As you read this, remember how many times leftists assured Americans that homosexuals wanted nothing more than to be left alone to do their thing in the privacy of their bedrooms. And remember how they asserted that the legalization of same-sex “marriage” would affect no one, no way, no how.

Two days ago, the Corruption of Marriage Act (COMA)—known euphemistically by leftists as the Respect for Marriage Act—passed the U.S. Senate and will now go back to the U.S. House where it is expected to slither quickly through a U.S. House vote like a snake in the grass.

Recognizing the unconscionable and unconstitutional threat to religious liberty posed by COMA, U.S. Senators Mike Lee, James Lankford, and Marco Rubio proposed amendments that would strengthen religious protections, all of which were rejected. Adding insult to conservatives to injury to the First Amendment, twelve treasonous Republicans voted for COMA.

Why would anyone on the right or left reject amendments that would strengthen religious liberty protections? The amendments failed because Democrats have no respect for religious free exercise protections, especially if they come into conflict with the cultural and political desires of those with deviant erotic predilections.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz describes the shape of things to come after COMA is signed into law:

The so-called Respect for Marriage Act is going to set the stage for the Biden IRS to target people of faith, and in particular, to deny tax exempt status to churches, charities, universities, and K-12 schools. This bill creates a federal cause of action to sue institutions that believe marriage is the union of one man and one woman. There are going to be hundreds of lawsuits filed all across this country, forcing underfunded defendants to settle and violate their beliefs or close their doors. That’s what the Democrats want. And 12 Republicans went along with it. 

COMA will overturn the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which preserved in federal law the cross-cultural and historical definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. COMA will force the federal government and all state governments to recognize homoerotic, non-conjugal relationships as marriages. In other words, COMA codifies the unconstitutional U.S. Supreme Court Obergefell v. Hodges decision.

Quisling Senator Mitt Romney made a statement both silly and repugnant in support of COMA:

This legislation … signals that Congress — and I — esteem and love all of our fellow Americans equally.

Romney, as a sitting U.S. Senator, has proclaimed that esteem and love for others depend on passing laws that codify that marriage has no connection to sexual differentiation or reproductive potential. In so doing, he has insulted the thousands of people who believe otherwise, including many whose beliefs are central to their identity as Christians. And he has lent Republican weight to the allegations of hatred hurled at conservatives every day from every corner of American life.

Signaling esteem and love for all Americans equally does not require Congress, Mitt Romney, or any other citizen to affirm any particular beliefs about marriage. Presumably, Romney esteems and loves his fellow Americans who would like to marry their four poly partners. Does he seek to legalize plural marriage in order to signal his virtuous love and esteem?

What about adult women who want to marry their fathers or men who want to marry their brothers or young adult nephews? Does Romney want to signal to them how much he and Congress esteem and love them?

Such juvenile foolishness was bipartisan. U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, who has a “married” lesbian daughter, emoted,

By passing this bill, the Senate is sending a message that every American needs to hear: No matter who you are or who you love, you, too, deserve dignity and equal treatment under the law.

Schumer claims to believe that dignity and equal treatment under the law require the law to recognize any union constituted by “love.” That will be very good news to Minor-Attracted Persons. All they have to do now is grow their lobby and change the definition of consent.

But the core question regarding marriage has nothing to do equality, dignity, love, or esteem. The core question is, “What is marriage.”

Romney’s foolish ideas about the role of government echo former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion in Obergefell:

The nature of marriage is that … two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality. This is true for all persons, whatever their sexual orientation. … There is dignity in the bond between two men or two women who seek to marry. … [Same-sex couples’] hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

At least Kennedy acknowledged that marriage has a nature. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to know what that nature is or why the government is involved with marriage.

He doesn’t explain why marriage is composed of two people. He doesn’t explain what criteria he used to determine that “there is dignity” in the erotic/romantic bond between two people of the same sex. He doesn’t explain why not being able to marry someone of the same sex dooms homosexual couples to “live in loneliness.” And where oh where does Kennedy find a right to dignity in the U.S. Constitution? If such a right lurks somewhere in the penumbra and emanations of the U.S. Constitution, how is it granted to those whose beliefs about marriage are attacked as hateful by members of Congress?

Here’s yet another remarkable statement from Kennedy on the dignity-dispensing role of government:

I thought [dignity-bestowing] was the whole purpose of marriage. It bestows dignity on both man and woman in a traditional marriage. It’s dignity-bestowing, and these parties say they want to have that, that same ennoblement.

The “whole purpose of marriage” is to bestow dignity on sexually differentiated marital unions? Really? Many Americans thought the inclusion of sexual differentiation in the legal definition of marriage was a recognition of the intrinsic nature of marriage and served to unite mothers and fathers to each other and to any children that may result from their sexual union, which in turn serves to protect the inherent needs and rights of children, which in turn serves the public good. The job of the government is not to affirm love or confer dignity on any type of union—conjugal and reproductive or erotic and sterile.

Always two or two dozen steps ahead of conservatives, leftists are anticipating the day when Obergefell will be overturned, and states will once again be free either to recognize in law what marriage in reality is or redefine marriage to help homoerotically attracted persons pretend their relationships are marital. Leftists want to ensure that states in which citizens vote to recognize true marriage are forced to recognize legal same-sex faux-marriages performed in other states.

COMA’s sponsors also cynically included interracial marriage in the bill, which strikes many as bizarre. Is there a movement afoot that no one has heard of to ban interracial marriage? Of course not. Including a reference to interracial marriage serves two pernicious purposes of leftists.

First, it is an implicit way to reinforce their nonsensical comparison of skin color to homoerotic desires.

Second, it enables leftists to cast aspersions on Republicans who oppose COMA. Unprincipled Democrats can now say in voices trembling with faux-umbrage, “Republican Senator (fill in the blank) voted against a bill to protect interracial marriage” as they wag their crooked fingers.

The GOP needs an overhaul. We need a Republican National Committee chair not named Ronna Romney McDaniel. We need men and women with working moral compasses and spines of steel. And we need to give fools and quislings like the dirty dozen in Congress a big joyous heave ho.

By hook, crook, the DOJ, FBI, policies, Executive Orders, courts, and laws, leftist public “servants”—both elected and unelected—have long had conservatives in the sights of their weapons of war. And they’ve had powerful allies in this battle in the legacy news media, government schools, and, more recently, social media and corporate America, including virtually all of the entertainment and publishing industries. There’s no need for an exhaustive list of the ways leftists hunt conservatives. Every conservative with eyes and an amygdala perceives the threat.

The most recent of the daily—almost hourly—predations comes to us through Congress. First, the U.S. House of Representatives under the almighty rule of potentate Pelosi, passed the Dis-Respect for Marriage Act, which, if signed into law, would reverse the bipartisan Defense of Marriage Act signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1996.

The U.S. House version of the Dis-Respect for Marriage Act redefines marriage, eliminating both the criterion regarding sexual differentiation and the criterion regarding number of partners. The House version no longer defines marriage as the union of two people of opposite sexes or as the union of two people.

Worse yet, it doesn’t provide any legal protections for people of faith. Of course, given that the free exercise of religion is guaranteed by the First Amendment, laws shouldn’t need the redundancy of religious protection language, but we now know leftists disrespect the U.S. Constitution as well.

Further, the Dis-Respect for Marriage Act requires the federal government and states to recognize any and all marriages performed in other states.

Why are leftists pursuing this? The reason is that in the Roe reversal, Justice Clarence Thomas suggested Obergefell should also be revisited because it too shares in common with Roe a lack of constitutional grounding. Now leftists, accustomed to exploiting the Court for their pet moral projects, are quaking in their kinky boots, fearing that marriage—like abortion—will be returned to the people of each state.

Anticipating the day when, Lord willing, the U.S. Supreme Court Obergefell decision that unconstitutionally imposed same-sex pseudogamy on the entire nation is reversed, Leftists seek to preemptively rob citizens in every state of their right to define marriage.

So if, in a post-Obergefell America, the moral wastelands of Illinois or California were to recognize in law the unions of two women, or three men, or five people of assorted sexes as “marriages,” leftists want to force all states to recognize homoerotic and poly unions as marriages, including states that choose to define marriage as it has been defined until the latter half of the latter half of the 20^th Century as the union of two people of opposite sexes.

The Dis-Respect for Marriage Act was voted on and passed the U.S. House in July 2022 with the help of 47 treasonous Republicans one day after being introduced.

Then the bill moved to the U.S. Senate where “cloture” (i.e., ending debate) was invoked and passed with the help of a dirty dozen treasonous Republicans. Now moves to the Senate for a final vote, likely before the end of the year.

In the days following the cloture vote, opposition to the bill has intensified because of fears over the bill’s threats to religious liberty. U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin (a lesbian) and Susan Collins (a RINO) added a feeble amendment in an attempt to silence objectors, but the Alliance Defending Freedom has warned of the weaknesses of their proposed changes:

[R]ather than adding any new concrete protections for religious individuals and organizations threatened by the Respect for Marriage Act, the new section simply states that those Americans whose beliefs are infringed can invoke already existing legal protections, like the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). As such, this new provision does not fix the bill’s negative impact on religious exercise and freedom of conscience. Those targeted under the bill will be forced to spend years in litigation and thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees to protect their rights. …

[T]he bill can be used to punish social-service organizations like adoption or foster placement agencies that serve their communities in accordance with their religious belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. The proposed amendment does nothing to help such organizations. …

The amendment adds a new section that attempts to address concerns about the tax-exempt status of nonprofits that live out their beliefs about marriage.

Once again, the amendment fails to substantively remedy this problem. When the IRS determines whether an organization is “charitable” under the Internal Revenue Code, it asks whether the entity’s conduct is “contrary to public policy” or violates a “national policy.”

If the Respect for Marriage Act were enacted, the IRS could rely upon the bill to conclude that certain nonprofits are not “charitable.” The amendment’s new provision does nothing to prevent this.

U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) has proposed a beefier amendment, the Lee Amendment, and sent a letter signed by twenty other U.S. Senators to the dozen quislings asking them not to end debate on the bill unless and until the Lee Amendment is added. Lee et al. wrote,

As you are aware, we are one step closer to passing into law the Respect for Marriage Act. In the Obergefell oral arguments, there was a now infamous exchange between Justice Alito and then–Solicitor General Donald Verrilli. In response to Justice Alito asking whether, should states be required to recognize same-sex marriages, religious universities opposed to same-sex marriage would lose their tax-exempt status, General Verrilli replied, “. . . it’s certainly going to be an issue. I don’t deny that. I don’t deny that, Justice Alito, –it is going to be an issue.”

And it is an issue. Obergefell did not make a private right of action for aggrieved individuals to sue those who oppose same-sex marriage. It did not create a mandate for the Department of Justice to sue where it perceived an institution opposed same-sex marriage, but the Respect for Marriage Act will. What we can expect should this bill become law is more litigation against those institutions and individuals trying to live according to their sincerely held religious beliefs and moral convictions.

Should Congress decide to codify Obergefell and protect same-sex marriages, we must do so in a way that also resolves the question posed by Justice Alito. Instead of subjecting churches, religious non-profits, and persons of conscience to undue scrutiny or punishment by the federal government because of their views on marriage, we should make explicitly clear that this legislation does not constitute a national policy endorsing a particular view of marriage that threatens the tax-exempt status of faith-based non-profits. As we move forward, let us be sure to keep churches, religious charities, and religious universities out of litigation in the first instance. No American should face legal harassment or retaliation from the federal government for holding sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions.

My amendment would ensure that federal bureaucrats do not take discriminatory actions against individuals, organizations, nonprofits, and other entities based on their sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions about marriage by prohibiting the denial or revocation of tax-exempt status, licenses, contracts, benefits, etc. It would affirm that individuals still have the right to act according to their faith and deepest convictions even outside of their church or home. The undersigned ask that you oppose cloture on the Respect for Marriage Act unless the Lee amendment is added to the bill. The free exercise of religion is absolutely essential to the health of our Republic. We must have the courage to protect it.

Conservative Americans should thank Lee and the twenty U.S. Senators who signed the letter. Not so much, the dirty dozen who helped sic the hellhounds on conservatives.

Next week, the U.S. Senate will resume consideration of H.R. 8404 and vote on amendments as well as one final cloture vote, which will need 10 Republicans to pass, to end debate. Votes could occur Monday, Nov. 28.

Take ACTION: Please take a moment to urge U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth not to end debate on the H.R. 8404 unless and until the Lee Amendment is added. Without the Lee Amendment, the Dis-Respect for Marriage Act will encourage both government and individual lawsuits against people of faith. Even if we win protracted litigation, the process is the punishment.

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin
https://www.durbin.senate.gov/contact/email
Phone: (202) 224-2152

U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth
https://www.duckworth.senate.gov/connect/email-tammy
Phone: (202) 224-2854

Please send a message and then follow up with a phone call early next week.

Since the unconstitutional Roe was overturned, leftists have been roiling in rage at the thought that states are now free to enact the will of the people with regard to killing humans in the womb. In his concurrence, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas argued that three other Supreme Court cases should be revisited in that they too lacked constitutional grounding—an argument made also by the esteemed Antonin Scalia and Robert Bork.

One of the decisions Thomas believes should be revisited is the Obergefell decision that imposed same-sex “marriage” on the entire country, robbing states—that is, the people—of their right to decide if intrinsically non-marital relationships should be legally recognized as marriages. And so, leftists livid at the prospect of diverse states one day being free to enact marriage laws in accordance with the will of the people, are trying to take that right away preemptively through federal legislation.

This week the U.S. House of Representatives passed the laughably named “Respect for Marriage Act” (H.R. 8404)—a bill that doesn’t merely disrespect marriage; it is hostile to marriage. The bill, which would overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, now goes to the U.S. Senate.

Forty-seven Republicans voted for it, including Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney, Rodney Davis, Tom Emmer (chair of National Republican Congressional Committee), Darrell Issa, Elise Stefanik (U.S. House Republican Conference chair), and Lee Zeldin. Any Republican who doesn’t understand the essential role of the nuclear family—that is, mother, father, and children—to the health and future of any society doesn’t deserve to serve in government.

The Defense of Marriage Act—which all U.S. House Democrats and 47 “Republicans” detest—defines marriage in federal law “as between a man and a woman and spouse as a person of the opposite sex.” In contrast, the Disrespect for Marriage Act recognizes in federal law “any marriage that is valid under state law.”

Note that this means that once Utah, California, Massachusetts, Illinois, or any other nutty state recognizes plural unions as marriages, the federal government will be forced to recognize plural unions as marriages.

While there is a provision requiring states to recognize marriages from other states, that provision specifically limits the type of marriages that must be recognized to those composed of two people. No such limit is placed on the federal government in the Disrespect for Marriage Act.

While some naïfs among us may view this as an oversight, others see it as intentional—an interim step to the legal recognition of plural unions from sea to darkening sea.

Marriage is something. It has a nature. And words have meanings.

As I wrote four years ago, let’s try a little thought experiment. Let’s imagine that now, after legally recognizing intrinsically non-marital same-sex unions as “marriages,” society notices that there remains a unique type of relationship that is identified by the following features: it is composed of two people of major age who are not closely related by blood, are of opposite sexes, and engage in the only kind of sexual act that is naturally procreative. We decide that as language-users there must be a term to identify this particular, commonplace, and cross-cultural type of relationship. Let’s call it “huwelijk.”

In this thought experiment in which the term “marriage” would denote the union of two people of the same sex and “huwelijk” would denote the union of two people of opposite sexes—both of which provide the same legal protections, benefits, and obligations—does anyone believe that homosexuals would accept such a distinction?

Homosexuals would not accept such a linguistic distinction. They would not accept it even if they enjoyed all the practical benefits society historically accorded to sexually complementary couples and even if their unions were legally recognized as marriages.

Homosexuals would not tolerate such a legal distinction because their tyrannical quest for universal approval of homoerotic relationships cannot be achieved unless they obliterate all distinctions—including linguistic distinctions—between homosexual unions and heterosexual unions. Homosexuals—whose unions are naturally sterile—would not tolerate any term that signifies the naturally procreative union between one man and one woman.

Severing marriage from both biological sex and reproductive potential renders marriage irrelevant as a public institution. The most salient aspects of marriage as an institution sanctioned by the government are not subjective feelings of affection and sexual attraction. The government has no vested interest in the private subjective feelings of marriage partners.

The government has a vested interest in the public good. What serves the public good is the welfare of future generations. And what best serves future generations is providing for the needs and protecting the rights of children, which includes their right to be raised by a mother and father, preferably their own biological parents.

If marriage were solely a private institution concerned only with emotional attachments and sexual desire, as homosexuals claim it is, then there would be no reason for the government to be involved. There would be no more justification for government regulation of marriage than there is for government regulation of platonic friendships. And there would be no legitimate reason to prohibit plural marriages.

If the claim of homosexuals that marriage has no intrinsic, necessary, and rational connection to the biological sex of partners or to reproductive potential are true, then there remains no rational basis for the belief that marriage has anything to do with romantic or erotic feelings.

Why is marriage any longer conceived of as a romantic and erotic union? If marriage is severed from biological sex and from reproductive potential and if love is love, then why can’t a loving platonic relationship between three BFF’s be recognized as a marriage? Why can’t the platonic relationship between a 40-year-old soccer coach and his 13-year-old soccer star be deemed a marriage? If “progressives” can jettison the single most enduring and cross-cultural feature of marriage—sexual differentiation—then on what basis can they conceptually retain any other feature, including the notion that marriage is a romantic/erotic union? While eroticism may be important to intimate partners, of what relevance is naturally sterile erotic activity to the government’s interest in marriage as now construed?

When Leftists assert that “love is love,” they really mean that the moral status of erotic activity between two men or two women is no different from the moral status of sexual activity between a man and a woman. If the claim that “love is love,” is true, then there is no rational basis for thinking that there exist types of relationships in which eroticism has no legitimate place. If that’s the case, then why isn’t it morally permissible for all types of relationships to include erotic activity? If all loving relationships are identical (i.e., “love is love”), then why can’t all loving relationships include erotic activity? And if love is love, and marriage has no intrinsic nature, then it’s anything. And if it’s anything, it’s nothing.

If, however, there are different forms of love, some of which ought not include erotic activity, how do leftists determine when love ought not be eroticized?

Marriage is in tatters, but leftists want those tatters torched. Next up from “progressive” pyros: “eliminating the binary”—of marriage. Polyamorists are on the move. “Progressives” just love the smell of napalm all day long.

Take ACTION: H.R. 8404 may be taken up in the U.S. Senate soon**. Please take a moment to speak out to our two U.S. Senators to ask them to vote to protect the Defense of Marriage Act and vote NO to H.R. 8404. Remind them, “The government has no interest in inherently non-reproductive types of relationships. The government has no more interest in inherently non-reproductive erotic relationships than it does in platonic friendships.”

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin
https://www.durbin.senate.gov/contact/email
Phone: (202) 224-2152

U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth
https://www.duckworth.senate.gov/connect/email-tammy
Phone: (202) 224-2854

Please send a message and then follow up with a phone call early next week.

**UPDATE: According to various news sources, the U.S. Senate vote on H.R. 8404 has been pushed back to September.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Unprincipled-Republicans-Vote-for-the-Disrespect-for-Marriage-Act.mp3

In a significant victory for pro-marriage forces, the California Supreme Court ruled this week that the sponsors of Proposition 8 have standing to defend the referendum in court when state officials refuse to do so.

Propositition 8 was a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in California. Voters adopted it in November 2008 by a 52 percent majority in a referendum vote, in a direct response to the California Supreme Court’s ruling that homosexual partners had a right to same-sex “marriage.”

After further court challenges, a federal trial judge in San Francisco overturned Proposition 8 on August 4, 2010, saying the constitutional amendment was unconstitutional. When the measure was appealed higher, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which presides over California asked the California Supreme Court to clarify whether the groups defending Proposition 8 had standing, or legal authorization, to do so. On Thursday morning the answer came: yes.

Ordinarily the task of defending state laws falls to state officials: the California governor and attorney general would be responsible to defend laws passed in their state from legal challenges. But California’s officials refused to do so, and the groups that sponsored the amendment in the first place stepped in to pick up the slack. This decision was about whether they were allowed to do so.

In an era when the people in the states, who are overwhelmingly pro-marriage, are repeatedly ignored by courts eager to coerce progressive visions into law, this development from California is immensely encouraging. And not only so for proponents of marriage — it ought to come as welcome news for all who love our republican tradition of law, decency, and order. The activism displayed by today’s courts is a disgrace to democracy, and is only aided and abetted by the abdication of state officials who claim a personal exemption from defending laws and principles their states have adopted through the legislative process.

As this case proceeds through the court system, possibly ending up before the United States Supreme Court, the California ruling will have implications for other states across the country. It provides a way of access for the people to defend their values in court even if their state officials refuse to do so. This, and not the judicial activism we have seen over the past decades, is a true defense of equality and the rule of law.

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House Attorneys Support Thomas More Society’s DOMA Case

This week, the Thomas More Society secured support from the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House of Representatives in a same-sex marriage case that involves the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The case asserts that the parents of attorney Sarah Farley, who died of cancer, should get her profit-sharing plan proceeds instead of Sarah’s “wife”, Jennifer Tobits.

The House’s Legal Advisory Group filed a motion to intervene in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (Motion available here and Memorandum available here), supporting the position of the parents of Sarah Ellyn Farley, that they are entitled to her profit-sharing plan instead of her “wife” Jennifer Tobits, because DOMA is constitutional.

“We are very encouraged that the House of Representatives’ legal counsel is joining us in saying that DOMA is fully in accord with the U.S. Constitution,” said Peter Breen, executive director and legal counsel of the Thomas More Society.

Earlier this year, the Thomas More Society defended the Farleys (court filing available here) and argued that federal and state DOMAs forbid the recognition of Tobits as a “spouse.” They stated that the Cozen O’Connor law firm should disburse the profit-sharing plan proceeds to attorney Sarah Farley’s parents, as she requested them to be her beneficiaries before her death. Sarah Farley and Tobits obtained a same-sex marriage license in Toronto in 2006, which Tobits claims entitles her to the plan’s proceeds.

The Thomas More Society argued that the parents are entitled to the funds because their daughter executed a beneficiary designation form in their favor before her death, and because Farley and Tobits’ “marriage” was invalid under Federal and Pennsylvania law. Under the terms of the profit-sharing plan, the parents would be next in line when there is no spouse, even without a designated beneficiary form from the deceased. Therefore, they are legally entitled to the funds as Farley’s surviving parents on two accounts.

About the Thomas More Society

Formed in 1997, the Thomas More Society is a national public interest law firm based in Chicago. The Society defends religious liberty, marriage, and the sanctity of human life in courtrooms across the country. For more information, please visit www.thomasmoresociety.org.

Liberal lawmakers in cahoots with homosexual activists and the Obama Administration will not rest until they’ve perverted every significant cultural institution in ways that will hasten America’s decline.

Pro-homosexual “agents of change” masquerading as “educators” have usurped government schools through curricula and deceitful anti-bullying programs. Pro-homosexual activists have set in motion radical changes in the military through the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. And now pro-homosexual activists are going after marriage through the oxymoronically titled “Respect for Marriage Act” (ROMA), which, if passed, would overturn the “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA).

ROMA embodies absolute ignorance of and disrespect for marriage, and lawmakers who support it expose their own ignorance of and disrespect for marriage.

On November 10th, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to advance ROMA (S. 598) to the full Senate. Illinois’ senior U.S. Senator, Dick Durbin, is a co-sponsor of this anti-marriage legislation. In the U.S. Senate, however, Democrats are expected to have a more difficult task mustering the votes to overcome an expected Republican filibuster.  Illinois’ junior U.S. Senator, Mark Kirk, will be a critical vote in maintaining a filibuster. Serious questions about Kirk’s commitment to conservative values continue to abound. The ROMA vote will be a key opportunity for Kirk to reassure Illinois conservatives that he stands squarely for natural marriage.

The assault on marriage is virtually relentless. Currently, there are no fewer than 11 challenges to the federal marriage law in the U.S. court system, and now liberals in the U.S. Senate are seeking the repeal of DOMA in order to compel the federal government to recognize same-sex “marriage.”

Furthermore, if DOMA is repealed, all 50 states would have to recognize homosexual “marriages” from other states, essentially making this counterfeit form of marriage the law of the land.

Despite what homosexual activists and foolish legislators claim, marriage is not solely a private institution concerned with the subjective feelings of those seeking to marry. Marriage — as a government-recognized institution — is a public institution that affects the public good. Government does not create marriage. It merely recognizes a type of relationship that exists and serves the public good. That type of relationship is a sexually complementary relationship between one man and one woman that may result in children. It would be no more legitimate for the government to jettison the criterion of sexual complementarity than it would be for the government to jettison the criterion of numbers of partners by legalizing plural marriage.

The cowardice and ignorance of conservative Americans, including our lawmakers, on virtually every issue related to homosexuality have facilitated the usurpation of public education and the military for the pernicious purpose of normalizing homosexuality. And these successes have emboldened an already arrogant homosexual movement that has turned its anarchic efforts toward radically redefining marriage. With a Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate, their chances for success are better than they’ve ever been.

Let’s hope and pray that there are enough conservatives with wisdom and spines of steel to prevent homosexual activists and their ideological allies from winning another corrosive victory, this time in the U.S. Senate.

Take ACTION:  Contact Senator Kirk’s office to urge him to to support DOMA and oppose any effort to repeal it.  You can also call his D.C. office at:  (202) 224-2854.

Once again, Barack Obama has affirmed his commitment to radical, subversive change; his sycophancy to the homosexual lobby; and, implicitly, his embrace of heresy. He has already signed into law the dangerously flawed “Hate Crimes” bill, declared his intent to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act, and committed to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

Then on May 28, 2010 Obama issued the following proclamation

LGBT Americans have enriched and strengthened the fabric of our national life. From business leaders and professors to athletes and first responders, LGBT individuals have achieved success and prominence in every discipline. They are our mothers and fathers, our sons and daughters, and our friends and neighbors. Across my Administration, openly LGBT employees are serving at every level….

I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2010 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.

Joe Carter writing on the First Things blog seeks further clarity from Obama:

Perhaps he could explain how bisexuals-because of their bisexuality-have enriched America and how transgendered-because or their transgendered orientation-have have strengthened the “fabric of our national life.” In other words, maybe he could explain why alternative forms of “gender identity or sexual orientation” are something we should celebrate at the national level.

Also, I’d really love to see a few names of the transgendered folks-people who may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, or asexual-who are “serving at every level” of his administration. By my count he has exactly one example.

Obama wants all Americans to “recognize the immeasurable contributions of LGBT Americans,” insisting that “LGBT Americans have enriched and strengthened the fabric of our national life.”

No sane person would ever argue that homosexuals have contributed nothing to society. That’s as absurd as claiming that adulterers, porn users, or gossips have contributed nothing to society.

But the sexual impulses and sexual behavior of homosexuals and cross-dressers are irrelevant to their contributions. Therefore, making irrelevant characteristics the central focus of “Pride” month as Obama did is absurd. More important, the particular irrelevant characteristics that Obama has chosen to highlight are, in the view of many, disordered and immoral.

Those who experience, for example, selfish, vain, greedy, gluttonous, deceitful, promiscuous, incestuous, sadistic, pederastic, gossipy, philandering, or polyamorous impulses and engage in behaviors impelled by such impulses have also contributed to society. How would Americans respond if the president were to proclaim June “Polyamory Pride Month”? Substituting another irrelevant and morally questionable characteristic for homosexuality brings into sharper relief the dubious nature of Obama’s proclamation.

Joe Carter emphasizes this point:

Presumably all of these Americans who have “enriched and strengthened the fabric of our national life” have other characteristics besides their sexual orientation. They are men and women, black and Asian, right-handed and left-handed, etc. So what is the purpose of using their sexual identification as a marker if it has no bearing on their accomplishments?

Imagine if we swapped out “LGBT” for “left-handed white people” in his proclamation: “Left-handed white Americans have enriched and strengthened the fabric of our national life. From business leaders and professors to athletes and first responders, left-handed white individuals have achieved success and prominence in every discipline. They are our mothers and fathers, our sons and daughters, and our friends and neighbors. Across my Administration, openly left-handed, white employees are serving at every level.”

Now if Obama has said this you’d probably say it was a bit silly, even a tad bit racist. Why in the world would we need to praise people for traits that have no bearing on either their achievements or their worth as individuals?

All mature people understand that fallen, sinful humans also do good acts and make positive contributions to society because fallen, sinful people are all that the world has. There exists nothing but fallen, sinful people who experience disordered impulses and engage in immoral behaviors. We don’t honor our fellow men and women for those impulses and behaviors; we honor them for their good deeds.

It is justifiable to single out for special attention the accomplishments of a group defined by characteristics that carry no behavioral implications open to moral assessment and whose contributions are overlooked because of society’s ignorance or bigotry, like African Americans or the disabled. But homosexuality is not ontologically equivalent to race or disability, and volitional homosexual conduct is a legitimate object of moral assessment.

Obama is using his power, his position, and this proclamation to make a fallacious association between good deeds and homosexuality. It is an exploitative stratagem to normalize homosexuality. Associate homosexuality with something positive like creativity, compassion, or self-sacrifice, and eventually the good feelings society has for creativity, compassion, or self- sacrifice will be (irrationally) transferred to homosexuality or cross-dressing.

It’s critical to understand the fallacious assumptions embedded in Obama’s declaration because these assumptions are promoted in many societal contexts, including public education. Homosexuals are not a category of humans in the same sense that racial minorities are a category of humans. Homosexuality is a sin disposition–not a morally neutral condition like skin color. When homosexuals have contributed something of value to society, those contributions should be noted. Their sexual predilections, however, are worthy of neither honor nor mention.

My sense and the sense of those who are similarly engaged in the cultural debate about homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder is that far too many conservatives refuse to participate in this critical debate for a number of reasons, including an unbiblical and selfish unwillingness to experience persecution (aka cowardice); an unbiblical unwillingness to experience righteous anger; and a (perhaps willful) ignorance of the cultural implications of their indefensible passivity even as perversion is promoted as righteousness through our public schools, courts, legislatures, news media, entertainment industry–and even the highest elective office in the United States.

On Saturday night, President Barack Obama delivered his sycophantic, pro-homosexual magnum opus to the nation’s largest homosexual and “transgender” lobbying organization: the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Obama promised attendees a veritable smorgasbord of legislation that will further their anarchical social agenda, while undermining speech rights, parental rights, and religious liberty.

• He declared that he is “committed” to ending the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that prevents open homosexuals from serving in the military.
• He promised to pass a “hate” crimes bill which would allow government intrusion into the thoughts and beliefs of citizens and criminalize beliefs that offend homosexuals.
• He acknowledged that he and his administration are “pushing hard to pass an inclusive employee non-discrimination bill” (ENDA) which will likely prevent even private faith-based organizations and institutions, including churches and schools, from making employment decisions based on legitimate judgments about behaviors that violate their own beliefs.
• He “called on Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and to pass the “Domestic Partners Benefits and Obligations Act” which would result in states having to legally recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states and would further financially burden the federal government by requiring the provision of benefits to relationships that are morally disordered and do not serve the public good. The Domestic Partners Act defines a “domestic partner as an adult unmarried person living with another adult unmarried person of the same sex in a committed, intimate relationship.” How, one wonders, do these partners prove to the government that they are in a committed, intimate relationship?

Obama began by thanking the HRC for the work they do “every day in pursuit of equality on behalf of the millions of people . . . who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.” The HRC does not work for equality. They work to compel societal approval of volitional homosexual acts. Nor do they seek tolerance, which means to put up with something objectionable. Rather, they seek affirmation, and they pursue it by deliberately misconstruing moral claims as bias, bigotry, discrimination, and hatred.

The claim that disapproval of homosexuality is analogous to racial discrimination depends on the utterly fallacious comparison of homosexuality to race or skin color. Race is 100 percent heritable and devoid of behavioral implications. Homosexuality is not 100 percent heritable and is centrally defined by acts that are legitimate objects of moral assessment — and moral disapproval. If society permits this group of people to be defined as a specially protected class based on their subjective feelings and volitional acts and accorded special rights because of those characteristics, then logically other groups must be defined as a specially protected class based on their subjective feelings and volitional acts and accorded special rights because of them.

Homosexualists don’t apply their assumptions regarding what constitutes hatred consistently. They don’t, for example, view moral disapproval of polyamory as hatred of polyamorous people or moral disapproval of paraphilias as hatred of paraphiliacs. The belief that homosexuality, cross-dressing, and elective amputations of sexual anatomy are immoral is the one moral claim that they have successfully misconstrued in the minds of many as hatred.

Obama laughably described the HRC as advocating “on behalf of those without a voice.” To suggest that in the last thirty years homosexuals have had no voice is ludicrous at best, utterly deceitful at worst. It’s hard to defend the claim that homosexuals are voiceless when they are trumpeting their subversive views through the arts and entertainment industry, public education, and myriad organizations like the Human Rights Campaign; the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network; the National Education Association; The Southern Poverty Law Center; the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation; the Safe Schools Coalition; the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association; the American Library Association; and the Transgender Law Center.

Obama fretted about laws that yet remain to be changed and hearts that yet remain to be opened, condescendingly describing “fellow citizens, perhaps neighbors, even loved ones — good and decent people — who hold fast to outworn arguments and old attitudes.” Although the beliefs that same-sex attraction is disordered and that volitional homosexual acts are immoral are most certainly enduring, they’re no more outworn than are the beliefs that sexual attraction to one’s parent is disordered and that sexual engagement with one’s parent is immoral. Moreover, the belief that homosexual acts are immoral does not suggest a “closed heart.” If, in reality, homosexual acts are objectively disordered and contrary to God’s will, telling others that hard truth constitutes an act of genuine love.

And if the arguments in favor of traditional views of sexual morality are outworn, perhaps our enlightened, progressive president should share his wisdom with the many well-respected scholars who hold such antiquated notions, including Hadley Arkes, Francis Beckwith, Henri Blocher, Joseph Bottum, D.A. Carson, Tim Challies, Charles Chaput, Mark Dever, Anthony Esolen, John S. Feinberg, John Frame, Robert Gagnon, Robert George, Wayne Grudem, John Finnis, Stanton Jones, Walter Kaiser, Meredith Kline, Al Mohler, Douglas Moo, Russell Moore, Mark Noll,David Novak, J.I. Packer, John Piper, Patrick Henry Reardon, Leland Ryken, Thomas Schreiner, Janet E. Smith, John Stott, Bruce Ware,Thomas Weinandy, Christopher Wolfe, N.T. Wright, and Ravi Zacharias.

Obama faulted those who see families led by homosexuals as different from families led by heterosexuals. But families led by homosexuals are different from families led by a heterosexual couple. In their preference for their same sex, homosexuals acknowledge that men are by nature different from women. Therefore, a union composed of two people of the same sex must by nature be different from a union of two people of ontologically different sexes, with each bringing to the family that which is distinct to his or her “gender.”

Obama also faults those he claims would deny homosexuals “the rights most Americans take for granted.” We as a society, however, ought never come to the place where we start ascribing rights to people based on their subjective, emotional desires, sexual attractions, and volitional sexual conduct. And we ought never deprive citizens of their right to freely associate or not with those whose public conduct and espoused beliefs they find objectionable and destructive. I should have the right not to rent an apartment in a building I own to an unmarried heterosexual couple, an incestuous couple, a polyamorous union, or a homosexual couple.

Obama disingenuously claimed that it is the “force of the arguments” homosexuals make and “quiet, personal acts of compassion — and defiance” that have brought about change. He’s right. It has been acts of defiance and rebellion that have resulted in the tragic cultural shifts we are seeing. Defiance; rebellion; libertinism; false arguments; judicial activism; censorship; the exploitation of public education, and the use of epithetic language are just some of the behaviors and tactics that have transformed the culture in foolish and destructive ways–ways which Obama calls “progress.”

Obama appealed to foundational American principles when he described a movement to legitimize deviant sex as a “movement for fairness and equality, and not just for those who are gay, but for all those in our history who’ve been denied the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.” But what rights and responsibilities have homosexual men and women been denied? Despite obscurantist arguments to the contrary, all homosexuals have access to marriage. Men who want to have sex with men and women who want to have sex with women do not constitute some particular class of people denied access to marriage. The truth is that they don’t want to participate in the institution of marriage whose cornerstone and central feature is sexual complementarity. The particular sexual proclivities of those who experience same-sex attraction do not entitle them unilaterally to change the definition of marriage to fit their own inclinations.

Softening the image of the riots that sparked another phase of the sexual revolution, Obama referred to the “Stonewall protests, when a group of citizens with few options, and fewer supporters stood up against discrimination and helped to inspire a movement.” He’s right again: we should support those who experience intense, persistent, and seemingly intractable desires: we should support them in their efforts to resist those impulses. We should come alongside them, pray with and for them, and love them through their difficult struggle to submit to God’s will. But we must never support them in their sin or treat their sin as if it’s good, beautiful, or worthy of affirmation.

Nobel Peace Prize-winner Barack Obama declared that he is with homosexuals in their fight to elect candidates who share their values, and he’s with them in their “stand” against those who would enshrine “discrimination” into our Constitution, and he’s with them in their fight for “progress” in our capital and across America. Obama announced that he desires that all Americans would come to view homosexual relationships as just as “admirable” as heterosexual relationships. Clearly, his fight for public affirmation of homosexuality; his unequivocal opposition to historical views of sexual morality; his willingness to aggressively use legislation to promote controversial, unproven sexual theories; and his battle-ready stance to promote heresy prove that he is man committed to public peace.

Literally within minutes after President Barack Obama took the oath of office yesterday, the official White House webpage was updated – under the heading of “The Agenda: Civil Rights” – to detail Obama’s wholesale “support for the LGBT (homosexual activist) community.”  His stated plans include the following:

• Defeating all state and federal constitutional efforts to defend the millennia-old definition of natural marriage; 
• Repealing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) signed by Bill Clinton – the only line of defense keeping all 50 states from being forced to recognize so-called “same-sex marriages” from extremely liberal states like Massachusetts and Connecticut;
• Repealing the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy;
• Passing constitutionally dubious and discriminatory “hate crimes” legislation, granting homosexuals and cross dressers special rights – denied other Americans – based on changeable sexual behaviors;
• Passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) which would force business owners (religious and otherwise) to abandon traditional values relative to sexual morality under penalty of law; and, 
• Creating intentionally motherless and fatherless homes and sexually confusing untold thousands of children by expanding “gay adoption.”

Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs with both Liberty Alliance Action and Liberty Counsel released the following statement today in response to Obama’s stated pro-homosexual agenda:

“Well, the high-sheen veneer and ‘cult of personality’ euphoria surrounding Barack Obama looks to be dissolving rather quickly.  While millions had hoped for a political ‘messiah,’ it’s rapidly becoming evident that, instead, we’ve stuck ourselves with an extreme leftist ideologue whose brand of ‘change we can believe in’ is, in reality, ‘change we never imagined.’    

“For all the talk of ‘hope,’ ‘change’ and ‘coming together,’ it’s becoming abundantly clear that Barack Obama’s administration will likely be the most leftist, divisive and discriminatory in recent memory.  I suspect the immediate, stark and ‘in your face’ changes made to the White House website are a metaphor for what we can expect, in terms of policy, from his administration. 

“The gravity of this situation cannot be overstated.  Right out of the shoot, Obama has told the world that he is signing off, without exception, on every demand of the extremist homosexual and transsexual lobbies.  The radical homosexual agenda and religious and free speech liberties cannot occupy the same space.  It’s a zero-sum game.  When 1 – 2 percent of the population is granted special rights based on deviant sexual proclivities and changeable sexual behaviors, to the detriment of everyone else, that’s called tyranny of the minority.  People of faith and those of you with traditional values: hold on to your hats – it’s going to be a bumpy four years.”