Gay unions are THE issue for Christian Right
Published February 13, 2004
Christian conservatives have decided to rally around opposition to gay marriage as their focus issue for the campaign season. Having their candidate win the White House, with the help of the U.S. Supreme Court, turned out to be a mixed bag. Since, far Right Christian organizations have had difficulty attracting attention and raising money with the direct mail campaigns they rely on. One issue they've used to galvanize their public is continuing agitation to erode the constitutional safeguards against establishment of religion. Another, disapproval of gays marrying, has now emerged as prime. The New York Times recently investigated.
"Things have not gone well in the past couple of years," said Paul M. Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation. "The movement had not been gaining members, it has not been winning battles, with the exception of the pro-life issue, and those were marginal battles. This issue has come along and it appears to be turning things around."
The cause took on new energy after leading Christian conservatives congregated last summer.
Last spring, the Rev. Donald E. Wildmon of Tupelo, Miss., decided to hold a summit meeting of the Christian conservative movement.
Mr. Wildmon felt the movement was losing the culture war, he recalled in an interview on Friday. Since plunging into political activism nearly 30 years ago, Christian conservatives had helped Republicans take control of Washington but did not have enough to show for it, Mr. Wildmon said. At the same time, the election of Republican politicians had drained some of the motivation out of its grass-roots constituents.
So Mr. Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association and a crusader against sex and violence in the media, sent an e-mail message inviting about two dozen other prominent Christian conservatives to a meeting in Arlington, Va., last June. About 14 people turned up with no set agenda, Mr. Wildmon recalled.
"All we knew was we were going to get together and see if there were some issues of concern that we could agree on and combine our efforts," Mr. Wildmon said.
"The first thing that popped up," he said, "was the federal marriage amendment."
The participants carved together their initial plan for promoting a constitutional amendment to ban gay unions. Two legal decisions, SCOTUS' ruling that the right to privacy protects gays engaged in sex acts, and a recent state court opinion that held refusing homosexuals matrimony denies them equal protection, have continued to motivate the persons involved.
- Gay unions are THE issue for Christian Right
- Published: February 13, 2004
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- Section: Politics
- Writer: Mac Diva
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Comments
Shark, I am glad you mentioned that. I forgot about that episode. These are not people that I need deciding anything for me. EVER.
Was cocaine even popular when they created the Mighty Mouse cartoons?! I remember that episode too. Now did you hear about "Puff the Magic Dragon?"........
Bush is no fool. He knows as well as everyone else that gay marriage will one day be accepted across the United States. Generation by generation, this will become more of a non-issue. You're always going to have the crazy Southern right frothing at the mouth while holding the Bible in hand.
As shown with the civil rights legislation in the 1960s, old habits and old generations die hard.
re: Mighty Mouse and Cocaine;
The producers said the heroic mouse was sniffing flowers, but Wildmon never lets reality get in the way of a PR ploy for his Inquisition.
Possible bumper sticker:
"Stop imaginary drug abuse by imaginary creatures!"
chris kent:
i love that line....crazy Southern right frothing at the mouth while holding the Bible in hand.
can i steal it?
jack e. jett
Please do.....let's make it into a bumper sticker.
Well, they won. And, I mean the hardcore -- the ones who hated the compromise. This issue really could be the top domestic one of the decade. In a way, I think it could displace terrorism. Terrorism is sort of intangible. Yes, Ashscroft and company will warn here and accuse there, but the number of actual terrorists who have been identified is tiny. Gays, on the other hand, are obviously present - easy to make into a domestic enemy.
Wasn't there also a claim that Barney, the purple dinosaur, was bad, bad, bad by some people in the Christian Right years ago? I don't remember the specifics, but wasn't there something?
Maybe you're thinking of Tinky Winky, the purple Teletubbie who carries a purse?
(Giggling.) The fact I don't have children shows, doesn't it? Hey, I knew it was something purple-:). Do you recall what that was supposed to be about? What I remember is that it was supposedly another assault on the minds of those people's offspring.
Yes, it was that he was purple/lavender and supposedly male, but effeminate in name, manerisms, and wardrobe accessories. You know, he was gay and promoting homosexuality to the under-3 crowd.
"Gays, on the other hand, are obviously present - easy to make into a domestic enemy."
Good point Mac Diva, but my gut tells me most politicians are genuinely worried about their ever-important "LEGACY." And any politician worth his weight in salt (or is it gold?!) knows full well that to go against the rights for gay couples to marry will one day historically tarnish their legacy. You are correct in making the correlation with the 1960s civil rights movement. It is a similar issue. My personal opinion is that the issue will be more easily decided than say, abortion rights.
Gay people are here to stay (did they ever leave?), and they deserve rights as much as anyone else. This is an issue which I think most people will eventually accept. And rightly so.
Are you feeling well, Chris Kent? You've been nice to me all day. Which is just fine. I'm willing to give you the benefit of a doubt, too.
Thanks for the info, bhw. When I was a kid, purple was my favorite color. I had no idea of the implications some people would attach to it later.
Hmmmmm....now I see it, playing with gender identification, are we MD? "Mac," clearly a male signifier. "Diva," clearly a female signifier.
And now we hear about the purple love of childhood.
Jerry Falwell would have a field day over here!
Funny column in yesterday's Dallas Morning News written by Steve Blow. It kind of touches on what you've mentioned. Here's an excerpt:
"News stories never spell it out. They just talk about the politics. So this week, I went to see Kelly Shackelford for the specifics.
He's president of the Plano-based Free Market Foundation, an organization that vigorously opposes same-sex marriage and was instrumental in the passage of Texas' new Defense of Marriage Act.
I asked Kelly to spell it out for me. And first, the good news: My marriage is safe.
"I don't think anyone who is already married would be impacted," he said.
Now the bad news: Society will collapse in the not-too-distant future if gay marriage is approved.
"I think we will have chaos," he said. "I don't know how long it would take. But this kind of stuff tends to snowball.
"I think marriage - what marriage currently is - is the foundational structure of any society. If you take that away, I think it's just a matter of time until that society will collapse."
Strong words. But I still didn't understand how we get from my safe marriage to the collapse of civilization.
"You can't change marriage. You destroy it," he said. "To call other relationships marriage is kind of like saying there's a round wheel and a square wheel. I mean, it's not really a wheel if it's square, but that's what is happening here. If you call same-sex relationships 'marriage,' you haven't changed the definition of marriage, you have destroyed the definition of marriage."
I hated to be dense, but he still had me scratching my head."
You're not the only one Steve......
Thanks, Chris. I hope you are blogging that item, too. If you do, send me the URL and I will link to it in future entries on the topic.
I'm also scratching my head over why someone who appears to be a libertarian (Free Market Foundation) would be in a tizzy about gay unions. Wouldn't a pure libertarian position be not to care about what people do in their private lives?



In the late 1980s, Mr. Wildmon and the American Family Association made headlines when they accused CBS of promoting ILLEGAL DRUG USAGE to children.
Mighty Mouse was apparently sniffing cocaine in an episode of the CARTOON.
I'm not making this up.