So next Wednesday a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing concerning amending the US Constitution to "defend" marriage. If peolpe had any doubt about how subcommittee chair, Jon Cornyn (R-TX), feels about this issue, it would be helpful to look at this hearing. The title? "Judicial Activism vs. Democracy: What are the National Implications of the Massachusetts Goodridge Decision and the Judicial Invalidation of Traditional Marriage Laws? " The witnesses?
First there is Reverend Richard Richardson, the Director of Political Affairs for The Black Ministerial Alliance of Greater Boston. The BMA is an orginization that has come out strongly against gay marriage and has pushed for an amendment to ban it in Massachusetts. It's president said the decision was easy, "because our faith forces us to recognize something that is biblical and that our history has affirmed."
Next we have Pastor Daniel de Leon, Sr. Pastor de Leon is on the board of advisors of the Alliance for Marriage. That is the group that has been spearheading the efforts for a Federal Marriage Amendment.
Up third is the "Honorable" Jon Bruning, Attorney General of Nebraska. This is the man who upon reacting to the court decision in Massachusetts said, "Does that mean you have to allow a man to marry his pet or a man to marry his chair?"
Finally we have Mrs. Maggie Gallagher, the President of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy. She is also a fierce advocate of the FMA.
I hope this is just a preliminary list and the subcommittee will actually call some witnesses whose lives will actually be deeply effected if the FMA is passed: Individuals whose families would suddenly lose the protection of marriage; childrens whose parents' marriages would become annulled; citizens who would be denied equal protection because they loved a person with the wrong genitals.
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