03/08/04
SODOMITE
MOMENTUM
Sodomites clearly enjoy the momentum in US politics. The San Francisco Chronicle article (at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/03/05/ANALYSIS.TMP ), excerpted below, spells out the nature of their momentum. God in judgment is giving America up to this plague due to America’s religious unfaithfulness. America’s refusal to enforce the Ten Commandments has led to this inevitable consequence. American Christians best prepare for the prospect of an environment where Biblical Christianity is increasingly suppressed and persecuted. Sodomite marriage is one step closer to hate speech laws which will forbid public opposition to sodomy. It is already happening in other western nations.
News analysis
Gay marriage momentum stuns both backers and foes
Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Same-sex marriage -- considered so radical that mainstream gay rights
leaders feared its emergence in an election year -- has gained a level of
visibility that even its most ardent proponents did not imagine just two months
ago…These marriage licenses -- whether acts of civil disobedience or
interpretations of law by local officials -- are fueling countless television
images that put a mainstream face on lesbian and gay couples. They are laying the
groundwork for legal challenges to marriage laws across the nation.
And they are infusing gay and lesbian rights with the consciousness of
a major civil rights movement.
"Gavin Newsom went from being a handsome rookie mayor to an icon
on human rights, just like that," said Jim Pinkerton, a former political
adviser to the president's father, President George H.W. Bush. "It does
beg comparison to other spontaneous citizen movements -- the sit-ins at lunch
counters in the South in the '60s, the anti-apartheid movement in the '80s, the
Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia in the late '80s. What's notable is the
establishment can't really figure out what to do with it."
New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer as much as invited challenges
to New York's marriage laws Wednesday in an opinion reacting to the issuing of
marriage licenses by the mayor of New Paltz, N.Y. Spitzer said that while New
York does not authorize same-sex marriage, its marriage laws "raise
important constitutional questions involving the equal protection of the
laws."
He also said New York should accept as valid such marriages from other
states. That would include Massachusetts, whose high court ruled that same-sex
marriages must be granted starting in mid-May.
Few expected things to move as fast as they have, or to spread so far. Just
four years ago, Vermont was embroiled in a fierce debate over whether to permit
civil unions, a parallel institution short of marriage that many considered
radical. Today, Bush's position is that civil unions are acceptable if that is
what a state wants. "The fact that civil unions were considered a radical
step in 2000 and they're now considered nothing more than second
class-citizenship by the gay community -- and President Bush is not expressing
opposition to civil unions -- shows you how dramatically the issue has changed
in just a few short months," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force…
Opponents of same-sex marriage contend it was the November ruling by
the Massachusetts high court that triggered the current storm.
In fact, the debate began with the June's U.S. Supreme Court ruling in
Lawrence vs. Texas that struck down state sodomy laws and, for the first time,
ruled that gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to their private
sexual relationships.
Conservatives contend the judiciary will inevitably strike down
traditional marriage definitions in state laws and constitutions, and
eventually the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act. The act defines marriages
as a union of a man and a woman, preventing same-sex couples from obtaining
federal benefits tied to marriage, such as Social Security payments and
immigration rights. It also allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex
marriage rights from other states.
The federal act has yet to be challenged because until now same-sex
marriage did not exist in the United States. Some lawyers said recent marriages
in Portland, Ore., may be the first valid marriages permitting such challenges,
and certainly Massachusetts marriages will.
Ironically, gay rights advocates and opponents agree it is only a
matter of time before laws against same-sex marriage go the way of laws against
interracial marriage, barring a constitutional amendment.
But Republican members of Congress privately concede there is little
chance that amendments under consideration can pass the difficult threshold of
two-thirds approval in both houses, and they are wrestling with alternatives.
The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday scheduled its first hearing for March
30, but the wording of an amendment remains undecided.
"We're seeing an incredibly fast-paced civil rights movement and
what I think is the last-gasp backlash of the radical right that has been in
the gay-bashing industry for decades," said Patrick Guerriero, executive
director of the gay Log Cabin Republicans. "This is an unstoppable
train." Guerriero speculated the White House underestimated the opposition
to an amendment among Republicans, many of whom say the issue should be left to
the states.
"You've got your biggest, highest-profile Republicans in the
country right now -- (California governor) Arnold Schwarzenegger and (former
New York mayor) Rudy Giuliani -- both coming out against an amendment,"
Guerriero said.
David Horowitz, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute,
said Bush "has allowed himself to focus on the wrong target," which
is a constitutional amendment defining marriage, rather than an amendment that
prevents judges from making laws.
"Things are getting out of control when every mayor and public
official feels free to interpret the constitution and issue rules that run
pretty clearly contrary to state law," Horowitz said.
Pinkerton, however, said the White House hasn't been hurt by the debate. "An amendment doesn't have to pass. It's like abortion. The right-to-lifers have been flaying away for 30 years and never notice that they don't win. The Republicans get their energy and the right-to-lifers never get a victory. You get the energy out of a political movement by losing, not by winning."