Marriage Equality

After Mitt Romney secure the Republican nomination, prominent Southern Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress has said that Christians should vote for the Mormon candidate over President Obama since he “espouses unbiblical principles.” Such a sentiment is striking since Jeffress attacked Romney’s Mormon faith in the 2008 and 2012 primary elections, hoping that the GOP would nominate an evangelical Christian like Rick Perry over Romney as Mormonism is “a heresy from the pit of Hell.” Now, Jeffress is rallying evangelical support for Romney, despite his prior warning that electing a Mormon will lead to God’s judgment.

Jeffress told Janet Mefferd, who has also criticized Romney over his faith, that it is still better to vote for Romney, even though he is a member of a “cult” and “false religion” that believes in a “multiplicity of gods,” than Obama because of his stances on marriage equality and abortion rights. The pastor said defeating Obama is even worth potentially giving Mormon missionaries a tool to bolster “legitimacy of their faith” and make more converts.

I still think there are concerns out there among evangelicals about voting for a Mormon. I’ve made peace with it; the way I’ve made peace with it is to make it very clear on programs like yours that Mormonism is a cult, it is a false religion, Mormons worship a multiplicity of gods, they deny the Bible, in fact they think the Bible is so error-filled there had to be a second book of revelations. I want to make it very clear that I don’t believe Mormonism is Christianity but I do think that in this case it is better to vote for a non-Christian who supports biblical principles like life and marriage than voting for a professing Christian like Barack Obama who absolutely repudiates what Jesus Christ said about some key issues.

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I don’t want to minimize the Mormonism issue. I had probably the most well-known pastor in America say to me last week; you know one concern is the mission implications of this, Mormons are so involved in missions overseas, they’ll be able to point to a Mormon president as legitimacy of their faith. So I think we need to be clear that Mormonism is a false religion that leads people away from rather than toward the true God, but having said that we are making this choice in spite of that.

He warned that America is “about to go over the moral and spiritual cliff from which there is no return” if Obama is re-elected, asserting that his administration is “openly involved in high-handed sins” and shaking its “fist in the face of God” on matters like same-sex marriage.

You know in the Old Testament the Bible had what it called high-handed sins, sins that were like a clenched fist in the face of God. We are now seeing an administration that is openly involved in high-handed sins: the embracing of gay marriage. A friend of mine said to me recently, ‘think about this just ten years ago if a pastor or a sandwich company were to say marriage is between a husband and a wife, a man and a woman, no one would have batted an eye at that, but today that is labeled as hate speech,’ now what has changed? It’s not the Bible or the message that has changed, it shows what has happened in our culture. I know this sounds alarmist but I believe we are at the precipice, we are at a tipping point in our country right now, we are about to go over not the fiscal cliff, we are about to go over the moral and spiritual cliff from which there is no return, and that is why it is imperative for Christians to get out and vote in this election.

The 700 Club today reported on Gallaudet University’s suspension of their chief diversity officer for signing a petition to put Maryland’s marriage equality law on the ballot. Gay rights advocates, including the leaders of Marylanders for Marriage Equality and Gov. Martin O’Malley have said that they strongly disagreed with Gallaudet’s decision, but host Pat Robertson tried to claim that the university’s move was representative of the entire left and the gay rights movement. “The left wants a dictatorship,” Robertson claimed, “they don’t want freedom.” The anti-gay televangelist argued that “they want a dictatorship where they control, which is what you had in communism, a small group ran the government for their ends and for the ends of their friends, and that’s what the gays want, they want everything now in their favor.” Robertson concluded by saying that “God Almighty has the final vote.”

Watch:

William Owens of the Coalition of African-American Pastors and the National Organization for Marriage’s religious liaison is hoping that his anti-Obama, anti-gay campaign will pay off in November by pulling black voters away from supporting Obama. While sitting down with Jamilah Lemieux of Ebony, Owens said that black voters are turning against Obama “because [our site] had nearly 90 thousand hits and 85 percent of the people are on our side on this issue” and also told Lemieux that “there isn’t such thing as separation as church and state.” Owens effectively admitted to Lemieux that CAAP is a single-issue organization dedicated to opposing same-sex marriage, insisting that marriage equality for gays and lesbians must be stopped because “the Black family has been destroyed” and will “help deteriorate the Black family more than anything else.”

JL: Black people are literally on fire right now. You have people--- teenagers, kids---dying in Chicago. Getting shot 10, 12, 30 in a night and you're sending out daily press releases about same sex marriage. Is this the greatest challenge of your generation or my generation? is this the biggest fight that we have in the middle of an election season? Do we have that much to lose from gay people getting married?

RO: I think we do. First of all, the Black family has been destroyed. When I grew up there were more Black men going to college, now there are more Black men going to prison. Something is wrong.

JL: What does that have to do with homosexuality? There are Black men who have went to college and graduate and got married and are gay and also Black men who have women who they’ve been in intimate relationships with who didn’t go to college and who don’t provide for their children. So who is the problem in our community?

RO: We're our own problem right now. We are are own problem and we need good moral leadership and I expected that from Obama. Same sex marriage is not [representative of that]...I felt that that one issue was enough to help deteriorate the Black family more than anything else.

His wife Deborah Owens made a similar assertion in a Washington Times op-ed where she warned that the “homosexual agenda” will “erode the very foundation of our society” and “place our youth on a dangerous trajectory toward a bleak future in which mothers and fathers don’t matter, values don’t matter and children are placed at risk.” She said gays and lesbians “have crept out of the closet, and now they want to take over the entire house,” arguing that Obama is “putting our country on a dangerous path and our children and families in peril” by backing their right to marry, jeopardizing “our future as a nation” and “our freedom.”

Some criticize us for not supporting the practice, but accepting homosexuals and lesbians is a separate issue from redefining marriage for millions of Americans. Homosexuals and lesbians have been around for a long time, though many of them were “in the closet.” Over time, they have crept out of the closet, and now they want to take over the entire house. If a man loves another man or a woman desires another woman, there is nothing in our current law stopping two consenting adults from engaging in a relationship, though it is not normal behavior. We are about to cross a dangerous line, with civil leaders trying to force all Americans to accept homosexual unions and change the historical and biblical definition of marriage.

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The black American community already is plagued with problems related to children growing up in single-parent households. For example, a boy who lacks a father in the home is more likely to engage in delinquent and criminal behavior unless he has a positive male role model to help shape him. The homosexual agenda, which attempts to redefine family and marriage, will erode the very foundation of our society. It will place our youth on a dangerous trajectory toward a bleak future in which mothers and fathers don’t matter, values don’t matter and children are placed at risk.

Evidence shows that the lack of intact families in our society leads to social, psychological and emotional problems for children. Why would Mr. Obama want to make homosexual “marriage” equal to traditional marriage when children already face a multitude of issues? The president and others want to legitimize and normalize homosexual “marriage” and shove it down the throats of those who disagree because he is the leader and he said so.

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What black person would deny the first black man running for the highest office in America a chance to become president? He represented hope for us all, and he was the realization of the dream for many Americans who never thought they would live to see a black president. We were soon disillusioned. Mr. Obama has betrayed us by his endorsement of homosexual “marriage,” putting our country on a dangerous path and our children and families in peril.

On the homosexual “marriage” issue, this black mom is not following Mr. Obama.

Our hope in man, even one man, cannot come at the cost of our hope in God.

Our future as a nation is at stake. Our freedom is in the balance. Mr. Obama has given his followers an invalid command: Endorse homosexual “marriage.” This edict must not be the law of this land. The risks are too great.

During an interview with Focus on the Family president Jim Daly, Paul Ryan reassured the anti-gay group that a Romney-Ryan administration will fiercely oppose gay rights. Focus on the Family and its founder James Dobson have a long history of promoting anti-gay policies and ex-gay therapy, and earned a shout-out from Romney earlier this week while campaigning in Colorado, where it is headquartered.

While Romney has moved in his career from backing gay rights to becoming a vocal foe, Ryan has a solidly anti-gay voting record in Congress. Ryan told Daly, whose political arm has been spending money on behalf of Romney and a number of other Republican candidates like Todd Akin, that the ticket is firmly against same-sex marriage and that he was a “big supporter” of a 2006 amendment which enshrined marriage discrimination into the Wisconsin state constitution. He also said the Obama administration’s decision not to defend the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act hurt the “rule of law” and “contradicts our system of government,” however, a number of presidents including George W. Bush have not defended statutes they deemed unconstitutional.

Daly: Focus on the Family has been behind the scenes working for years to defend marriage and to speak out for marriage and the importance of marriage. I think thirty-two out of thirty-two states where we have helped put a ballot initiative or some other mechanism in front of the people, we have won that thirty-two out of thirty-two times. It seems like when it’s in front of the people they vote for it, if it’s the state-level judges they will try to do it by fiat or if it is simply some other mechanism, the State House passes it without the vote of the people. For the Romney-Ryan ticket, when you look at marriage, what do we need to do in the culture to lift up and strengthen the very core building block of society and that’s family.

Ryan: It’s the foundation for society and for family for thousands of years. First of all, Mitt Romney and I — I’ll just say it, it’s worth repeating — we believe marriage is between one man and one woman, that’s number one. Number two, you know where I come from we had one of those amendments in Wisconsin, I was a big supporter of it and we passed it like you say, where it’s put on the ballot it passes. The second point is, President Obama gave up defending the Defense of Marriage Act in the courts, I mean, not only is this decision to abandon this law the wrong decision, it passed in a bipartisan manner, it is very troubling because it undermines not only traditional marriage but it contradicts our system of government. It’s not the president’s job to pick and choose which laws he likes. A Romney administration will protect traditional marriage and the rule of law and we will provide the Defense of Marriage Act the proper defense in the courts that it deserves.

Trying to boost his campaign to generate a voter rebellion against Democrats over the issue of marriage equality, Harry Jackson wrote in his column today that legalizing same-sex marriage would harm children. He asserts that gay couples who seek to become parents “put their own fleeting desires ahead of the God-given rights of their children,” whose children he says are more likely to be gay, depressed, unemployed or drug users. Jackson cited the work of Walter Schumm of Kansas State University to back up his claims, but Schumm’s work has been roundly criticized and he is closely tied to anti-gay crackpot Paul Cameron of the Family Research Institute. Later, Jackson mentioned the notorious Mark Regnerus study as part of his warning against gay parenting. What Jackson fails to mention, however, is that even the journal that published his report recently admitted that it was severely flawed, noting that just two of the respondents actually “lived with a lesbian couple for their entire childhoods, and most did not live with lesbian or gay parents for long periods, if at all.”

The reason that legally defined marriage is important is because of children. It takes a mother and a father to conceive a child, and children have a God-given right to have a relationship with both their biological mother and their biological father. Children also have a God-given right to have both a male role model and a female role model in their homes. There are certainly times when tragedy takes a parent from a child, but what about the much more frequent times when adults put their own fleeting desires ahead of the God-given rights of their children? Desires change, as the breakups of both heterosexual and homosexual relationships testify.

As our nation continues to wrestle with the meaning and precise definition of marriage Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered activists consistently dismiss the issue of children. Same-sex marriage advocates insist that children of homosexual couples have the same or better outcomes than children of heterosexual couples. Unfortunately for them these assertions are based more on philosophy than hard science. For example, a 2010 study by Dr. Walter Schumm of Kansas State University confirmed that adult children raised by homosexual couples are (unsurprisingly) two to five times as likely to identify themselves as homosexual as children of heterosexuals. But the nation is divided as to whether that is an important outcome or not.

More specifically, whenever the topic of children reared by gay parents is raised: the assertion is made that there are no special problems or disadvantages because of their parents’ choices of “partners.” But this image (if remotely true) represents a tiny, disproportionately wealthy fraction of the gay population. Most of the scientists who have researched the children of such families admit as much.

Common sense would remind us that the results of any particular study depends both on how one defines a household headed by an LGBT couple, and what factors one evaluates when looking at “outcomes.” Dr. Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas, Austin, recently set out to hear the stories of the adults living in America today who were raised by parents in homosexual relationships. LGBT activists have fought vigorously to malign and suppress his findings. In short, he learned that, on 25 of 40 different outcomes evaluated, the children of women who’ve had same-sex relationships fare quite differently than those in stable, biologically-intact mom-and-pop families, displaying numbers more comparable to those from heterosexual stepfamilies and single parents.

This study included controls for age, race, gender, and the impact of being bullied as a youth, or the gay-friendliness of the state in which they live. Yet the respondents of same-sex parents were more apt to become unemployed, be less healthy and more depressed. They also were more likely to have cheated on a spouse or partner, have more male and female sex partners, experience more sexual victimization, and were more likely to reflect negatively on their childhood family life. Those raised by same-sex couples also were more likely to smoke marijuana and have trouble with the law.

At this point in our nation, no one is debating the right of consenting adults to do what they wish with each other in private. But redefining the ancient institution of marriage is an entirely different matter. This will set the stage for more and more children to grow up without a mother or a father, simply to placate the desire of adults. We must fight to preserve the traditional definition of marriage for the sake of these children.

Before telling attendees of the Values Voter Summit about her “sexual rampage” as part of an attack on Sandra Fluke and the contraception coverage mandate, right-wing activist Star Parker sat down with Buster Wilson of the American Family Association to knock the Republican Party for not being anti-gay enough. While Paul Ryan is a vehement opponent of gay rights, Wilson and Parker were upset that Ryan did not speak in depth about his stance against marriage equality at a time when Democrats are campaigning on the issue.

Parker offered a stern warning to the GOP: speak out against same-sex marriage or lose God’s blessing. Parker, who interviewed Ryan for her own show, expressed disappointment in his speech and said that she was “not confident that God is going to shine down upon the party of Lincoln, the party of Reagan, while we are running away from the very core issues that birthed us as a party.” In fact, Parker even likened the fight over marriage equality to the debate over slavery.

Wilson: One of the things that Paul Ryan did not speak of in his speech today was the issue of marriage, it seemed like once again ‘it’s the economy stupid’ with this campaign and we’ve done everything we can do to shy away from any of the social issues, in particular marriage. But not the Democrats, it seemed like everybody that spoke at the Democratic Convention brought up the fact that they were the party for abortion and gay marriage and gay rights. Why do you think the conservatives that are—let me rephrase this— why do you think the Romney campaign seems to want to shy away from those issues as much as he does.

Parker: Because the Republican Party is a political party, when you think about the social environment, if you think about the social issues, they demand us to talk about morality and I think that the Republican Party has made the decision that they don’t want to. The challenge before them, however, is that this election is about choosing who we are going to serve. According to the Scripture, God said I’d laid life and death before you, good and evil before you, those are defining topics. As you just mentioned, Democrats have made it clear who they are and they are going to make sure that we define ourselves. So it is unfortunate that even though Romney and the Republicans have decided that we are not going to define ourselves and that now Paul Ryan has not done that here at the Values Voter Summit. I do not know who prepared his remarks for him, I love him, I’ve known him since he came to Washington, D.C., I am very hopeful that his star will consider to shine. But I am just not confident that God is going to shine down upon the party of Lincoln, the party of Reagan, while we are running away from the very core issues that birthed us as a party. We are at that critical cross point, similar to the 1850s; we cannot go on like this half-free and half-slave. We are going to have to do what Abraham Lincoln did and that’s reach into the Scripture and say ‘a house divided against itself can’t stand.’