Dear Marriage Supporter,
Prof John Eastman, Chairman of our board, is one sharp legal eagle. Watch him take on and demolish the idea that the Supreme Court has authorized county clerks in Pennsylvania and other states to just hand out 'marriage' licenses to gay couples lawlessly, without even the cover of a court order.
Watch Prof. John Eastman on PBS New Hour lay down the law to James Esseks from the ACLU:
The people that are opposed to redefining the very core institution of marriage are going to continue to fight. Justice Kennedy's opinion in the Defense of Marriage Act case rests heavily on the fact that states are the primary determiners of marriage policy in our country. . . .The statutes and the state constitutional provisions that define marriage as it has been through most of human history, as a man and a woman, don't need to be changed.
All over this country people are facing the question: submit or stand up. Prof. John Eastman points out how many people are choosing to stand up and speak truth to power:
I think the other side of [the] coin is what we saw happen in Illinois. The African-American pastors rose up and they almost single-handedly stopped the redefinition of marriage bill from going through the Illinois legislature.
The new powers want you to believe that giving up is the only option. They are continually coming up with creative new strategies to suppress your rights, and the rights of millions of other Americans who believe marriage is the union of husband and wife.
Karger: "My Effort is to Silence Your Voice"
Our own Chris Plante told One News Now about a conversation he had with Fred Karger, heralded in the gay media for running around the country filing false complaints without any evidence that NOM violates campaign disclosure laws. His hope is that somewhere some minor oversight will trigger an unfair "investigation" and force NOM to reveal its donors to the public. Chris reports Karger is quite open and honest about his goal, "My effort is to dry up your funding stream and silence your voice," he said.
To "silence your voice"—that's what the Fred Kargers of the world want. To silence the voice of traditional believers across the board.
And so the "creative" strategies multiply, because if you can redefine marriage you can redefine election laws too, right?
We have a word for the political extortion dynamic (now unfolding under Obamacare) of a government passing broad regulations and then granting special exemptions to favored businesses (those who donate and help elect politicians): crony capitalism.
We need a new word for the aggressive new attempt to apply that Chicago way to nonprofits.
Laws are enforced unequally with favored groups getting exemptions that political groups disfavored by powerful elites do not get. This is political corruption aimed at our core rights to participate in democracy on a free and equal basis.
Political Exemptions: Your Freedom Redefined
I want to point out to you a story you would otherwise miss, about an "ethics law" championed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in New York requiring nonprofits that do any lobbying at all to reveal their donors.
The law, passed 2 years ago, supposedly safeguards free speech by permitting the state ethics board to grant exemptions to the law for nonprofits whose donors might be endangered by being publicly revealed.
We saw how "state ethics commissions" can be influenced by politics, though, when the Maine ethics commission rejected its own staff recommendations and proceeded to open an investigation into NOM. We saw the same dynamic in Iowa, where the state ethics chairman slammed NOM by falsely describing our legal position to the media. Despite the fact that the Board has confirmed that there is no evidence pointing to any violation on NOM's part.
So now we have a state ethics commission in charge of determining who gets to participate safely in the political process in New York. And guess who is the first, and so far only, nonprofit that the commission has exempted from disclosure law? NARAL Pro-Choice New York.
That's right: government grants a politically powerful and engaged pro-abortion lobby special protections from a law passed by a Democratic governor.
Even the New York Times smells something fishy, noting:
NARAL has been so politically active: waging a campaign last year to help Democrats take control of the State Senate; spending $425,000 on lobbying this year, pushing an abortion rights measure put forth by Mr. Cuomo; and vowing to go after incumbent Republican senators next year.
Donor disclosure laws do not apply to friends of Andrew Cuomo in New York.
Our friends over at New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms are among groups applying for an exemption, but so far: stonewalled.
It's a political protection racket, posing as a disclosure law.
I have to give a shout-out to the New York Civil Liberties Union, though, because they too recognize the threat this law poses to freedom of speech and democratic process:
"People say nasty things about us or call us up all the time, and we can take that," said Arthur Eisenberg, the group's legal director. "It's the individual donors who shouldn't need to take that, and the price of their association with us, and their participation in the First Amendment activity of lobbying, should not be at the cost of their feeling secure and free from threats and retaliation."
Amen to that!
You've Been Framed
Many of you wrote to say you've read the new Public Discourse essay "Now that We are All Haters," about the power of the mainstream media and the gay rights lobby to choose the language, the stories, and the narratives around gay marriage. In particular the power of the narratives that frame those of us who stand up for marriage and the Biblical tradition as "haters" and "bigots".
I should point out (because a lot of you missed it!) this essay is by that other Brian Brown, the Princeton alum who runs Narrator, a communications consultancy that "uses neuroscience and social network theory to build powerful support communities around products and causes."
The other Brian talks about speaking to young conservatives, some of whom support gay marriage but most of whom just want to get out of the crosshairs:
The most common sentiment: even though none thought a same-sex relationship was a marriage, almost none wanted to play for a losing team whose objective was a national stranglehold on people's happiness.
Can we surrender truth to escape the power of their hatred towards us, their capacity to saturate the media with narratives libeling good, decent, loving and law-abiding people as haters?
This kind of media social punishment has a cultural effect, no doubt.
But do the American people really believe in gay marriage?
We got more evidence the answer is "no" from a surprising source: Reason Magazine, which is editorially a pro-gay marriage libertarian slant.
Reason reports on a recent Fox News poll about gay marriage that asked, "using two different word frames," whether folks support or oppose same-sex 'marriage': and the two methods yielded dramatically different results. But both put the lie to the argument that somehow redefining marriage is somehow inevitable.
The first frame asked about "changing the definition of the word marriage to also include same-sex couples", and found that Americans oppose redefining marriage by 56 percent to 39 percent.
But in the same poll Fox asked if respondents would favor "legalizing same-sex marriage." Here Americans split 46 percent in favor and 47 percent opposed with 7 percent undecided—still far short of the supposed majority other mainstream media outlets would have you believe support same-sex marriage.
Americans don't really believe gay unions are marriages. We found the same thing in our November 2012 poll of voters: 3 in 5 Americans said marriage is ONLY the union of a man and a woman.
So don't lose hope. In the end truth trumps falsehood, and the Love that created us will protect those who stand with Him and protect His creations.
That's why I admire you so much; I know it takes courage in the darkness to light a candle, to have faith, and to work hard for what is true, and good, and loving and right.
God bless you and thank you again.
It is a privilege to stand shoulder to shoulder with you in this great fight for the country we love.
Blessings,
Brian S. Brown
Although the lesbian couple that brought the complaint easily found another photographer, Elane Photography now must pay nearly $7,000 in court costs for merely exercising her First Amendment rights.
Worried they could be sued by gay couples, some churches are changing their bylaws to reflect their view that the Bible allows only marriage between one man and one woman.
Redefining marriage becomes an obvious imperative, but not because of abstract claims about equality. It’s a powerful institution that disciplines us, not only sexually, but in many other intimate ways as well. Today many, perhaps most, want this power to serve our freedom. Thus our new cultural ideal, which is by no means limited to gays and lesbians: marriage is the creation of the love of individuals, not an institution with rigid roles and rules.
"As state after state considers changing its laws on the definition of marriage, all of us have had to think about the nature of love, the meaning of marriage and the teaching of the Gospel.
More Republicans (96 percent) than Democrats (77 percent) agreed with the photographer's right to deny a gay wedding request. Ninety-seven percent of evangelical Christians and 92 percent of weekly churchgoers said the same. But even 88 percent of atheists agreed that the photographer has the right to say no.
A coalition of businesses and activist groups has begun its push to defeat an amendment that would write Indiana's same-sex marriage ban into the state constitution.
Ellins said he had been considering issuing the licenses since June, when [New Mexico Attorney General Gary] King released a position paper saying state laws don't allow same-sex marriage.
