September 20, 2012
Column #1,621
(second in a two-part series)
Same-Sex Marriage Will Change Culture
By
Mike McManus
Same-sex marriage is on the
ballot this fall in Maryland, Minnesota, Washington State and
Maine. Polls show support for it now in all four states, though
it is narrowing in Maine.
“When people hear their
legislature is considering a law like this and they think,
`What’s the harm?’ They need to realize that there is a direct
threat to religious liberty – to business owners, employees,
religious entities,” said Jim Campbell of the Alliance Defense
Fund.
Maggie Gallagher,
President of National Organization for Marriage, is blunt:
“Christian adoption agencies will be driven out of the public
square, which has already happened in Massachusetts, Washington
D.C. and Illinois. There will be fewer parents for troubled
children.
“Schools will teach gay
marriage is a civil right. Small businesses that do weddings
will have to help gay couples get married or will be treated the
way we treat bigots opposed to interracial marriages, even if
individual clergy are not required to recognize gay marriage.”
For example, Wildflower Inn in
Lyndonville, Vermont refused to allow their facilities to be
rented for the wedding reception of a lesbian couple, even
though the state has legalized same-sex marriage. The inn’s
owners, Jim and Mary O’Reilly, said it violated their Catholic
faith.
The lesbians sued and won the
case, forcing the owners to pay $30,000 in fines: $20,000 to a
charity chosen by the lesbians and $10,000 to the Human Rights
Commission. Further, the owners were told they had to rent
their facilities to all couples, or none. The O’Reillys chose
none. By living their faith, they were fined and deprived of
future income.
Carroll Conley, Executive
Director of the Christian Civic League of Maine, which is
leading the battle against same-sex marriage, said, “In
Massachusetts, parents of second graders in 2006 were not
allowed to remove their children from a curriculum promoting
marriage between two men.”
The kids were read a book,
“King and King,” about two men who have a romance and marry each
other, with a picture of them kissing. The parents of two second
graders sued to force the schools to notify parents and allow
them to opt-out their children when homosexual- related topics
were taught.
A Federal judge dismissed the
case, ruling that because same-sex marriage is legal in
Massachusetts, the schools had a duty to normalize homosexual
relationships to children, and that schools have no obligation
to notify parents or let them opt-out children.
“Think about that,” wrote some
parents. “Because same-sex marriage is `legal,’ a federal judge
has ruled that the schools now have a DUTY to
portray homosexual relationships as normal despite what their
parents think or believe!”
It has become commonplace in
Massachusetts for teachers to prominently display photos of
their same-sex “spouses.” Hundreds of high schools and even
middle schools now hold “gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender
appreciation days” to fight “intolerance.”
All insurance in the state must
now recognize same sex married couples in coverage and
businesses must give them all benefits accorded to
heterosexuals. Wedding photographers, halls and caterers must do
same-sex marriages or be arrested for discrimination.
Catholic Charities
abandoned handling adoptions after more than a century rather
than being forced to place children with gays and lesbians.
In New Mexico
Vanessa Willock asked Elane Photography to photograph her same
gender “commitment ceremony.” Elane replied that it
photographed “traditional weddings.”
Willock filed a
discrimination suit with the New Mexico Human Rights Commission,
charging that Elane is a “public accommodation” like a
restaurant who denied her services because of her sexual
orientation. The Commission ruled against Elane and ordered it
to pay $6,600 in attorney fees. Columnist George Will said the
case “demonstrates how advocates of tolerance become
tyrannical.”
In New Jersey, a
beachfront property operated by United Methodists, the Ocean
Grove Camp Meeting Association, was sued for refusing to rent
for a lesbian couple’s civil union ceremony. A judge ruled
against Ocean Grove because New Jersey legalized civil unions
under court order.
As Anglican Bishop John Guernsey puts it: “If we lose
traditional marriage, religious liberty will be lost along with
it.”
What’s more alarming is that a growing segment of the homosexual
community accepts the molestation of children. The Journal
of Homosexuality (whose editor, John deCecco, also sits on
the editorial board of the pedophilia advocacy journal
Paedika) ran a double issue in 1990 that was devoted
entirely to “male intergenerational intimacy.”
In fact, the
San Francisco Sentinel, a Bay Area gay-activist
newspaper, published a piece arguing that pedophilia is central
to male homosexual life.
Same sex marriage should be defeated in all four states, as it
has been in 32 states to date. |