The
clock is ticking. The state high court of Massachusetts has
given lawmakers there a May deadline to rewrite state
marriage law to give homosexuals the right to “marry.” The
court ruled 4-3 last November that placing marriage
off-limits to homosexuals violates the Massachusetts
Constitution.
Pro-family reaction to the long-awaited decision was
swift and sharp. “Massachusetts’s highest court has today
pushed the nation perilously close to crossing a cultural
Rubicon from which we may not return,” said Dr. Kennedy,
shortly after the ruling was announced.
“Whatever four members of the Supreme Judicial Court of
Massachusetts may say,” he continued, “the intimate coupling
of two men or two women is not marriage. It is a pale and
misshapen counterfeit that will only serve to empty marriage
of its meaning and destroy the institution that is the
keystone in the arch of civilization.
Dobson:
“Potentially Fatal Blow”
Dr. James Dobson warned after the ruling that “the
homosexual activist movement, which has achieved virtually
every goal and objective it set out to accomplish more than
50 years ago, is now closer than it has ever been to
administering a devastating and potentially fatal blow to
the traditional family.”
The ruling gave fresh impetus to efforts in Congress to
amend the U.S. Constitution to limit marriage to one man and
one woman. A week after the Massachusetts high court issued
its decision, the Federal Marriage Amendment was introduced
in the U.S. Senate. The same amendment was introduced in the
House last April and already has 109 cosponsors there.
President Bush has lent his qualified support to a
Federal Marriage Amendment, telling ABC News reporter Diane
Sawyer in December that “If necessary, I will support a
constitutional amendment which would honor marriage between
a man and a woman.”
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In Massachusetts the legislature will vote this month on a
state constitutional amendment to limit marriage to one man
and woman—an initial step in the drawn-out process required
to amend the Bay state constitution. Ironically, that
constitution states in its preamble that “It is the right as
well as the duty of all men … to worship the Supreme Being,
the great Creator and Preserver of the universe.”
The 4-3 ruling of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial
Court follows the legalization last year of homosexual
“marriage” in British Columbia and Ontario. Two European
nations, Belgium, and Holland have also legalized homosexual
“marriage.”
Even if Massachusetts stops short of giving homosexuals
the right to marry, it is likely that New Jersey’s Supreme
Court, which ruled in 1999 that the Boy Scouts must allow
homosexual scoutmasters, will rule for seven same-sex
couples suing to marry, in a case now working its way
through state courts.
The Massachusetts ruling puts homosexual activists
within months of achieving an objective set 32 years ago by
the National Coalition of Gay Organizations. The “1972 Gay
Rights Platform in the United States,” called for the
“Repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex
or number of persons entering into a marriage unit; and the
extension of legal benefits of marriage to all persons who
cohabit, regardless of sex or numbers.”
Public
Backlash
But while courts may lend a sympathetic ear, this most
recent giant leap forward for homosexuality has sparked a
public backlash. A mid-December CBS/New York Times
poll found that 61 percent of those polled were against
homosexual “marriage,” up from 55 percent in July.
Please see Marriage Threat,
page 4 |
