Defense of Marriage Act

For weeks, the National Organization for Marriage’s Brian Brown has been touting the “historic” March for Marriage, telling supporters “this is our time” to "change history." A month ago he wrote excitedly about a “game-changer,” a $500,000 matching gift from one of the major donors that keep NOM afloat. Brown had been inspired by a massive turnout for an anti-marriage-equality protest  in France, and hoped for something similar in Washington. But even with big donors and heavy-weight Religious Right co-sponsors, Brown and his allies couldn’t pull it off. Not even close.

In reality, NOM’s rally had a few, perhaps several, thousand attendees.  (NOM’s Thomas Peters claims 15,000, which seems, um, generous.) And every time one of the speakers tried to make the crowd feel like part of a larger movement by talking about the 200,000 people they said marched recently for one-man/one-woman marriage in Puerto Rico, or the hundreds of thousands or millions in France and Spain, or even the 585,000 who have signed the Manhattan Declaration or the half million who marched against legal abortion, it only served to highlight how few bothered to show up in Washington. According to various speakers, the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia sent five busloads; anti-gay state senator Ruben Diaz claimed 32 buses from New York. Brian Brown gave a shout out to some Chinese Christians from Chicago.

The ethnically diverse speakers’ list was a mix of old and new, including some familiar faces on the anti-gay circuit, such as Harry Jackson, Gary Bauer, and Iowa’s Bob Vander Plaats. Harry Jackson led the crowd in a chant that he said was a prayer for the Supreme Court: “Let God arise and his enemies be scattered.” Bauer delivered a blustery message to the Republican Party that if they “bail” on marriage, he’ll lead as many people as he can out of the GOP (which may not be that much of a threat). Vander Plaats urged Supreme Court justices to look to the Founding Fathers, Billy Graham, and Pope Francis. Also speaking were Doug Mainwaring, now making the circuit as the anti-equality gay man the Religious Right loves to love; Frank Schubert, the mastermind of the dishonest Prop 8 campaign and every anti-equality campaign since then; and Jim Garlow, who made a name for himself among the Religious Right with his pro-Prop 8 organizing. Garlow insisted you cannot call yourself a Christian and support the Court’s “obliterating” what he called a “core aspect of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” (Garlow should have seen the packed crowd at the morning’s pro-equality interfaith service at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation.) Garlow warned Supreme Court justices that they will one day stand before “the Chief Justice of the Universe” and will be held accountable if they defy His ways.

A couple of groups sent under-30 speakers to say how wrong the media is to suggest that Millennials are a lost cause on this issue.  But facts are facts, and polls show that support for marriage equality is overwhelming among under-30 Americans: 72 percent of Millennials believe same-sex couples should be able to get legally married, including 58 percent of under-30 Republicans.

Many of the speakers were on-message to the point of being boringly redundant, repeating the message on marchers’ pre-printed signs: “Kids do best with a mom and a dad” and “Every child deserves a mom and a dad.” Sometimes this came with a strong shot of gender stereotypes: mothers provide tenderness and fathers provide protection.  Brian Brown even showed a video of the Religious Right’s newest heroine, the 11-year old who testified against marriage equality in Minnesota and asked which of her parents she did not need, her mother or father. Perhaps someone could explain that no same-sex couples seeking to get married have any desire to force her to get rid of either parent.

NOM’s backers for the marriage march included the far-far-right-wing Catholic group Tradition, Family & Property, with its scarlet banners, capes, and marching band (see Adele Stan’s reminder who TFP is), Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, a couple of Catholic dioceses, the Knights of Columbus and the Institute on Religion and Democracy.  Brown gave special thanks to the Mormon-run GFC Foundation for providing grants for buses.

During the debate over the Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act, Religious Right groups like the American Family Association warned that the law would “criminalize negative comments concerning homosexuality” and “take away our religious freedoms.”

Of course, none of that happened, but that hasn’t stopped anti-gay activists from making the exact same false claims again and hoping more people will fall for it.

Yesterday, AFA president Tim Wildmon appeared on The Janet Mefferd Show and alleged that if the Supreme Court overturned Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) then we will see “persecution against Christians” and restrictions on the freedom of speech.

Wildmon: You’re headed down the road of persecution against Christians who believe in the Bible as their standard for moral behavior. In Canada now they have different rules there where you can’t even criminalize the lifestyle itself or you’ll be charged with a hate crime. You know that’s the road we’re headed down if these laws, if DOMA is struck down, if Prop 8 is struck down, then you’re headed for control of speech, even if it’s religious speech.

Ironically, the AFA’s own legal counsel, Pat Vaughn, admitted that “the Defense of Marriage Act is probably unconstitutional.”

The Family Research Council has launched what it is describing as “an ambitious, no-holds-barred campaign to keep marriage as between one man and one woman and preserve the American family.”  FRC is worried about two cases before the Supreme Court that will have “a lasting impact on the very soul of our nation” -- one on California’s Prop 8 and one on the federal Defense of Marriage Act. 

In a direct-mail piece dated on Valentine’s Day, FRC President Tony Perkins says it is important to get members of Congress “to pressure the Supreme Court to come down on the right side of marriage.” Recipients of the letter are encouraged to sign petitions to their representative and senators to urge them to “PRESSURE THE SUPREME COURT TO RULE IN FAVOR OF TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE!”

The text of the petition:

[Representative/Senator], as one of your constituents, I ask that you please use your influence to urge the Supreme Court to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act and state statutes banning same-sex “marriage.” The covenant marriage relationship between one man and one woman is a universally accepted social tradition that transcends all cultures and predates any religion. It is essential for procreation and the stability of society. I respectfully request that you do all in your power to urge the Court to uphold traditional marriage. Thank you for your service to our country.

The letter also recycles some of the same false claims that FRC and its allies made about federal hate crimes legislation, suggesting the advance of marriage equality will lead to the federal government dictating what pastors can preach about homosexuality or prosecuting those who preach against same-sex marriage.  Perkins also claims – falsely  – that the “vast majority of Americans do not want to see marriage redefined” and “the vast majority of voters are against the legitimization of same-sex ‘marriage.’” Actually, a majority of Americans supports marriage equality, according to recent polls by Gallup, Wall Street Journal/NBC, Washington Post/ABC, and CBS News.

But what difference do facts make to Tony Perkins? He says that if the Supreme Court were to support marriage equality, it would be “siding with an extreme minority and defying the will of the majority.” That’s why, he says, “the justices need to know up front that this majority will be anything but ‘silent.’”

FRC’s new “Marriage Preservation Initiative” is, of course, not the first effort to recognize, in Perkins’ words, that, “[d]espite the fact that Supreme Court justices have a reputation for being independent, they, too, are political and can be influenced by public pressure.” Back in 2010, after a district court ruling that Prop 8 was unconstitutional, the late Chuck Colson launched his own campaign to convince the justices that a pro-marriage-equality ruling would lead to “cultural Armageddon.”

On the New Years Eve episode of Generations Radio, Kevin Swanson and Dave Buehner offered up their review of 2012 and their predictions for 2013. As Brian wrote yesterday, they were not fans of 2012 – the year that President Obama won reelection, which “solidified our doom” and guaranteed the election of “a bunch of softy-wofty, weeny socialists for years to come.”

Their predictions for 2013 are not any more cheery.

Swanson forsees “the Muslims and the liberal Presbyterians getting together to form Chrislam,” which actually might not be a big deal because “chances are, at the end of the day they’re all Muslims anyway”:

Swanson: There will be a merger of PCUSA [Presbyterian Church (USA)], a liberal Christian organization, denomination, there will be a merger of PCUSA and a Muslim sect to form the first Mustererian denomination. How do you say that? Musterian denomination.

Buenher: Chrislam.

Swanson: So the Muslims and the liberal Presbyterians get together to form Chrislam. There’s just synthesis going on, so I’m just waiting for that mix. Now, chances are Dave, that at the end of the day they’re all Muslims anyway.

Swanson further predicts that Time magazine will “turn into the Daily Dragon or maybe the Daily Harlot…and then maybe Barack Obama rides on the Harlot or the Beast.” Further, Chief Justice John Roberts will declare the “confiscation of assault weapons” a “tax” and that Joe Biden will “come back with a recommendation to make school shootings illegal.” Buehner adds his own prediction that Colorado will pass a civil union bill allowing human-pet and human-cell phone marriage.

Swanson: You know Newsweek became the Daily Beast? Have you  ever seen that? I went online about a week ago trying to find a Newsweek article and I ended up on the Daily Beast site. What is that? Well, Dave, they were out of money, they couldn’t publish it anymore, so now they’ve got the DailyBeast.com. Well, here’s the prediction for 2013, to maintain the general apocalyptic theme here, Time magazine will turn into the Daily Dragon or maybe the Daily Harlot.

Buehner: I think the latter is probably more appropriate.

Swanson: And then maybe Barack Obama rides on the Harlot or the Beast. I don’t know how that works. But it’s in Revelation, check it out, it’s in Revelation. Ok, John Roberts declares the confiscation of assault weapons not a violation of the Second Amendment but a tax under the Interstate Commerce Clause. That wouldn’t surprise me. I mean we’ve got the precedent, and the precedents come from the top, top dog, the top ,top court of the land. Ok, and Joe Biden comes back with a recommendation to make school shootings illegal. That would be helpful. No, I think it would just inspire more school shootings.

Buehner: Well, you really don’t want to give legal cover to those who want to shoot in schools. I mean, that would make sense. Kevin, here’s one. You know that now that Colorado  has a Democrat in the governor and both houses and the courts are controlled by Democrats, I think Colorado is going to pass the first-in-the-nation civil union bill where somebody, a human, and their pet, can be recognized in a full civil union, full benefits and…

Swanson: What about a human and a cell phone?

Buehner: Well, that’s only a two-year contract. And then you get to change it after two years and get a new plan.

Finally, Swanson and Buehner get to natural disasters and war. While they point out that liberal bastions San Francisco and New York have already been hit by the“natural disasters” of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Mayor Bloomberg, God’s judgement is still incomplete. Buehner boldly predicts that “somewhere in  the world we see hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, disease, and one more, and it’s a man-made calamaty, I will predict that somewhere, I’m going to say that in the Middle East, there’s violence that’s going to happen in  2013.”  

Swanson: More predictions for 2013. The fiscal cliff will become the fiscal chasm. And Dave, maybe a calamity for New Orleans. No, we already had one there. New York? No. San Francisco. Have we had one there? Not since, wasn’t there like an earthquake there many years ago?

Buehner: Well, there are all kinds of calamities. New York had their calamity, Mayor Bloomberg. I mean, that’s a calamity. They got drenched with less than 16 ounces of drink over a hurricane.

Swanson: Yeah, they did.

Buehner: And San Francisco has their calamity, they have Nancy Pelosi.

Swanson: We’ll see what happens. I have a feeling there is a God and America has not repented yet. Follow my logic here, Dave. Ok, there is a God, that’s proposition A.  Proposition B, Premise B, America has not repented. Premise C, God has sent these kind of calamities before. So here’s the conclusion: there will be more. Ok, follow me? Follow the logic there?

Buehner: Yeah. I’m thinking that somewhere in  the world we see hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, disease, and one more, and it’s a man-made calamaty, I will predict that somewhere, I’m going to say that in the Middle East, there’s violence that’s going to happen in 2013.