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______________________________ LAWFULLY WEDDED Federal Marriage Amendment Update April 20, 2004 _______________________________ PUBLIC OPPOSED TO FMA �Recent national polls have found at least half of Americans oppose homosexual �marriages,� but fewer support amending the Constitution to ban it.� - Associated Press, 4/18/04 EVANGELICALS SAY �NO� TO MARRIAGE AMENDMENT �Evangelical Christians oppose homosexual �marriages,� but prefer the practice be outlawed through state laws rather than a constitutional amendment, according to a poll released yesterday. . . . The poll surveyed 1,610 evangelical adults March 16 through April 4 and was conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. . . . Thirty-five percent of evangelicals polled thought homosexual �marriage� should be prohibited by a constitutional amendment, and 57 percent said state laws alone would do the job.� - Washington Times, 4/14/04 DON�T OPEN PANDORA�S BOX �Chuck, the reason evangelical Christians don't want to change the Constitution to ban homosexual marriage is they worry about the frightening changes the liberals would want to make if they were in charge. Christians love our Constitution as is and wish more judges would follow it instead of writing their own laws.� - Jane Russell (�actress from the patriotic 40's�), 4/18/04 RELIGIOUS CONSERVATIVES HAVE MINDS OF THEIR OWN �As President Bush reaches out to his conservative Christian base by supporting a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, a poll released yesterday shows that more than half of the nation's white evangelicals oppose such a measure. . . . The findings, in one of the most comprehensive polls of evangelicals in years, don't rule out the issue of gay marriage as a potent tool to get out the conservative Christian vote for Bush in November. But they suggest that white evangelicals, a key constituency that overwhelmingly opposes same-sex marriage, are more complex and share more mainstream positions than some political analysts believe.� - Baltimore Sun, 4/14/04 WHERE HAVE ALL THE CHRISTIANS GONE? �Nobody really likes a prophet because he tells people things they don't want to hear. Today, I'm going to fill that role: I'm going to tell you something you don't want to hear. The fact is that we are going to have legalized gay �marriage� in the United States. It's inevitable, I believe, unless Christians and others speak up strongly. �I was on Capitol Hill a few days ago and met a group of senior congressional staff. They cornered me to tell me that they are greatly alarmed over the lack of public support for the Federal Marriage Amendment. No senator was reporting any unusual number of calls or e-mails. One conservative Midwest senator who is considered a sure vote said he isn't sure he wanted to get involved in this issue because he hasn't heard from his constituents. He's not alone. This is tragic. Where are the Christians? Are we asleep?� - Columnist Charles Colson, 4/15/04 �TIS THE SEASON �Light the torches. 'Tis the season when sanctimonious preachers and electioneering politicians sharpen their knives in preparation to sacrifice the latest scapegoat on the altar of political expediency. Welfare mothers are passe; gays and lesbians are hot� . . . Some believe that gay marriage is our most pressing issue because the Bible tells them so. Of course, the Bible says some unusual things, for example, that it's permissible to stone to death adulteresses but not adulterers. Is that so state legislatures can maintain a quorum?� - Columnist Henry Riekert http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/news/opinion/8453352.htm SOME CREATED MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS �Justin Nelson grew up like any other child. He went to a private Christian school and was taught right from wrong. When he came out as being gay, he was told by society that he was wrong, and he didn't understand why. In several weeks a new (Ohio) state law will go into effect that will deny him the right to marry whomever he chooses, and he doesn't understand why. He was taught in school that everyone is equal, but now some people are saying he isn't quite equal. �I think it violates the First Amendment,� Nelson said as he began to recite �Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. These laws make Christianity the law.� " - Zanesville Times Recorder, 4/19/04 http://www.zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/news/stories/20040419/localnews/256125.html CIVIL UNIONS FOR EVERYBODY �Get the government out of the business of �marriage� and have �civil unions� for all. That is the gist of a new proposal that could resolve the raucous debate over gay marriage, according to Paul Loscocco, a Massachusetts state representative who is presenting the idea to colleagues.� - Reuters, 4/15/04 NEW CONTROVERSY ERUPTS IN MA �The Worcester (Massachusetts) city clerk said yesterday that he would not question gay couples seeking marriage licenses about their residency, becoming the second municipal official to ignore state officials who say gays from out of state will not be allowed to get married here. . . . Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly has said that state law prohibits out-of-state couples from marrying here if their home state forbids gay marriage, as is the case in 38 states. . . . Provincetown officials were the first to say they would defy the attorney general's interpretation of state law. . . . �We've never been the marriage police with heterosexual couples, and we're not about to start with same-sex couples,� Provincetown town manager Keith Bergman said.� - Boston Globe, 4/17/04 http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/108/metro/Worcester_clerk_won_t_challenge_gays+.shtml BIZ COMMUNITY OPPOSES MINI-FMA IN GA �Don't expect the Atlanta business community to sit on the sidelines in the days leading up to a vote on whether to amend the Georgia Constitution to explicitly ban gay marriages. . . . (I)f it's up to Ben Johnson, managing partner of the Alston & Bird law firm, the business community will take a pro-active stance on this issue. Johnson serves on the Atlanta (Chamber of Commerce�s) executive committee. �...If such an amendment passes, Johnson believes �it will make it harder to get the most talented people to come to Georgia and Atlanta. I don't think it helps Georgia's image when its competing against New York, Chicago and Los Angeles to be perceived as being closed and intolerant. . . . I hope in the next five to six months, as we go through this self-inflicted punishment, there can be a broad coalition that says we are for tolerance and goodwill,� Johnson said. �This amendment represents the worst, mean-spirited, narrow-minded thinking, and that's not what we're about.� " - Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 4/15/04 KY APPROVES MINI-FMA FOR BALLOT �Kentucky has become the second US state to put an anti-gay marriage initiative on the ballot for this November. After a brief but fierce debate on Monday, the House passed Senate Bill 245, which would amend the commonwealth's constitution to define marriage as a union solely between a man and a woman. It would also prohibit any legal recognition of civil unions for gay and lesbian couples made official out of state. Kentucky already has a law that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman. �The bill passed 85-11 in the House. Only five senators voted against the bill -- with 33 in favour -- when it passed in that chamber on Tuesday. Legislative opponents said the backers of the bill, who pushed it to a vote after it had been languishing in committee, were �bullies.� Rep. Kathy Stein, a Democrat from Lexington and an outspoken gay rights supporter, announced to the House floor, �I am ashamed to be a member of this body.� She rose from her seat and through her tears called the vote �a hateful thing� and �gay-bashing.� Georgia is the only other state with an anti-marriage amendment initiative on the ballot this year.� - Gay.com UK, 4/15/04 IT�S D�J� VU ALL OVER AGAIN �Kentuckians will be asked to define marriage when they go to the polls in November. . . . If voters approve the amendment, it won't be the first time that discrimination has been written into the law or that the law has been used to exclude minorities from society's full benefits. Many people living today also lived through the exclusion of women and African-Americans from full citizenship. You'd think we'd learn.� - Lexington Herald-Leader editorial, 4/18/04 http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/news/opinion/8453254.htm MARRIAGE BAN CHALLENGED IN FL �Gay rights advocates representing six same-sex couples who were denied marriage licenses in Florida have filed a lawsuit asking a judge to overturn the state's ban on gay marriages. The lawsuit was filed in state court in Key West on Thursday and followed similar efforts in Massachusetts, California and several other states. It set the battle for same-sex marriage rights in heavily populated Florida, where Governor Jeb Bush, the brother of President George W. Bush, favours a national constitutional amendment defining marriage as a legal union between heterosexuals.� - SwissInfo.org, 4/15/04 NO MORE BACK-OF-THE-BUS �We�re a very conservative group on just about every issue, except we�re not going to be treated as second-class citizens.� - Patrick Guerriero, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, on the organization�s opposition to a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage FMA PACKS HOUSE AT LCR CONVENTION �The country's best known group of gay Republicans opened its three-day national convention (in Palm Springs, CA), and as expected, virtually all issues took a back seat to one: same-sex marriage. The gathering of the Log Cabin Republicans � as clean-cut and mostly white as an old-fashioned chamber of commerce � drew triple the number of attendees that the meeting attracted in the past.� - Los Angeles Times, 4/17/04 http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-logcabin17apr17,1,2985080.story LCR DEBATES W ENDORSEMENT �Leaders of the Republican Party's most prominent gay organization on Saturday grappled with whether to support President Bush's reelection and raised more money for a television advertisement opposing a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage. During the annual convention of the Log Cabin Republicans, attendees watched the ad that features footage of Vice President Dick Cheney, who has a lesbian daughter, saying during a debate in the 2000 campaign that the states, not the federal government, should regulate marriage. �...The group backed Bush in his 2000 campaign and hoped to gain more clout in the GOP during his administration. But the president's support for the amendment to outlaw gay marriage has provoked Log Cabin in a way that other gay civil rights matters have not and cast doubt on whether the group would back Bush this year. . . . Log Cabin members talked about three possible paths: endorsement, no endorsement or qualified support for Bush. �Supporting presumed Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry, even as a protest, is out of the question, the group's leaders said. Kenneth Sanchez, a 26-year-old Boston attorney, summed up the dilemma: �I'm not voting for George Bush,� he said. �But I'd rather eat dirt than vote for John Kerry.� The group plans to announce its endorsement decision during the Republican National Convention, which starts Aug. 31 in New York. �...Some said they think the president is not personally anti-gay, but that he has been swayed by Karl Rove, his chief political advisor, to favor a federal prohibition of gay marriage to appeal to the GOP's conservative base. �This is quintessential Karl Rove,� said Rebecca Maestri, who works for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Washington.� - Los Angeles Times, 4/18/04 http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-logcabin18apr18,1,3443834.story ******************************** LAWFULLY WEDDED is compiled by Chuck Muth and published by Citizen Outreach. Please feel free to forward LAWFULLY WEDDED to friends, family members, colleagues and elected officials. 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