Marriage Endures (National Review Editorial)

On Tuesday, by a margin of 52 to 48 percent, voters in California amended their state constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, as did voters in Florida (62 to 38 percent) and Arizona (56 to 44 percent).

Those who argue social conservatism is behind the GOP’s current electoral malaise take note: In Arizona marriage outperformed John McCain by 2 percentage points, in Florida by 14 percentage points, and in California by 15 percentage points.

The Arizona win, reversing a defeat for a marriage amendment in that state in 2006, also restores to state marriage amendments an unblemished record of victory: They have won in 30 out of 30 states where they have been on the ballot.

What lesson can we take from Tuesday’s marriage victories? Here’s one obvious one: Americans still care a great deal about this issue. The California Supreme Court may have believed that the public would acquiesce when it foisted same-sex marriage on the state earlier this year. But the successful campaign to overturn its ruling was an astonishing effort, unprecedented for a social issue, that raised more than 100,000 volunteers and almost $40 million from over 60,000 donors.

How have the leaders of the movement for same-sex marriage responded to their California loss at the ballot box? The same way they usually do: by getting lawyers to make ever more outrageous arguments to impose their values on unwilling people. (The ACLU is preparing to argue that a one-sentence definition of marriage constitutes such a wholesale revision of California’s Constitution that the California Supreme Court should invalidate Prop 8.)

Just before they lost on Tuesday in California, same-sex marriage advocates in California descended to a new low. A group affiliated with Moveon.org, United Healthcare Workers, and the California Nurses Association released a television ad, “Home Invasion,” which portrayed Mormon missionaries as ransacking a California home: “We’re from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We’ve come to take away your rights.” (The ad was referring to the financial contributions Mormon citizens had made to the initiative campaign.) Are there any other religious minority groups whose political giving liberals believe should be stigmatized? Can we expect the Anti-Defamation League to speak up?

So far, not a single same-sex marriage advocate in California or outside of it has been willing to repudiate this vicious tactic: not MoveOn.org, of course, and not the ACLU or the Human Rights Campaign either. But also not, for example, Sen. Diane Feinstein, who appeared in an anti-Prop 8 TV ad saying that “we must always say no to discrimination.” But not, it seems, to bigotry.

The current conflict over marriage is in part a proxy for a larger ongoing conflict about the role of religious people and religious values in public life. As courts come to endorse the principle that sexual orientation is just like race, American government is going to find itself in the position of treating traditional faith communities just like racists. Voters should beware — if they are consulted on the matter.

We can be thankful Americans have defended traditional marriage. For as the National Review editors note, the issue is really a proxy for the Left's assault upon people of faith. That their beliefs and values are a prejudice, an outdated form of bigotry - and to borrow a Marxist formulation, an assertion of "false consciousness" that no longer have a place in our world. Those who cherish God must never be forced on the defensive and this conflict will never end as long as there are those committed to unceasing war on religion and the institutions and values it defends that are essential to the survival of civilization and the well-being of society.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

Wait till sodomy is seen as an act of commitment to political and social progress performed by straights as required by law. Far fetched? NO, mandatory by Hollywood regulation act 342, sub clause 16.

So basically the GOP needs to enunciate that whatever consenting adults want to do behind closed doors is their decision, but marriage should remain between a man and a woman.

I think a problem for the GOP is that it appears that the GOP wants to imprison gays and lesbians or some nonsense. The GOP needs to make clear that it wants the government out of our lives as much as possible. But that it’s not going to abandon traditional marriage as a cornerstone of our civilization.

There is a great misunderstanding about Prop 8 and the consequences of it passing 52-48%. This has little to do with Conservatism. The groups that passed Prop 8 were black and Hispanic. These groups are in NO way conservative as most people on Free Republic would define it. These people are BIG government types who want to get as much from the public troth as possible. They couldn't care a lick about constitutional rights, free enterprise capitalism, etc. They are liberal and far left on every issue. They are as far from conservative as it's possible to get.
They simply don't like homosexual marriage. It's that simple. I believe Whites and Asians actually voted against Prop 8. Go figure.

Many people were impressed with Obama’s two-bit Harvard law degree and completely unimpressed with Palin’s successful marriage and raising of a family. At the same time society seems to think that enough government spending can take the place of parenting. Sooner or later we have to restore traditional marriage to the status it once enjoyed. It’s really God’s social program.

Lots of movies and TV shows and books representing traditional functional families and portraying the configuration of underlying pathological causes of the choices leading to homosexual behavior are solely needed. Hollywood has been taken over by promoters of the homosexual agenda. Even Wally and Beaver Cleaver, Ward and June, and neighbor Eddie Haskell and shows like the Brady Bunch would help. Homosexuality is glorified rather than pitied. As a Russian-born candidate for a mayoral office said last week, “I for the life of me do not know what what they heck they’re so proud of.”

Remember homosexuals have a Constitutional right to marry a person of the opposite sex. They want a right to re-define marriage as it has traditionally been based on human nature.

Homosexuals are heterophobes. They want to destroy heterosexual normalcy.

i just think it’s great that it passed thanks to AA Obama voters.

Don't think it's going to hold, they just haven't been "educated" by Zero yet. He'll have a change of heart, just like he did with public financing of his campaign, and when he delivers his first set of "pie" checks to his supporters, there will be included a brochure on "equality".

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