Michigan Activist Urges GOP to Be Fair, Condemn McCain's MPA Vote

by Jody Brown
June 12, 2006

(AgapePress) - - A Michigan-based, pro-family political action committee (PAC) says if the state Republican Party is going to condemn the state's Democratic lawmakers in Washington for voting against the Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA) last week, it should be fair about it -- and also condemn the same action by the current frontrunner for the GOP's presidential nomination.

On Election Day in November 2004, almost 60 percent of Michigan voters approved a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman. But among Democratic senators voting to discontinue debate on the MPA last week, thereby preventing it to be voted upon by the full Senate, was Michigan's Debbie Stabenow, whose current term in the U.S. Senate expires in 2007. For that action, the Michigan Republican Party is blasting Stabenow for what it calls "tak[ing] sides with the radical special interests and against Michigan families."

Saul Anuzis, chairman of the Michigan GOP, is taking the opportunity to point out to voters Stabenow's perceived allegiance to those special interests.

"Debbie Stabenow has turned her back on her constituents," Anuzis says in a press release. "We need someone who represents Michigan, not Democratic interests in Washington. It is time that Michigan has a senator who truly represents the will of the people, not a divisive political agenda."

That is all well and good, says Gary Glenn, chairman of the Campaign for Michigan Families and co-author of the state marriage amendment approved by voters in 2004. But the state GOP should not stop there, he says.

Gary Glenn

Glenn says Republican leaders in Michigan are right "to publicly condemn [Stabenow] for thumbing her nose at the vote of the people of Michigan -- but cannot in fairness fail to publicly condemn Republican Senator John McCain for voting the exact same way ...."

McCain, considered one of the frontrunners to lead the GOP presidential ticket in 2008, was in Grand Rapids late last week, stumping for Secretary of State Terri Land at an event hosted by high-profile Republicans in the state. Glenn says he wrote to each one of those GOP hosts, urging them not only to defend their party's platform, but also to "disavow McCain's vote." By remaining silent, he says, they would be giving the impression that they approve of it.

Stabenow, says Glenn, voted against the people of Michigan when she voted against the MPA. McCain, he says, voted not only against the people "but [also] against President Bush and his own party in opposing protection of marriage."

"Both should be equally condemned for standing instead with homosexual activist groups and left-wing judges who want to overturn the people's vote in order to radically redefine marriage," says the pro-family activist. He points out that is exactly what has happened in Nebraska, where an amendment protecting traditional marriage was approved by 70 percent of voters -- but later deemed unconstitutional by one federal judge.