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Pen Points

Bushies Say: Forget Iraq and Remember Gay Marriage

By Bill Berkowitz

Conservatives like the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins would like Americans to forget about the troubles in Iraq and instead focus on attacking same-sex unions

As May 17 approached - the day gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts - anti-same-sex marriage advocates fanned out across the country taking their campaign for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage to a wide audience.

In the May 11 edition of his daily Washington Update, the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins spelled out what he believes is at stake:

"This is a watershed moment in our nation's history. The reality is this, once one state has legalized same-sex 'marriage,' it's only a matter of time - I'm talking weeks, not years - before the other 49 states will have their marriage laws challenged as well. The reaction from the American public to next week's events in Massachusetts is critical in shaping what will immediately become a national debate."

Forget about the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse and torture scandal, the failed occupation of Iraq, the mounting toll of U.S. dead and wounded, and the massacre in Falluja. Forget about the billions spent and the billions more being requested by the Bush Administration to continue the job - whatever that might be - in Iraq.

Forget about the thousands of unsupervised mercenaries running about Iraq causing mayhem, disorder and chaos. Forget about the "limited" sovereignty handed over to who knows who on June 30. Forget about the Bush Administration's reversals, flip-flops, and misinformation and disinformation campaigns batted around like a limp shuttlecock.

According to the FRC's Perkins and number of other longtime leaders of the religious right, the number one issue facing Americans is whether Massachusetts May 17 unleashes the fatal blow to America's moral fabric. Armageddon is not what is happening on the ground in the Middle East; it's the havoc gay marriage will bring to America's cultural and political landscape.

A Republican state senator from Minnesota drew a line in the sand while recently revving up an anti-same-sex marriage crowd in St. Paul: "In the last 30 years of the culture war, we have lost a lot, but no more!"

Over the past several months social conservatives have been delivering ominous warnings to its anti-same-sex marriage flock. In late April, Judge Robert Bork - the Reagan Supreme Court nominee rejected by the U.S. Senate in 1987 - told a Stamford, Connecticut gathering of legal professionals that justifying gay marriages on a legal basis is a "judicial sin."

"Many of our courts are guilty of that judicial sin, that is willingness, even eagerness, to reach results announcing principles that have no plausible relation to any constitution," Bork said. "If each person defines meaning for themselves, that means there are no allowable moral truths," said Bork, a former U.S. Appeals Court judge. "If decisions like those I've been discussing are the waves of the future, our culture will slide into chaos and self-government will be a shrunken remnant of what we once aspired to."

A few days later, at a rally of some 20,000 supporters at Safeco Field - the home of major league baseball's Seattle Mariners - Focus on the Family's Dr. James Dobson and the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, roared about lost culture wars and a depraved America. Rallies held in San Francisco, San Jose, Oregon, and Atlanta have drawn thousands.

Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, upset at the prospect of his state being the launching pad for same-sex marriage, recently worried aloud that Massachusetts might "become the Las Vegas of same-sex marriage." According to Reuters, Governor Romney said that he will veto any attempt "to repeal a 91-year old law that he says prevents gay couples from other states from being married in Massachusetts.

The law, originally written in 1913, forbids couples from out-of-state to marry in Massachusetts if their union would be void at home. The statute was originally intended to thwart inter-racial marriage, but Gov. Romney charged that some lawmakers were trying to revoke the statute as a way of pushing their same-sex marriage agenda.

Massachusetts
Gov. Mitt Romney

Despite the president's support for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, the "turmoil in Iraq and election-year wrangling" has put the issue on the back burner in Washington, the Wall Street Journal recently reported. "But outside the Beltway, the issue is shaping up to be a major factor in this year's elections for president, Congress and state legislators - and one that could help Republicans more than Democrats," the Journal report went on.

And at statehouses across the country pro-and-anti-same-sex marriage advocates are rallying and lobbying their state legislatures. According to the Wall Street Journal, in several battleground states - including Arkansas, Louisiana, Ohio, Oregon, Missouri, and Michigan - "a vote on gay marriage may be included on November ballots, a move that could prompt a large turnout among socially conservative voters."

Perkins' Family Research Council has organized a series of press events "promoting traditional marriage and the Federal Marriage Amendment" for this week: It started on Monday, "The Day Gay Marriage Began?" with a debate on the implications of May 17th between the FRC's Vice President for Communications Genevieve Wood and Jonathan Rauch, the author of Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America; the following day at a Capitol Hill Press Conference, the FRC's Perkins, Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colorado) -- the author of the anti-gay constitutional amendment - and several other congressional representatives, discussed "Why DOMA Won't Do It"; On Wednesday, FRC's Dr. Allan Carlson will scheduled to talk about "Conjugal Happiness and The American Way: On the Special Relationship Between Marriage and The American Experience."

The week will culminate with a live simulcast from New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Sunday, May 23, where Perkins, Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship Ministries and Wellington Boone of the Fellowship of International Churches will discuss "Faith, Family & Freedom: The Battle for Marriage."

Will social conservatives be able to turn its collective rage against same-sex marriage into a bonafide campaign issue? "Through lawsuits and a media culture beholden to the gay agenda, the pro-homosexual lobby has been able to publicly intimidate and humiliate those who oppose them.

But, recent events around the country may show the silent majority is waking up, and in large part, that is due to some courageous pastors and church communities," Perkins wrote. If that "silent majority" is awakened, the results could seriously affect John Kerry's campaign for the presidency.

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