Gay Community Activists Split over 2010 Ballot Initiative Fight
The Los Angeles Times reported this morning that several gay marriage groups, including Equality California, have announced that they do not support mounting an initiative in 2010 to legalize gay marriage because they cannot be sure of victory. This announcement took other homosexual groups by surprise and was ridiculed by some of them. This rift shows that there are many factions in the gay community who are determined to pursue their agenda with or without their allies. The recent federal lawsuit (Perry v. Schwarzenegger) seeking to invalidate Prop 8 and the nation’s marriage laws was brought by a new, outside group with independent access to funding. It was only after this group secured the services of two high-profile attorneys to represent them that others in the gay community agreed to support their cause.
Meanwhile, field organizers promoting the legalization of same-sex marriage have opened another regional office. San Diego is the most recent city where office space has been leased as central headquarters for neighborhood outreach with the pro-homosexual marriage message.
Protect Marriage understands the battle will be won with grassroots outreach, the expansion of our networks, and the distribution of resources that affirm the sound reasons for protecting traditional marriage. Our own field representation is beginning work in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and the San Joaquin Valley.
If you are able, our educational and political action activities could use your financial support. Protect Marriage must be ready to defend traditional marriage whenever it is under attack. We certainly will not slow the activities of the Protect Marriage Action Fund to hire field organizers, consultants and other experts we need to continue the process of working with voters, ethnic communities and people of faith to preserve the institution of marriage. Please help us by clicking here.
The Episcopal Church at the Crossroads
For the past two decades, homosexual activists have worked to redefine the institution of marriage into a political issue, transformed to suit their sexual orientation. A relentless press of their agenda continues in the media, the Legislature, and the courts. In recent years, they have also attempted to influence liberal religious denominations with the hope that church support can be used to leverage support for homosexual marriage. To appreciate how far they have advanced in their effort, and the damage that has been done along the way, look no further than the Episcopal Church, which is holding their national convention this week in Anaheim.
Being a historically liberal denomination, it was only natural that the Episcopal Church would be one of the early targets of the homosexual agenda. The selection of a gay priest - V. Gene Robinson – as Bishop in New Hampshire in 2003 thrust the homosexual agenda, especially gay marriage, prominently into the public square, and tore at the fabric of the church’s doctrinal foundation. Yesterday, Episcopal bishops voted in alignment with lay delegates to adopt a statement saying "God has called and may call" homosexual men and women to ministry. The final version is likely to be approved by Friday.
From a political perspective, the selection of a gay bishop to push homosexual marriage has been a smashing success for gay activists. But from the perspective of the church, the relentless push for gay marriage has caused severe damage to the institution of the Episcopal Church itself. Dozens of Episcopal parishes and four entire dioceses, including one in Central California, have broken away from the Episcopal faith and launched a rival church.
Gay marriage activists are pushing so hard, despite the potentially fatal harm being done to the Episcopal Church, because they desperately want a “mainstream” denomination to become a champion for their gay marriage agenda, with hopes of influencing other denominations. Unfortunately, the divide between the US Episcopal Church from the rest of their brethren in the global Anglican faith community over the gay marriage issue is now so wide and deep that, as one top church official told the Los Angeles Times, “My fear is that the Episcopal Church destroys itself.”
The push by gay activists is obviously not limited to the Episcopal Church. We know from press reports that following the passage of Proposition 8 these activists are attempting a strategy to engage religious communities on secular ideas of “fairness” and “equality,” disregarding social science research on the best environment for children, the benefit of traditional marriage to society, or the biblical doctrine of marriage.
This relentless pressure from homosexual activists is why we have formed our new Protect Marriage Action Fund. Through this nonprofit entity, we can help our state – and the nation – resist the political pressure to redefine marriage in the image of gay activists, which ultimately causes the type of damage to our state that they are causing to the Episcopal Church today. Please help us in this fight by hiring the field organizers and others we need to win.
May God bless you and your family.
As a nonprofit advocacy group, donations to ProtectMarriage.com Action Fund are not tax-deductible. Donations under $5,000 are confidential and not publicly reported. To make a tax-deductible gift, please make check payable instead to “ProtectMarriage.com Educational Foundation.”
Sincerely,
Ron Prentice, Executive Director
ProtectMarriage.com