The Human Rights Campaign makes it easy to contact your state and federal elected officials.
Whatever our beliefs about sexuality may be, lawmakers need to hear from you that the “Federal Marriage Amendment” (the Musgrave Amendment) would harm American families and American politics.
The Amendment would alter the U.S. Constitution, the nation’s founding document, to bar states from permitting same-gender marriages AND bar states from recognizing any marriage-like benefits (“legal incidents” of marriage) through civil unions.
Furthermore, many argue, this amendment:
- abuses the Constitution to legislate highly controversial social policy,
- cheapens marriage by turning it into an election-year political stunt,
- imposes federal government-sponsored religious discrimination against the validity of marriages performed by gay-tolerant churches,
- violates states’ rights.
At HRC’s Action Center, you can send letters to your lawmakers, contact your local media, and register to vote. Elsewhere at HRC, you can learn about discriminatory state and federal laws, read about gay couples and their families, catch up on news and statistics on antigay violence, and find out what sexual minorities are doing to stop AIDS — and what governments and the religious right are not doing.
Act today.
I am in MA and many people are doing just what you are talking about.
But what concerns me is that we that this question is not being addressed and answered.
“Are we legally sanctioning relationships or behavior? The case is much stronger for the lattter. So why are those advocating for change having constitutions amemnded because of people’s behavior. If people want social acceptance and sanctioning their behavior they should be honset in their intentions.
Anyone reading the numorous books and articles by many homosexuals themselves would be able to see this themselves. There is a historical witness to moving the discussion of homosexuality from acceptance of “behavior” to “rights”. Time will tell if this continues to lead the success by homosexuals in the past decade.
Larry Houston
Well, obviously, what the gay community is looking for, Larry, is sanctioning and recognition of our relationships. Given the charges handed down today in New York against two ministers for “marrying people without a license” I am very worried that the end result of FMA, were it to pass, would be a crackdown not only on the legality of gay marriage, but an ideologic attack on churches that advocate for equality for gays and lesbians. How long after FMA passes with the “pro-family” movement argue for the investigation, say, of the marriages performed in the Metropolitan Community Church? And how long until those churches are shut down?
Actually I think this development regarding the charges against the NY ministers is a positive one.
It shines a light on exactly what the religious right is after. They would like nothing better than to legally punish anyone who doesn’t subscribe to their narrow version of Christianity.
This takes the SSM debate out of the 14th Amendment world and places it in the 1st Amendment world. Americans as a whole do not ever want to tamper with the freedom of religion and this could give the gay advocates a perfect example of the right wing agenda.
These charges will not stick but the memory of the attempt to punish men and women of the cloth will be remembered very easily.
Larry, is heterosexual marriage about sanctioning relationships or behavior? The answer to that question cannot possibly be different for heterosexuals and homosexuals. It is the religious right that denies the humanity of homosexuals by characterizing our lives as defined as nothing more than sexual “behavior” or “activity.”