God's Marriage Resonates Deeply with Majority of Americans

The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP) is promoting traditional marriage on the streets of New York, Maine and Rhode Island and finding how deeply Americans cherish God's marriage - the union of one man and one woman.

TFP volunteers have been standing on busy street corners holding HONK signs, which are large signs with a message printed in bold and colorful letters: HONK for traditional marriage = 1 man + 1 woman.

The public enjoys the pro-family group's HONK signs."People love to honk their horn for marriage. It's like they feel liberated from all the homosexual propaganda being forced on them," said Norman Fulkerson, TFP leader with the group campaigning in upstate New York.

Fulkerson continued: "The opposition is forced to hear the barrage of honking horns. Their insults and cursing get drowned out in the noise of the honks." Even pedestrians join the honking by simulating the movement of pressing a car's horn and making a loud honk sound."People are tired of hearing all the propaganda for same-sex 'marriage'," said Richard Lyon, TFP volunteer campaigning in Rhode Island. "I'm finding that people don't want their children educated in the homosexual lifestyle. They want the traditional family. And they're happy to see us saying this in public."

The Catholic group also hands out a flyer titled "Ten reasons why homosexual 'marriage' is harmful and must be opposed," and calls on Americans to firmly and peacefully oppose the advance of the homosexual movement.Recent surveys show that support for same- sex "marriage" is declining in the United States.
Visit www.TFP.org for additional reports.

Prop 8 Panel Discussion at San Diego Historical Society

Thursday, July 30 5:30pm – 7:30pm
San Diego NOW!: California Proposition 8: New Strategies for the Same-Sex Marriage Debate Admission: FREE SDHS members, $10 general public.
Please note: Reservations are requested.
Call for program description. 619-232-6203, ext. 129

Beware Prop 8 signature takers

Professional signature gatherers will begin standing outside of Target, grocery stores and other venues to gather the necessary signatures to put the gay-marriage issue back on the ballot for November. They are targeting the more liberal parts of the State, but some signatures will be gathered here in San Diego County as well.

The most effective, and least costly, way to defeat this measure is to make sure it doesn't garner enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. The deadline for gathering the signatures is August 15, 2009.

Please inform your family, friends, and associates of this latest assault on PROP 8. Please encourage one-and-all to NOT sign these petitions at store fronts. Say "NO Thank You" to this petition! Marriage = One Man & One Woman.

A common phrase used by professional signature gatherers is, "It doesn't matter if you sign it, this is only so the people can vote on it." It does matter!

Let's do our part to keep this measure off the ballot. I invite you to forward this information through your personal email lists and encourage others to forward it to their friends and family members.

The “Federal Strategy” to Impose Same-Sex “Marriage”: Good News for Defenders of Marriage?

by Helen Alvaré, J.D., Senior Fellow in Law

It is well-known by now that the effort to overturn California’s Proposition 8 lost at the California Supreme Court. Proposition 8 is the citizens’ initiative which overturned that same court’s prior decision ‘finding” a right to same-sex “marriage” within the California Constitution. Gay rights’ reaction to the latest court ruling has included calls for another citizen vote on the subject in 2010. Leading same-sex marriage proponents have not tended to support the alternative strategy of bringing their cause before a U.S. federal court. The U.S. Constitution gives the federal courts jurisdiction to hear claims that state action violates federal constitutional guarantees. In the case of same-sex marriage, plaintiffs would argue before a federal court that state laws reserving marriage for opposite-sex couples violates both the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

http://www.culture-of-life.org/

The Odd Couple: Dick Cheney and Ted Olson

Prof. Hadley Arkes

Within the space of a week, two notable figures on the conservative side in our politics have come out in favor of same-sex marriage. In the case of Dick Cheney, the former vice-president, his daughter Mary had long been known as a lesbian, and Cheney was free now, out of office, to speak words on the side of his daughter.

The bigger jolt came with the announcement of Theodore Olson, the former Solicitor General under Bush II. Olson is one of the premier figures in the conservative legal establishment, an icon of the Federalist Society – and my own political friend. But with a public flourish Olson accepted a commission to challenge yet again Proposition 8 in California, this time in the venue that he calls home: the federal courts.

http://www.thecatholicthing.org/content/view/1725/2/

Redefined marriage = society's downfall

Jim Brown and Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

A pro-family activist says a former Mitt Romney adviser is "providing aid and comfort" to proponents of same-sex "marriage."

Pepperdine University law professor and Barack Obama supporter Doug Kmiec recently told CNSNews.com that he would like to see marriage replaced, in the legal sense, with a neutral civil license. Kmiec, a self-professed pro-life, pro-traditional marriage Catholic, is quoted as saying: "I think the way to untie the state from this problem is to create a new terminology that would apply to everyone -- straight or gay -- call it 'civil license.'"

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=547244

Biased news coverage of Prop. 8 continues

Chad Groening - OneNewsNow

...Colleen Raezler, a research assistance at the conservative media watchdog organization, says while the will of the majority of Californians who support traditional marriage was upheld, the three networks gave their side scant coverage...

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=547564

What’s the difference?

Patrick Thompson

Same-sex marriage does make a difference to wider society, especially when the force of the state is behind it. "What difference,” goes the refrain from same-sex marriage supporters, “ does the marriage of two men or two women make in your life or your marriage?”

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/whats_the_difference/

Carrie Prejean clips

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feQlYsHSI28&feature=PlayList&p=BE89413905763ABE&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=24
Note the commment around 4:29 about her grandfather fighting for freedom of speech and her doing so too on stage. Notice her Christian forgiveness at 5:24.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K1I-vn2JUU&feature=PlayList&p=BE89413905763ABE&index=25&playnext=2&playnext_from=PL

Miles McPherson, Carrie's pastor, did a great job on CNN. What a good spokesperson! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqq-9gwnW4s

Thousands rally in support of gay marriage ban

Contrary to this story, the SDPD estimated the crowd at over 700. There were about 20 gay rights supporters protesting us.

The demonstrations in Fresno and San Diego follow a gathering of Prop. 8 opponents, who vow to press ahead.

By Tony Perry and Spencer Weiner June 1, 2009

Thousands of supporters of California's ban on same-sex marriage rallied in Fresno and San Diego on Sunday in what organizers described as a celebration of traditional wedlock and a thank-you to the California Supreme Court for upholding their voter-approved measure.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gay-marriage1-2009jun01,0,2006409.story

Facing the new fascism

By Jennifer Roback Morse

The premise of Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism is that the socialist or liberal left frequently uses the tactics of the fascist right. Some liberals are so convinced of the correctness of their cause that they think themselves entitled to the use of any methods, no matter how illiberal, to advance that cause. In the aftermath of the California voters' passage of Proposition 8, the new fascist mindset is on display in living Technicolor, or maybe I should say in rainbow color.

California voters rejected the darling social cause of the fashionable elites: same-sex "marriage." The election procedures were undeniably fair: After all, this is the electorate that voted for Obama by landslide margins. Did I say that? Obama won by 52% of the popular vote nationwide: the exact same percentage that voted for Proposition 8. So the homosexual lobby must find some other pretext for undoing the outcome of a fair election. Please observe the tactics:

1. Get the judiciary to overturn the election on a technicality: Proposition 8 was not an amendment at all, but a "revision" to the California Constitution.

If they really believe this argument, they should have asked to throw it out before it ever got on the ballot. Both sides were in court, back in July, when Jerry Brown was rewriting the title of the initiative in order to sink its chances of passing. That would have been a good time to bring up the subject of "revision vs. amendment" — before the two sides spent more than $70 million on an election.

http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/18266/

Redefining Religious Liberty

Gay marriage and the conflict between church and state.
By Maggie Gallagher
Prop 8 won yesterday. Even in California, they could find only one supreme-court justice willing to strip 7 million people of their core civil right to amend the state constitution, guaranteed by the constitution itself. Why do I feel, absurdly, that I should be grateful?Liberals who support gay marriage may understand what their movement is willing to endorse and where it draws the line. The rest of us have to sit back and wonder:Why stop at marriage? Many well-defined, seemingly secure words and terms can be redefined to help remake society along sexually liberal lines.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MDQwMGU5ZjgwNmFiODcxZDgyNTAxYjVmYzY2ZjViOTY

Comments from Jennifer:
This quote helps explain why so many African Americans resist and resent the blithe equating of their civil rights movement with the demands for same sex marriage: (BTW, my recent podcast from Memorial Day includes interviews with an African American political candidate and pastor who make this argument.)

Actions are typically protected by liberty interests, not equality interests. Sexual liberty means I have the right to do what I want, not the right to be free from the knowledge that others disagree, or from their choosing to build institutions that teach that my sexual actions are wrong and exclude those who engage in them.

Equality is typically predicated on characteristics that do not imply actions, because actions are always choices. Skin color is irrelevant. And unchosen. Sexual orientation is almost certainly unchosen, but the decision to incorporate a sexual desire into one’s identity, and then to act on it, is a decision. Maybe most people think it’s the right decision, the healthiest decision, but the point is that it’s a choice, and subject to moral reflection. A sexual desire is not its own justification.

Focus on gay marriage rights stays on state fights

Lisa Leff, Associated Press Writer –

SAN FRANCISCO – California's status as a guardian of gay rights slipped this week when its highest court upheld a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage, even as other states extended the institution to gay couples.

"Are the people of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire more sexually literate than Californians?" asked the National Sexuality Resource Center, a San Francisco-based think tank, naming the states where gays can or soon will be able to wed.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gay_marriage

DOMA, Prop. 8 under legal attack in Calif.

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow -

Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) has been granted permission to intervene in a federal marriage case in California. A same-gender pair has filed suit in federal court challenging the federal Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8, the California constitutional amendment protecting traditional marriage, alleging that passage of both violates the U.S. Constitution. The two men are asking the court to issue a broad injunction "mandating the use of gender-neutral terms in all legislation affection marriage."

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=533756

Warren's 'backsliding' on marriage damages church

Jim Brown - OneNewsNow

A Washington, DC, pastor and outspoken opponent of same-sex "marriage" says California mega-church pastor Rick Warren has done "tremendous damage" by apologizing for his support last fall of California's marriage protection amendment.

Rick Warren said Monday on CNN's Larry King Live that he has "never been and never will be" an "anti-gay marriage activist," and made a point to inform the program's host that he apologized to his homosexual friends for comments he made in October to his church in support of Proposition 8 in California.

Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr., with the High Impact Leadership Coalition says he was very disappointed with Warren's statements on CNN. "This man who's been called the next Billy Graham, who I really respect with all my heart and love what he's doing in Africa, is falling into a trap that is emblematic of the problem that the entire church is facing in this generation," Jackson states. "And that is that we love the applause of men more than we love the work of God and the gospel."

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Church/Default.aspx?id=483576

Prop. 8 supporters persecuted for donations

Charlie Butts and Marty Cooper - OneNewsNow

Proposition 8 supporters continue to face harassment from same-sex "marriage" proponents...

The Washington Times reports attorney Charles LiMandri received hateful emails and phone calls after he gave $10,000 in support of traditional marriage. He says was called a homophobe, a bigot, and a Nazi. Even when he tried to explain that he was simply hoping to preserve traditional marriage, his opponents would not listen. So LiMandri collected the emails and filed a lawsuit on behalf of Prop. 8 supporters.

"We feel that the laws that require disclosure of contributors to a ballot initiative are being abused here because the opposition is basically targeting people to get this type of abuse, in some cases even getting their businesses boycotted and in some cases getting death threats," he notes.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=475012

Privatizing Marriage is not the Answer to the Same-Sex Marriage Debate

by Jennifer Roback Morse

Far from settling the marriage debate, ‘getting the state out of marriage’ will reduce liberty, leave cultural questions simmering, and harm our nation’s children.

One proposed solution to the divisiveness of the same-sex marriage debate is to have the government get out of the marriage business altogether. This proposal is appealing because it seems to remove marriage from the realm of political contentiousness. We could mimic a market-type solution, in which individuals can make their own decisions about the meaning of marriage, and we need not make any collective decision. But these appearances are deceiving. We need to think through what it actually means to say that the government should “get out of the marriage business.”

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.php?selectedarticle=2009.03.10.001.pdart

Marriage traditionalists in the crosshairs

Charlie Butts and Jody Brown - OneNewsNow

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the largest homosexual activist group in the nation, is targeting Mormons in Illinois who support traditional marriage.

Illinois is considering homosexual "marriage" and civil unions, so HRC is now challenging Mormons in that state after one ward sent an email to its members to oppose the legislation. Accusing the Church of Latter-day Saints of "fighting an anti-gay crusade" across America, the pro-homosexual group has called to action its Illinois-based supporters and asked them to confront the church for its "deceitful, fear-mongering tactics."

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=439300

Homosexual activists file suit, challenge DOMA

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

Homosexual activists filed suit yesterday against the federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA. The lawsuit -- filed in Boston by the group Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) on behalf of several homosexual "couples" and three individuals -- asks a federal judge to declare unconstitutional portions of the measure which places the traditional view of marriage into law. In the suit, GLAD argues that Section 3 of DOMA "creates a system of first- and second-class marriages" in which the former receive all federal legal protections, while the latter are denied them -- "even while taking on the responsibilities of legal marriage."

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=435162

Doug Kmiec has gone completely around the bend

Doug Kmiec has gone completely around the bend. Kmiec, you will recall, is the Catholic lawyer who argued that voting for Obama was consistent with being pro-life. This, in spite of Obama's record as the most pro-abortion Senator. Now, Kmiec argues that Prop 8 should be overturned:

Some faiths accept same-sex relationships and others profoundly object. As a matter of religious freedom, both must be accommodated, but how? Separate state and church. Prop. 8 keeps the state - not the church - from using the terminology of marriage to officially acknowledge a same-sex relationship. That's all it does. Prop. 8 should not be thought of, as some argue, as revoking rights granted by an activist judiciary. After all, the official ballot summary recited: "Prop. 8 ... doesn't take away any rights or benefits ...."

To blunt the notion that people can be deprived of fundamental civil or religious liberties by initiative, we recommend the court:

-- Affirm its prior judgment recognizing the equality previously given all citizens by the state Assembly.

-- Honor the stated intent of Prop. 8 (viz., precluding the state from using marriage terminology to officially acknowledge any relationship other than that of a male-female couple) - an important goal to be faithful to the people as well, but one which cannot be accomplished by undermining the principal one of equality.

-- Direct the state to employ non-marriage terminology for all couples - be it civil union or some equivalent. While new terminology for all may at first seem awkward - mostly in greeting card shops - the third step dovetails with the court's important responsibility to reaffirm the unfettered freedom of all faiths to extend the nomenclature of marriage as their traditions allow.

What Kmiec and his coauthor present as a moderate, compromise position, is in fact, a complete capitulation. He accepts at face value the claims that redefining marriage is a civil rights imperative. But this is precisely the claim that the voters of CA rejected. Same sex marriage is much more than a civil rights issue: redefining marriage will have many, many ramifications throughout society. These consequences swayed the voters, but evidently the opponents of Prop 8 do not even consider them worth mentioning. "Getting the State Out of the Marriage Business" is not a compromise, but a capitulation. I will have an article about this soon. Newsleter subscribers will be the first to know. Sign up for the Ruth Institute newsletter here. The fact that same sex marriage supporters have gone to court over this illustrates one thing: they have given up even the pretense of making rational arguments in favor of their position. During the campaign, their argument was, This is unfair, you are hurting our feelings. We responded with real concerns about the impact of redefining marriage on religious liberty, school curriculum and much more. But as long as ssm proponents can keep the spotlight on civil rights, they excuse themselves from even having to face these issues.