Marriage Amendment: About More than Marriage
In this long article, "a Becket Funds (neutral on gay-marriage)study found laws FOR same-sex marriage sharply curtailing, and in some cases wiping out, the religious freedom of its opponents in spheres ranging from taxation, charitable giving, housing, public accommodation, and employment to licensure, professional practice, education, and equal access.
That's because the term marriage and its legal emanations echo throughout the canons of American law, Mr. Picarello said. "Once you change the definition of marriage, you don't change one law, you change thousands of laws."...........
......Boston Catholic Charities (BCC) provided the first case in point. In November 2003, ignoring the entire canon of U.S. family law, the United Nations 1948 Declaration of Human Rights (which recognized marriage as between a man and a woman), the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and the totality of human history, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declared that only anti-gay bias could explain why the state's marriage laws excluded same-sex couples. The court ruled the state's man/woman marriage laws unconstitutional and ordered lawmakers to create new ones. Six months later, county clerks in the state began issuing same-sex marriage licenses.
In a separate development, the Vatican issued a statement declaring that the placement of adoptive children with same-sex couples violated Catholic teaching. BCC, which for over a century had helped find adoptive homes for hard-to-place children, had placed a few children with gay couples. But in October 2005, Cardinal Sean O'Malley of the Archdiocese of Boston said the agency would comply with the Vatican mandate. "
The Boston Catholic Charities EXITED THE BUSINESS of placing adoptive children rather than comply with the state demands not to "discriminate" against same-sex couples getting children. There was no religious freedom when it came right down to it, it was do it the state's way or go out of business. That scenario is about to be played out in thousands of ways all across this country- including your community- unless the protection of Marriage Amendment passes.
(CONTINUED: click SUNDAY below and scroll down for the rest of this article, or if sent straight to the article just scroll down)
That's because the term marriage and its legal emanations echo throughout the canons of American law, Mr. Picarello said. "Once you change the definition of marriage, you don't change one law, you change thousands of laws."...........
......Boston Catholic Charities (BCC) provided the first case in point. In November 2003, ignoring the entire canon of U.S. family law, the United Nations 1948 Declaration of Human Rights (which recognized marriage as between a man and a woman), the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and the totality of human history, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declared that only anti-gay bias could explain why the state's marriage laws excluded same-sex couples. The court ruled the state's man/woman marriage laws unconstitutional and ordered lawmakers to create new ones. Six months later, county clerks in the state began issuing same-sex marriage licenses.
In a separate development, the Vatican issued a statement declaring that the placement of adoptive children with same-sex couples violated Catholic teaching. BCC, which for over a century had helped find adoptive homes for hard-to-place children, had placed a few children with gay couples. But in October 2005, Cardinal Sean O'Malley of the Archdiocese of Boston said the agency would comply with the Vatican mandate. "
The Boston Catholic Charities EXITED THE BUSINESS of placing adoptive children rather than comply with the state demands not to "discriminate" against same-sex couples getting children. There was no religious freedom when it came right down to it, it was do it the state's way or go out of business. That scenario is about to be played out in thousands of ways all across this country- including your community- unless the protection of Marriage Amendment passes.
(CONTINUED: click SUNDAY below and scroll down for the rest of this article, or if sent straight to the article just scroll down)
posted by Mark Moore (Moderator) at Sunday, June 04, 2006
4 Comments:
Liberal judges are quickly moving to make this a "civil rights" issue. Once it becomes one, the state will come down with its full force on anyone with a divergent view. Practicing dissent will no longer be permitted. This includes federal sanctios against churches that will not marry homosexual "couples" or accept them as members. Think that is to unlikely? I thought 40 million dead babies was pretty unlikely too. If they are willing to go that far to remove God's standard's for civil government, they will surely try this.
Don't agree with me? The Beckett Fund study listed several areas that will b e used as a wedge to increasingly isolate opposition...
"Licensing
After Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage, Boston Catholic Charities exited the adoption business rather than cede to state demands that it place children with same-sex couples. If same-sex marriage is legalized, professional licenses might also be denied to psychological clinics, social workers, marriage and family counselors, and others who believe same-sex relationships are "objectively disordered."
Tax Exemption and Government Benefits
Religious groups could find themselves suffering along with the Boy Scouts, as access to public facilities is stripped away. Gay-rights litigators will likely challenge groups' federal tax-exempt status, charging that such an exemption "subsidizes discrimination."
Conflicts Between Civil Rights Law and Religious Freedom
Among the possibilities: Religious employers who refuse to hire or retain employees in same-sex marriages can expect to be sued on the basis of "marital status discrimination." Religious colleges that refuse admission to same-sex couples could face civil lawsuits and loss of accreditation. In Massachusetts, Catholic colleges already are examining whether they must provide married student housing to legally married gay couples.
Freedom of Speech
Principles used by courts in deciding workplace sexual harassment cases will likely migrate to suppress an expression of anti-same-sex-marriage views by religious groups and people. The attorney general of New Jersey recently backed officials at William Patterson University after a non-faculty employee objected to receiving a mass e-mail inviting people to see gay-themed movies. The school disciplined the employee for having engaged in harassment because of her use of a single word, "perversions," to describe the content of the films. "
Tomorrow, President Bush is likely to go on TV and talk about how we need to pass an amendment to the Constitution to Protect Marriage. He is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, but it is still the right thing.
Mr. Bush is always talking about how he can "see into people's hearts". Well I can see into his. He used this issue to get elected, and then did not lift a finger, not one finger, to help it pass out of the Senate the first time. Compare that to his tenancity and effort when it comes to something he wants, like a "guest worker" program for illegal aliens that amounts to either amnesty or the creation of a permanent underclass. He expends political capital on things that his supporters don't want, but then did not even jump on this band wagon to get the Defense of Marriage Amendment out of the Senate- until his poll numbers started sagging.
Homosexual groups like the Log Cabin Republicans have said that this White House has given them "unprecedented access". At they same time, it frequently denies accesss to pro-family groups except near election time (to ask them for favors).
Vice-President Dick Cheney won't be helping the White House push this amendment- he is in favor of homosexual marriage. His lesbian daughter was actually a paid staffer on the Bush-Cheney 04 campaign. If you gave to the RNC, you helped fund it. In fact, the Bush administration has appointed more openly homosexual officials than any in history.
So I understand, and you should too, that Mr. Bush is only picking this up and dusting it off again because the polls show he has lost the trust and confidence of many conservatives. Karl Rove is behind this, not a sudden twang of conscience. Still, it is absolutely essential that this be done. Our Constitution has a "Full Faith and Credit" clause which says that contracts made in one state must be honored in the others. Homosexual couples from Massachusetts could fan out across the nation and start filing lawsuits based on "discrimination" in our thousands of laws and institutions that do not share a liberal Massachusetts judge's definition of marriage.
One last note. Senator Blanche Lincoln either did not understand the Constitution in 04, or she deliberately tried to deceive the people of Arkansas. She said that a federal amendment to the constitution was uneeded because we had a state amendment. Of course, she did nothing to help pass the state amendment.
Her opponent in that race, state Senator Jim Holt (who DID actually work to pass the state amendment) correctly maintained that a state amendment was not enough, you needed to combine it with a federal amendment that exempted marriage from the "Full Faith and Credit Clause". Either she did not understand the Constitution as well as Holt did, or she was trying to put one over on us. There are no other possibilities.
In conclusion, the stakes are very high and we are going to have to badger our officials, Republican and Democrat, to do the right thing on this issue. They will not do it unless they dare not fail to do it.
NOTE: the "Full Faith and Credit Clause" of the Federal Constituion would trump any state Amendments defining marriage. Even a judge who is a strict constuctionist would likely rule that as marriages have always been among the contracts covered under this rule.
Mark, please go into more detail on this because when someone calls Blanche's office to tell her to vote for this amendment, Her staffers say she believes this is a state not a federal issue(ie. ignorance or deliberate wool pulling on her and her staffers part). Those who call her and Mark P. offices need to be more educated with current examples(abortion, etc)
Article IV of the US Constitution that "Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other state…The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states."
This means that if a married homosexual couple in Massachusetts (where the court ruled that the state's refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples violated the state constitution) could come to Arkansas and sue; and the judge would be compelled by Article IV to grant legality to that marriage so they could receive all the privileges, benefits, and rights that each state gives to married couples.
The only protection against this happening is a federal amendment to the constitution of the United States.
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