Your wife needs you to fight satan in schools

[Gob]

Nice to see how low the numbers were for this...

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) hosted its second annual “March For Marriage” Thursday in front of the U.S. Capitol, a rally with speakers opposing same-sex marriage followed by a march to the Supreme Court.



An estimated 2,000 people participated, many of whom had traveled by bus from New Jersey and New York City. After last year’s march, which was held in conjunction with the Supreme Court hearing on the Defense of Marriage Act, NOM attempted to inflate the numbers, but this year’s crowd was smaller than even the most conservative estimates from last year.

Mary from Virginia Beach explained to ThinkProgress that she is a devout Catholic who believes that marriage is a covenant between a man, a woman, and God, and “we cannot change what the Bible defines.” She actually suggested that she would be okay with civil unions for same-sex couples, but she was also concerned that children would read books and learn that same-sex marriage is okay, even though it’s against their families’ beliefs: “Civil unions? What you do is your business, but what you teach my children is a whole different thing.” She added that if she learned that her own children were gay, she would be “disappointed,” and that it would “break her heart” if they got married, because she believes that acting on homosexuality is a sin.

Jasmine came to the march from New York City because she was asked to by her church: “I was told by my church ministry to come out here and support what we believe in, which is a man and a woman to get married and unite and have children… If a man and a man were to get married, that would violate that law.” Even though New York now has same-sex marriage, she believes in “repentance” for same-sex couples and that “God can still touch their hearts and turn them into His steps.”


Both on the dais and in the crowd, religious beliefs were the driving force behind attendees’s opposition to same-sex marriage. ThinkProgress spoke with several members of the crowd to get a sense of why they were participating, and most cited their religious beliefs as their primary motivation. In particular, many were religious leaders themselves or specifically came to the march with a church group. Watch a compilation of ThinkProgress’ interviews from the March for Marriage:

Some said that they believe that there are consequences to legalizing same-sex marriage. A.J. from New Jersey told ThinkProgress that he believes God might flood the world like he did in the times of Noah as punishment for society’s sexual sins: “My rabbi in Brooklyn said that 20 years after the United States legitimizes same-sex marriage and different sexual sins, then the entire country will go into disarray.” He wasn’t sure when those 20 years start, but he was attending the march because he’s concerned the country is “going down the wrong path.”

For others, it was simply a matter of upholding tradition. “It’s not a matter of consequences,” Jack from Baltimore offered. “The problem is changing the definition of a word that has existed forever.” He told ThinkProgress that he defines marriage as “a man and a woman capable of having children” because “I think that’s the way God created us. I think that’s the way it’s been. It’s the way it is universally accepted.”

Emily came from Jersey City, New Jersey because she believes that “homosexual marriage” is “completely immoral and wrong.” She doesn’t want the kids she’ll eventually have to live through this because “you want your society to be the way you are.” Joe rode down to the march with his church from the Bronx. Since New York passed same-sex marriage, he has noticed same-sex couples holding hands in public more often, admitting, “It makes me uncomfortable.”

In addition to religious and moral reasons, some had concerns about health and children. Elsa brought her family from Leesburg, Virginia because she believes same-sex parenting is harmful to children. “Depending on the studies that you’re willing to admit to,” she said, “there have been studies that show how difficult children have it when they only have one mother, one father, or the same-gender. You end up with a misunderstanding of the human person and there’s gender confusion.” She went on to explain that “nature doesn’t agree” with homosexuality, which is why there are “wards full of HIV-positive people and people dying of serious diseases.”

One of the many pastors who attended the march, who preferred not to disclose his name, similarly suggested that “the gay lifestyle is not gay. It’s filled with drug abuse, and violence, and sadness, and unhappiness.” He expects that there will eventually be a backlash against “the gay agenda.”

Right Wing Watch has compiled many highlights from the march’s speakers. Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) told the audience that “real men” need to stand up for marriage because “your woman, your wife, she needs you.” New York state Sen. Ruben Diaz (D) believes that Satan has run the public schools ever since the Supreme Court ruled that organized school prayer was unconstitutional. NOM’s chairman, John Eastman, drew a comparison between allowing marriage equality in all 50 states and the Dred Scott decision, in which the Supreme Court ruled that African Americans could not be American citizens. And echoing sentiments expressed in the Washington Times supplement promoting the march, Sam Rohrer of the American Pastors Network suggested that legalizing same-sex marriage will “destroy the very fabric of our nation.”

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2014/06/1 ... -religion/

[BoSoxGal]

NOM’s chairman, John Eastman, drew a comparison between allowing marriage equality in all 50 states and the Dred Scott decision, in which the Supreme Court ruled that African Americans could not be American citizens.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Adultery, divorce, domestic violence, etc...... these are all more threatening to "marriage".

[Big RR]

He told ThinkProgress that he defines marriage as “a man and a woman capable of having children” because “I think that’s the way God created us. I think that’s the way it’s been. It’s the way it is universally accepted."

So those poor infertile heterosexual couple can never marry, because it is universally accepted that only a man and a woman capable of having children can marry. You just can't argue with something that's universally accepted.

[Big RR]

NOM’s chairman, John Eastman, drew a comparison between allowing marriage equality in all 50 states and the Dred Scott decision, in which the Supreme Court ruled that African Americans could not be American citizens.

This sounds like an extension of the birthers' position.

[Scooter]

Dred Scott is pro-life code for Roe v. Wade, which many pro-lifers view as two sides of the same coin, largely by ignoring the major differences and seeing similarities that are based on distortions or are nothing but coincidence. (It probably also inspires hope that, as with Dred Scott, the SCOTUS decision in Roe will eventually be seen as "wrong" and abortion will be outlawed like slavery was.) And just as Eastman did in his speech, they will usually invoke Lincoln, selectively quoting from his Springfield speech on the Dred Scott case and/or his First Inaugural to call into question, not only the correctness of those decisions, but the legitimacy of the SCOTUS as arbiter of the Constitution.

One idiot in particular chose to create this false dilemma:

[T]here seem to be but two options available to citizens who recognize the profound injustice these decisions work: either citizens are to treat the legitimacy of the Constitution as gravely weakened, or they are to deny that the Court has the authority to settle definitively the meaning of the Constitution—in other words, either the Constitution is illegitimate or the Court is behaving illegitimately.

Gee, let me guess, by framing it that way is he trying to lead people to lose faith in the Constitution, or in the integrity of the SCOTUS? Hmm, tough one.

There is, of course, a completely legitimate third option. If a judicial interpretation of the Constitution is so completely at odds with what citizens would see as a just result, then the Constitution can be amended to address that, and if the injustice is as glaring as you believe it to be, the supermajorities required to do so should be easy to reach.

Reminiscent of Sarah Palin's musings on Paul Revere, Eastman claimed that Lincoln "refused to comply" with the Dred Scott decision. Quite the opposite, his speeches are full of statements about the need to accept SCOTUS decisions as binding unless and until a future ruling and/or constitutional amendment overrides it. To say nothing of the fact that Lincoln did not believe that blacks should be granted citizenship.