Issues@Hand

AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs

October 2004 – Will traditional marriage survive for another year? Two years? Five? The answer may very well be determined by the outcome of the federal and state elections taking place November 2.

On the state level, as many as 12 referendums on traditional marriage may be taking place, in which voters will be allowed to define marriage as being between one man and one woman.

In Missouri, the one state which has thus far allowed the people to actually vote on the issue this year, voters in August barred same-sex marriage by 71%-29%.

However, “gay” activists are trying to take the issue out of voters’ hands in upcoming November ballot initiatives, mounting furious court challenges in states like Arkansas, Louisiana and Ohio.

Elsewhere activists are challenging state laws that already limit marriage to a man and a woman. In Connecticut in late August, lawyers with the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) have filed suit in state court on behalf of seven homosexual couples determined to legalize same-sex marriage. GLAD attorneys were responsible for crafting the successful legal challenges in Vermont and Massachusetts – in which legalized civil unions and same-sex marriage, respectively, were the result.

Similar suits, filed either by other “gay” legal groups or the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), are already under way in California, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Washington state.

“Homosexuals and those who sympathize with their agenda are trying to take this issue out of the hands of the voters, and place marriage in the hands of liberal judges,” said AFA Chairman Don Wildmon. 

On the federal level, liberal Democrats and a handful of Republicans in the Senate kept the Federal Marriage Amendment from even coming up for a vote. In the House of Representatives, a September vote was scheduled on a bill that would remove jurisdiction over the issue of same-sex marriage from the federal judiciary.

“States can help themselves by passing their own amendments defending traditional marriage,” Wildmon said. “But in the end, only the Federal Marriage Amendment will settle this issue once and for all.”

Wildmon urged all Christians and other pro-family conservatives to get to the polls in November and vote for candidates who are actively supporting traditional marriage.

“This very well could be our last chance to preserve the institution of marriage as God ordained it,” he said.