Homosexual 'Marriage' Snowballing; Consequences Will Follow, Attorney Warns
by Allie Martin and Jody Brown
February 20, 2004
(AgapePress) - Recent events in Massachusetts and San Francisco over homosexual "marriage" have stirred controversy in other states. Yesterday, it was the mayor of Chicago who was saying he would have no problem issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Today a county official in New Mexico is jumping on the bandwagon as well.
An attorney with a pro-family group in Mississippi says although the mayor of San Francisco has no legal right to issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples, the damage may already have been done.
Thousands of homosexual couples have flocked to city hall in the City by the Bay since Mayor Gavin Newsom began issuing the marriage licenses last week. Steve Crampton, chief counsel for the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy, says although the licenses are not legally valid, same-sex couples who receive the certificates will ask other municipalities to recognize them.
"The harm that has already been visited on not even just the State of California or our nation but the world is reported that couples have shown up from Africa to obtain these bogus certificates," he says.
According to the attorney, the ramifications of Newsom's actions will be far-reaching. Crampton says he fully expects same-sex couples to return to their hometowns and demand that local governments and private employers give legal recognition to their "marriage." He anticipates that the nation "may well suffer consequences for months and months to come as a result of this action."
Crampton adds that he is not surprised that the mayor has taken such a radical step. "Maybe we shouldn't be so surprised [at this], given that you elect to office people who live a lie in their lifestyle or uphold those who do," he says. "Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that they then have no respect for the law once they're in office."
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for San Francisco to quit issuing marriage licenses to homosexual couples.
No Mention of Gender
Meanwhile, there is a new front developing in the battle over homosexual marriage rights. A county clerk in New Mexico says it has nothing to do with "politics or morals."According to Associated Press, Sandoval County Clerk Victoria Dunlap says the county plans to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples. She made the decision after asking for an opinion from the county attorney, who said New Mexico law is not clear on the issue. He also says refusing to issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples could open the county to legal action.
State law defines marriage as a civil contract between contracting parties. It does not mention gender.
Sandoval County is located in northern New Mexico, just northwest of Albuquerque, the state's most populous city.
In nearby Texas, Professor J. Budziszewski says marriage as a union of a man and a woman -- for the procreation and nurturing of children -- was not created by government, and cannot truly be redefined by government.
Budziszewski, who teaches philosophy and government at the University of Texas, is the author of What We Can't Not Know -- a defense of the natural or moral law, which he says is more real than the law of gravity. While a rock cannot refuse to fall, Budziszewski says humans may refuse to obey the natural law -- but must then pay the price of guilty knowledge that demands repentance and justification.
He says legalizing homosexual marriage may be an attempt to soothe homosexuals' guilty consciences with a counterfeit, but he believes it will actually spread confusion and weaken society's foundations.
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Gary Bauer |
'Bizarre' Relationships
Pro-family activist Gary Bauer would agree with the Texas professor. Bauer believes homosexual marriage is only the beginning and the means to an end. That end, he says, is "the total destruction of marriage, family, and ultimately, society as we know it today.""The same arguments made today to support homosexual 'marriage' -- equality and fairness -- will be used to support polygamous marriages and multi-parent relationships tomorrow," Bauer says. "And, frankly, those arguments will be just as valid if we cannot draw the line now at one man and one woman."
Bauer cites as evidence a recent report about a conference last March at Hofstra University School of Law on marriage, democracy, and families. That report from National Review cited one professor who held up the following model as a "family" worthy of legal recognition: a three-parent family consisting of two lesbians and "an inseminating gay man." And another lawyer went even further, suggesting that family law should be modeled after business law where "contracts would recognize marriages in any combination of number or gender."
Bauer wonders if anyone is even bothering to consider the impact of such "bizarre" relationships on children. "Somehow I doubt it," he says.
Associated Press contributed to this story.
