The issue of gay marriage just got a boost, courtesy of the Massachusetts Senate yesterday. 

BOSTON (AP) — Gay couples from across the country are one step closer to a Massachusetts wedding.

The state Senate voted Tuesday to repeal a 1913 law used to bar out-of-state gay couples from marrying in the state. The law prohibits couples from obtaining marriage licenses if they couldn't legally wed in their home states.

The House is expected to vote on the repeal later this week. Gov. Deval Patrick, whose 18-year-old daughter announced publicly last month that she is a lesbian, would have 10 days to sign it.

Just another step down the slippery slope.  But I do think it increases the chances of this becoming a "real" issue in the presidential campaign.  Remember, traditional marriage amendments on are on the ballot in both California and Florida this year.  Now you've got Massachusetts about to open its doors to gay marriage tourism...sending newly married gays back to their home states to start filing lawsuits.

Well, it seems now that Obama's doing a little backpedaling on the gay marriage thing.  After having tripped up the other day by trying to woo evangelicals with talk about faith-based programs at the same time it came out that he sent a letter opposing the marriage amendment in California, his spokesperson is in full spin-mode.  From the NY Times:  

Mr. Obama made his position public in a letter he sent last week to the Alice B. Toklas L.G.B.T. Democratic Club, a San Francisco gay rights group.

“I oppose the divisive and discriminatory efforts to amend the California Constitution, and similar efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution or those of other states,” wrote Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

Well, that's pretty clear.  We can disagree, but at least we know where he stands, right?  Uh-huh.  Read on.

But his campaign said that Mr. Obama’s opposition to the initiative, which will appear on the state’s November ballot, did not signal a change in position. He remains opposed to same-sex marriage, but supports civil unions and domestic partnerships.

Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for the campaign, said that Mr. Obama took the stance because “as we have seen in some states, enshrining a definition of marriage into the constitution can allow states to roll back the civil rights and benefits that are provided in domestic partnerships and civil unions.”

So he's opposed to same-sex marriage, but opposes making keeping it against the law.  Opposing a state being able to keep it's current definition of marriage from being redefined by a one vote court majority.

Perhaps then Obama, or his spokesman, would be so kind as to provide some proposed text of a traditional marriage law that wouldn't "roll back civil rights", whatever that means.

The truth is that he wants to play that cagey liberal game of being for something without having to admit your for it.  Meaning he'll say he's "for" gay civil unions/domestic partnerships which have all the same rights and benefits of marriage...so long as we don't call it a "marriage" yet and upset some of those "bitter" middle class voters who's votes he'll need in a few swing states in the American heartland. 

He's hoping that they don't catch on before Election Day.

The pro-family conservatives in California met the first half of this years challenge on the issue of gay marriage - they got a traditional definition of marriage amendment on the ballot for this November...making California ground-zero in this debate for the next 6 months.

In fact, they got over 1.1 million signatures on petitions to get it on the ballot - over 400,000 more than they needed.  A good sign for the energy and support they'll need in the campaign.

The bad news is that the folks out in California were forced to do this (in spite of having a defense of marriage state law) by their own judiciary....and the good news is that the judiciary is forcing them to do this.  By that i mean that the State Supreme Court's recent 4-3 edict declaring gay marriage constitutional gives the pro-amendment folks all that much more gas to get this thing passed in November.  And who knows, it might even make the Democrats worry a little about all that extra turnout from "values voters" to the point that they have to spend more money out there for Obama that could otherwise be spent in real swing states this fall.

The other bad news, not just for California but a lot of other states, is that the CA Supreme Court refused to stay the decision until after the election, (despite requests from 10 other state's Attorneys General)... which means we'll likely have thousands of gays getting "married" in California and running back to their home states and instigating law suits there... which means some of those cases will make tracks to the Supreme Court eventually, deciding whether or not one state has to recognize a gay marriage from another state.  Meaning whether or not one state can decide for ALL states whether or not gay marriage should be legal.

If that's not enough reason for you to help make sure Obama's not the guy picking the next Supreme Court judge, I don't know what is.

Good news from the Golden State:

The sponsors of a proposed constitutional amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage in California said Monday they have gathered enough signatures to qualify the measure for the November ballot.

A coalition of religious groups called Protect Marriage collected more than 1.1 million signatures in support of the amendment, said Brian Brown, executive director of the California office of the National Organization for Marriage.

The initiative needs 694,354 signatures, or 8 percent of the votes cast in the last governor's race, to make it onto the ballot.

"We have gone against tremendous odds to do this, and now the voters in California will have the chance to protect marriage," Brown said.

Supporters of the Limit on Marriage initiative plan to deliver their signed petitions to county registrars this week, ahead of the April 28 submission deadline set by the California Secretary of State's Office. The signatures must be verified before the amendment can be approved for the election.

Get so many more signatures than required is a great win for those folks...and the list presents a ready made list of potential volunteers and contributors for the campaign.  Just as important, having this issue on the ballot in California this fall might actually help put California in play in a presidential race for the first time in a long time.  Maybe.  Or at least maybe enough to worry the Dems into spending more money and time there than they otherwise would.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, a traditional definition of marriage amendment qualified for the ballot in Florida this coming November.  Now comes the latest project - getting it onto the ballot in California.

More than 100,000 California voters have signed a petition to let the people decide the definition of marriage, following a Focus on the Family mailing to 120,000 voters.

“To have this number of petitions come back signed, to be counted … is truly extraordinary," Ron Prentice, executive director of the California Family Council, told Family News in Focus.

But there's more work to do. In order to put marriage on the November ballot, more than 1 million signatures are needed by April 1.

Prentice is working with ProtectMarriage.com, a coalition of local, state and national groups, to join the 27 states that have constitutional protection for marriage. ProtectMarriage.com is putting forth a simple, one-sentence statement that defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

Californians can find out how they can help here.

Just as with Florida, having a marriage amendment on the ballot in California will be a bost for the GOP this fall.  So if you know anyone out that way, spread the word and encourage them to sign (and promote) the petition.

And just in case you think this sort of thing doesn't really matter, take a look at what's happened in New York recently.

A New York appellate court ruled Friday that valid out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples must be legally recognized in New York, just as the law recognizes those of heterosexual couples solemnized elsewhere. Lawyers for both sides said the ruling applied to all public and private employers in the state.

Even though gay couples may not legally marry in New York, the appellate court in Rochester held that a gay couple’s 2004 marriage in Canada must be respected under the state’s longstanding “marriage recognition rule,” and that an employer’s denial of health benefits had discriminated against the couple on the basis of their sexual orientation.

In other words, just what conservatives have been saying all along (that judges will re-define marriage) will come to pass, unless the people of each state continue to take up the cause and legally define marriage as between a man and a woman in their state constitutions.

This is big:

The Florida Division of Elections announced over the weekend that it certified 649,346 signatures seeking to place the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment on the state's Nov. 4 ballot. Conservative activists collected 92,000 signatures in the last two weeks leading up to the Feb. 1 deadline to ensure they exceeded the 611,099 needed to place the measure on the ballot.

If the amendment passes, Florida would recognize marriage as "the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife," and "no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized." The latter provision would protect Florida from having to recognize out of state same-sex marriage licenses.

Marriage amendments have passed in 27 out of 28 states where they have been on the ballot, and I doubt Florida will be an exception.  And the fact that this will draw more socially conservative voters to the polls in November is good news for the GOP this fall, given Florida's status as a key swing state in presidential elections.  Again, good news.

Well, believe it or not, we've got another judicial victory for traditional marriage...and it's from Maryland, (which made it a coin flip).

BALTIMORE (AP) — Plaintiffs vowed to take the fight over gay marriage in Maryland to the Legislature after the state's highest court threw out a suit challenging a law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

In a 4-3 decision, the Court of Appeals ruled that the state's 1973 ban on gay marriage does not discriminate on the basis of gender and does not deny any fundamental rights guaranteed by the state constitution. The court also found that the state has a legitimate interest in promoting opposite-sex marriage.

A good decision, on a critical social issue.  But note the slim, one-vote margin..which joins a string of other such slim margin examples on critical cases in our judiciary...which underlines the importance of electing politicians that will appoint good judges...but I digress.

Also note that this is the latest in a string of victories all across the country for the common sense opinion that it's not up to the judiciary to invent/discover new rights (such as gay marriage) in our various constitutions.  Such lunacy belongs to the people.

In the course of rendering their decision, (and doing the right thing), they felt it necessary to deflect a little bit of heat and remind everyone of some basics civics, essentially saying, 'Hey guys, it's not our fault.  Talk to the legislature!".

"Our opinion should by no means be read to imply that the General Assembly may not grant and recognize for homosexual persons civil unions or the right to marry a person of the same sex," Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr. wrote for the majority. ...

And here it comes 

...Legislators on both sides of the debate predicted action on the issue in the next session. The heavily Democratic legislature has passed several gay-rights laws in recent years but has not voted on legalizing same-sex marriage or civil unions. ...

State Sen. Richard Madaleno, who is openly gay, said he plans to introduce a bill to allow same-sex marriage. He also expects a proposal to create civil unions.

"I think we'll have a lengthy discussion next session about what the options are for legal recognition for gay people," Madaleno said.

Don Dwyer, one of the General Assembly's most conservative members, said he would introduce a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage as "insurance." ...

Then there's this:

Many of the plaintiffs have children, and they argue that their families are being denied the stability and legal protection that comes from having married parents.  L isa Kebreau, 39, and partner Mikki Mozelle, 31, who live in Riverdale, have three children — ages 20 months, 2 and 17.

"We really wanted them to understand how normal and good their family is — that their family is just like any other family," Kebreau said.

Uh, no it's not "just like any other family".  Also, this is why gay adoption shouldn't be allowed in the first place, because without it they wouldn't have the children to make such a claim to begin with.  And speaking of children, note this nugget from the decision:

The court also found that the state has an interest in promoting procreation and that the General Assembly "has not acted wholly unreasonably in granting recognition to the only relationship capable of bearing children traditionally within the marital unit."

Which is what this issue comes down to, or should come down to.  The children.  Or, more precisely, the next generation of citizens.  For all the talk about rights, it's time to recognize society's collective right (via the state) to promote its future "general welfare" via the next generation.

New Hampshire's move to pass a sam-sex "civil unions" bill has forced the issue of sam-sex unions back to the forefront of issues in the presidential nomination contest...and led to a charge of flip-floppery on the part of Rudy Giuliani.  From the NY Sun:

In a startling departure from his previously stated position on civil unions, Mayor Giuliani came out to The New York Sun yesterday evening in opposition to the civil union law just passed by the New Hampshire state Senate.

 

"Mayor Giuliani believes marriage is between one man and one woman. Domestic partnerships are the appropriate way to ensure that people are treated fairly," the Giuliani campaign said in a written response to a question from the Sun. "In this specific case the law states same sex civil unions are the equivalent of marriage and recognizes same sex unions from outside states. This goes too far and Mayor Giuliani does not support it."

 But was Rudy for civil unions before he was against them?

On a February 2004 edition of Fox News's "The O'Reilly Factor," Mr. Giuliani told Bill O'Reilly, when asked if he supported gay marriage, "I'm in favor of … civil unions."

While conservatives always welcome support for our positions, it would be nice if Rudy gave us a little explanation as to his complete change of a position he has always been adamant about throughout his political carreer.

The jig is up.  We can now officially put to bed the lie that advocates of gay marriage only want equal rights.   According to a Reuters story out of Connecticut, eight gay and lesbian couples are asking that state’s Supreme Court to mandate the legalization of gay marriage.  You should know that Connecticut is a state that already grants the “rights and benefits” of marriage to homosexuals under a civil unions law.

 

The couples claim they are seeking the right to marry because “a ban on gay marriage violates their constitutional rights”.  They claim not being able to marry is a violation of their equal protection rights under the Constitution.  Oh?  What rights as individuals are they being deprived of?  Surely not privacy.  The Supreme Court covered their rights to conduct their special behavior under the un-enumerated right to privacy several years ago in its Lawrence vs. Texas decision.

 

What this is really about is their “right” to force everyone else, via the state, by way of the judiciary, to approve of – and officially sanction – their behavior and grant them rights and benefits on the basis of that behavior alone.  It would seem that, if they have the right to everyone else’s approval, then everyone else no longer retains the rights to their own opinions.  Of course, that irony isn’t lost on them, just ignored.

 

They’re proving that they don’t just want their rights to privacy, and they’re not satisfied with being granted equal rights based on their behavior.  They want it all baby!  They’re opposed to marriage licenses with checkboxes marked “husband” and “wife”.  They’re against the state issuing birth certificates that identify “mother” and “father”.  Essentially, they want the eradication of sex as a distinction.

 

If they are granted such rights, what happens to the rights of others?  What about the rights of religious groups that provide adoption services and who’s faith will not allow them to place children with homosexual couples?  What about the rights of society to govern itself in a way that protects its future?  What about the rights of children?

 

Aside from its purpose of creating an entity to foster an atmosphere for the growth and nurturing of the next generation and protecting the family’s resources, there would be no reason for marriage to exist.  What’s left is just a corporation.  The state, as well as many private institutions, offer benefits and inducements to encourage male and female partners to sacrifice their individual rights and freedoms to that of the marriage, for the sake of the next generation.  And if society has an interest in anything, it should be its future generations.

 

This is a subject that the American people have spoken out very loudly and very clearly on.  State constitutional amendments or similar referenda defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman have passed by an average of seventy percent of the vote in twenty-seven out of twenty-eight states where they have appeared on the ballot.

 

Bypassing the will of overwhelming majorities of the electorate on an issue that would have repercussions all throughout our legal system will give us what we have in the abortion debate; an unsettled political issue that was never fully aired, thanks to the judiciary.

 

And make no mistake about it, we are headed to a lawyer’s dream world when it comes to litigation that would spring from such a radical redefinition of marriage.  The institution is so interwoven into our legal structure that simply changing the definition of the term would call other laws that contain the term into question.  The class actions suits would fly.  Add the fact that people are constantly moving from state to state and the problem gets worse.  The challenges to one state’s laws on the basis of marriages in other states will flood the courts.

 

Already, the state of Virginia is as odds with Vermont and a lesbian who divorced her former partner in a civil union in that state.  The fight is over a child.  The former Virginia couple went to Vermont to obtain a civil union, then moved back to home.  Thereafter, one of them was artificially inseminated and later gave birth.  The “non-biological” mother (man this gets confusing) never legally adopted the girl under Virginia law.  The couple split up when the biological mother became a Christian.  As a result, she left the union and took her biological, non-adopted child with her.

 

The result?  The state of Vermont orders the mother to grant parental rights to the non-mother, and Virginia says no.  The case comes down to whether or not one state can impose its same-sex unions law on another state.  We have dueling state courts and will no doubt soon have dueling federal district and circuit courts.  Supreme Court here we come.

 

Does an individual state have the right to define marriage within its borders, (we have to ask?)?  Is the federal Defense of Marriage Act constitutional?  Or will marriage be covered under the Constitution’s “full faith and credit” clause, causing all states to recognize marriages performed in other states, whatever their nature?

 

Methinks we may have replaced Sandra Day O’Connor just in time.

The slippery slope of secular humanism continues to become even more so all around the world.  We are quickly moving beyond a mere degradation of social virtues to outright hostility against religion and potential criminalization of adherents who practice their faith in their daily lives.

 

In recent years we have seen the Dutch government change its laws to allow euthanasia, gay marriage, infanticide of imperfect children, and most recently, the sanctioning of gay polygamous unions.

 

Gay marriage has become a reality in Canada and Massachusetts.  For years our own government has flirted with passage of so called “hate crimes” legislation that essentially criminalizes individual thoughts by way of adding extra penalties if biases, hatreds or intolerances are perceived in the commission of a crime.

 

And now the British government is proposing a sweeping new legal code that would forbid discrimination against homosexuals when in the market for “goods and services”.

 

As we know from our own experience in this country with the broad interpretation of our Constitution’s language regarding “interstate commerce”, it’s no leap of logic to deduce that “goods and services” will soon encompass just about any human interaction involving an exchange of money.  Its effect will be that of forcing people of faith, be it Christian, Jew or Muslim – pretty much everyone except secular humanists – to act contrary to their religious beliefs in the conduct of their everyday lives, or else become a criminal.

 

For example, religious schools would commit a crime by not allowing gay students or teachers.  Churches that occasionally rent out their facilities for community events would violate the law by not allowing gays the same access – perhaps even to hold same-sex “marriage” services.

 

Religious newspapers would violate the law if they refuse to run advertisements for gay lobbying groups.  A Christian owned ad agency would be unable to refuse to do work for a campaign promoting gay marriage.

 

In short, the active practice of one’s faith in everyday life would no longer be legal.

 

Here in the United States, the move by Massachusetts’ Supreme Court to legalize gay marriage without so much as a vote by that state’s legislature, much less its citizens, has resulted in making the adoption agency practices of the Catholic Church illegal.  That being the case, the Church was forced to end providing such services altogether, rather than compromise their faith.

 

The implications don’t stop there.  Kansas Senator Sam Brownback recently pointed out that, “…in states with same-sex marriage, religiously affiliated schools, adoption agencies, psychological clinics, social workers, marital counselors, etc. will be forced to choose between violating their own deeply held beliefs and giving up government contracts, tax-exempt status, or even being denied the right to operate at all.”

 

Generally, such proposed legal changes stem from the fact that the secular humanist crowd doesn’t see religion as something that should instruct one’s daily life and relationships, but rather as simply representative of a place some people go on Sunday.  And they have no patience for people who take it more seriously than that.

 

Someone once said that true tolerance also means having tolerance for the views of the majority.  While history is filled with examples of religious intolerances, the greatest levels of intolerance today no longer come from the faithful, but rather from the anti-religious.

 

Much is made by the left in our country of the First Amendment’s “establishment clause” in our Constitution, which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”.  From bans on prayer in schools, or at publicly sponsored events, to public displays of the Ten Commandments and even the inclusion of the words “under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance, we are told that such observances constitute an “establishment of religion” and are therefore unconstitutional.

 

They seem to forget that the very next phrase in the First Amendment states, “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.  In other words, it provides for freedom “of” religion, not freedom “from” religion.

 

Here in this country and abroad, we desperately need fewer politicians and judges working to use the state as a weapon against religious practice, and more that will be vigilant to oppose government actions that prohibit the free exercise of religion in our everyday lives.