain are expressing outrage after the country’s leading homosexualist lobby group declared the Cardinal Archbishop of Edinburgh, Keith O’Brien, “Bigot of the Year” for his opposition to “gay marriage”. While Stonewall and some others continue to defend the award category, even some of the group’s greatest supporters have criticized it, saying the designation damages their own cause.

Gerald Warner, a Catholic journalist and sometime policy advisor to the Scottish Conservative party, called the award a sign that the homosexualist movement is sinking further into “homofascism”. He told LifeSiteNews.com, “How would the politically correct media respond if the most prominent Catholic pressure group in Britain last night voted Ben Summerskill, of Stonewall, ‘Weirdo of the Year’? We all know the answer.

“So why is ‘hate speech,’ and even a hate award, acceptable, so long as it is directed against a Prince of the Church for reasserting the timeless and unchangeable doctrine of the Catholic Church as it has stood for 2,000 years?”

While Stonewall and other homosexualist activist groups continue to defend the award, others have said it brings the tenor of the debate down to the level of the schoolyard. --LifeSiteNews

UK Pollster: Contrary to PM Cameron's Claims, 55-70% of Brits Support Marriage

The UK Christian Institute:

David Cameron misrepresented polling data to claim popular support for redefining marriage, the ComRes chief has said.

Andrew Hawkins, Chairman of the polling company, wrote to David Cameron to “put the record straight” about the number of people who are in favour of the Government’s plans to redefine marriage.

The Prime Minister had responded to a letter from MP Cheryl Gillan, in which she criticised the proposals. He said that more Tory-leaning voters were in favour of same-sex marriage than were put off by it.

But Andrew Hawkins said his polling showed that redefining marriage was unlikely to win back support from disillusioned voters.

He also said it was “simply not the case” that all the published polls show more voters are in favour of same-sex marriage, something the Prime Minister asserted as fact in his letter.

Mr Hawkins said the level of agreement that marriage should stay as it is, varies between 55% and over 70%.

Jacoby: Let The People Keep Voting!

Jeff Jacoby, op-ed writer for the Boston Globe:

"Rights should not be put to a vote," same-sex marriage advocate Evan Wolfson, the founder of Freedom to Marry, was still insisting the day after the election. But I suspect we'll be hearing that argument less and less, as activists embark on fresh ballot campaigns to amend the many state constitutions that now block same-sex marriage. Unless, of course, the Supreme Court intervenes, and tries once again to impose a resolution by short-circuiting the workings of democracy.

I don't claim that voters are always right, or that the people can't make mistakes. By my lights, voters in Maine, Maryland, Washington, and Minnesota made a grave one last week. I believe same-sex marriage is a bad idea. But I also believe that political legitimacy derives from the consent of the governed. "I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves,"wrote Thomas Jefferson after a lifetime in public affairs. "If we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion."

Gay marriage shouldn't be treated as sacrosanct, too lofty for mere politics. Let the debates, the struggles, the compromises, and, yes, the votes continue. Until the people work it out politically, this issue will never be settled. -- TownHall

Happy Thanksgiving from The National Organization for Marriage

National Organization for Marriage

Dear Marriage Supporters,

I am so very proud to be an American, yes.

Why then this Thanksgiving week (that quintessential American holiday) do I want to say: 'Viva la France!'?

Look at this photo:

Literally hundreds of thousands of French men and women, old and young, took to the streets last week in defense of a principle deeper than politics, older than any constitution, embedded in human nature:

Every child comes from a man and a woman. Every child has the right to the love and care of the man and woman who made him or her. In one family. Protected by a marriage, recognized (not created) by a government that understands the limits of its power.

The mass outpouring of love on behalf of this ancient truth—all the while witnessing the sad, degraded and angry attempts to denigrate it as hatred and bigotry—are a profound reminder of why you, and I, and millions of Americans will not give up this fight.

We cannot surrender the vision that sees the human family, created by God, rooted in nature, deeply oriented towards the good of calling together man and woman to give themselves to each other, and to the future. A baby incarnates God's wish that the world will go on.

Marriage is a cross-cultural social institution which reflects the deepest yearnings of the human heart—let me speak here as a man who is a husband and father—a yearning not only to be a husband, but a father, and not only a father, but a father who loves the mother of his child.

What God has joined, let no man fragment.

I wish you every happiness this Thanksgiving, every opportunity to know the joy of gratitude.

Gratitude for this country we share that still gives us the right to fight for what we think is right.

Gratitude for each other, for the knowledge we do not fight this great battle alone. So many millions of loving, decent law-abiding Americans have come together in this fight for marriage, across every line of creed and color.

I'm so thankful that you and I know (unlike so many people out there who struggle without this knowledge) this light of the soul: there is a Providence in the world larger than this week's headline, a deep Reason embedded into the structure of nature, of the universe itself, of the human heart—that loves us infinitely and beyond all measure.

Thank you for all you have done to help me and others fight this fight. Thank you above all for caring so deeply and so generously about marriage as God designed it.

Enjoy Turkey Day!

May you and your family have a happy and blessed Thanksgiving!

Girgis, Anderson & George in WSJ: "The Wisdom of Upholding [Our Marriage] Tradition"

The authors of "What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense" --Sherif Girgis, Ryan Anderson and Robert P. George-- take to the pages of the Wall Street Journal:

"...As we argue in our book "What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense," marriage is a uniquely comprehensive union. It involves a union of hearts and minds; but also—and distinctively—a bodily union made possible by sexual-reproductive complementarity. Hence marriage is inherently extended and enriched by procreation and family life and objectively calls for similarly all-encompassing commitment, permanent and exclusive. 

In short, marriage unites a man and woman holistically—emotionally and bodily, in acts of conjugal love and in the children such love brings forth—for the whole of life.

... weakening marital norms will hurt children and spouses, especially the poorest. Rewriting the parenting ideal will also undermine in our mores and practice the special value of biological mothers and fathers. By marking support for the conjugal view as bigotry, it will curb freedoms of religion and conscience. Redefinition will do all this in the name of a basic error about what marriage is.

Some bonds remain unrecognized, and some people unmarried, under any marriage policy. If simply sharing a home creates certain needs, we can and should meet them outside civil marriage.

Moreover, if we reject the revisionist's bare equation of marriage with companionship—and the equation of marriage licenses with all-purpose personal approval—we'll see that conjugal marriage laws deprive no one of companionship or its joys, and mark no one as less worthy of fulfillment. (Indeed, using marriage law to express social inclusion might further marginalize whoever remains single.)

LSN: 200,000-500,000 Rally Against Gay Marriage in France

LifeSiteNews reports on a second, and far larger rally for marriage in France!

Hundreds of thousands of traditional marriage supporters demonstrated against same-sex “marriage” in France over the weekend.

On Saturday, a nationwide rally drew an estimated 200,000 protesters in Paris according to organizers, with tens of thousands more attending rallies throughout the country.

Almost 30,000 traditional marriage supporters demonstrated in the city of Lyon, according to a Reuters report. Police there reported that 40 counter-protesters were arrested after they attempted to disrupt the rally.

Police in Toulouse reported that tear gas was used to break up a group of homosexual activists who tried to interfere with the gathering of five thousand traditional marriage supporters.

Le Parisien reports that between 6,000 and 8,000 people demonstrated in Marseille, proving that, as one blogger quipped, “there are more than just drug dealers in the beleaguered city.”

Marseille police said they used tear gas against counter-demonstrators who unfurled a banner that read, “Your model of society is dead, welcome to Sodom and Gomorrha,” and hurled insults at the traditional marriage demonstrators.

Saturday’s demonstrations were endorsed by leaders of the of the Catholic, Muslim, Protestant and Jewish communities, who demanded the government of President François Hollande reconsider the impact of changing “a foundation of society.”

You can view a live blog by Nouvelles de France here which includes more photos and video of the rallies. Here are a few photos:

Tens of Thousands Join Pro-Marriage Marches Across France

The Associated Press:

Groups opposing President Francois Hollande's plan to legalize gay marriage and adoption took to the streets across France on Saturday.

Hollande said he would enact his "marriage for everyone" plan within a year of coming to power in May, but vocal opposition from religious leaders, some politicians and parts of rural France has divided the country.

Saturday's protest, called the "March for Everyone," included pro-family and Catholic groups. Several thousand people marched in Paris, carrying signs with slogans such as "One child (equals) one father + one mother."

Their final destination was the Invalides monument, the final resting place of Napeolon Bonaparte, the French leader who invented the country's prized civil code, which is still in force today. It states that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, a point the gay marriage bill seeks to overturn. Another reform would be to replace the entries in a child's registry book from "father" and "mother" to "parent 1" and "parent 2."

The Daily Caller adds more:

Nearly 20,000 people gathered in cities all across France to protest a pending bill that would legalize gay marriage and adoption in the country.

Protesters took to the streets in Rennes, Nantes, Dijon, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille and Toulouse to march in the “Demonstration for All” rally, France 24 reports. The activists carried pink and blue balloons with signs that read, “No to the government bill for the marriage for everyone,” and “A mother and father, there’s nothing better for a child.”

“We defend our vision of what society should be like. Our first concern is the child’s well-being and balance,” said Flora, a student protester who spoke to France 24. “If the law passes, it would be a deep injustice to the child, who is not given a choice.”

Brian Brown: Election Result Should "Wake Up and Energize" Marriage Advocates

The Baptist Press interviews our president Brian Brown about the future of the marriage movement:

Voters in three states legalized gay marriage on Election Day -- the first time voters in any state had done so. But it wasn't a turning point on the issue, and traditionalists can still win the cultural battle, says Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage.

Some might think Brown is naive, but he notes that supporters of traditional marriage were outspent by a margin of 3-to-1 in liberal-leaning Maine, Maryland and Washington and lost by an average of only 53-47 percent.

"This is not over," Brown told Baptist Press, referencing the nationwide debate over marriage's definition. "... They had a great election from their perspective, but I hope that what this does is wake folks up and energize folks and people realize that [these losses] were not inevitable, same-sex marriage is not inevitable."

SCOTUS Resets DOMA & Prop 8 Cases for Nov. 30

SCOTUSblog:

The Supreme Court will consider all ten of the same-sex marriage petitions at its private Conference on November 30, instead of at the next session on November 20, according to the Court’s electronic docket.   Eight of the filings deal with the constitutionality of the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act, limiting marriage for all federal purposes to a union of a man and a woman.  One petition deals with the validity of an Arizona law, similar to DOMA, that limits benefits for married state employees.  And the tenth is an attempt to revive California’s “Proposition 8,” imposing a statewide ban on marriage for gays and lesbians.   All of the laws at issue had been struck down in lower courts.

The Court has given no reason for re-scheduling these petitions, but one possible explanation is that the choice of which to review and what issues to consider is a complex one that may require added time for consideration.