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Gay Groups: Ill-timed Lawsuits set fight for Marriage Back

June 10, 2008 by GayPatriotWest

Since I first met Evan Wolfson, now of Freedom (sic) to Marry at the 1995 Log Cabin Convention in Cincinnati, I have faulted him for pursuing marriage through the courts. As I have expressed repeatedly on this blog, I believe the proper venue to push for this change is through elected legislatures.

As we have seen in the wake of the Goodridge ruling in Massachusetts mandating same-sex marriage in the Bay State, such court decisions prompt a backlash, with a raft of social conservative citizens’ groups pushing successfully for referenda and initiatives amending state constitutions to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

But, when state Supreme Courts fail to mandate same-sex marriage, holding that is the province of the legislature, the impetus for such ballot propositions diminish and those already on the ballot generate less support. In some cases, such judicial defeats lead to legislative action.

Today, I received an e-mail from Evan’s group with this statement:

Four LGBT legal organizations and five other leading national LGBT groups have issued a statement entitled “Make Change, Not Lawsuits.” The statement explains that while couples who go to California to marry should ask friends, neighbors and institutions to honor their marriages, they generally shouldn’t sue. The statement says that ill-timed lawsuits are likely to set the fight for marriage back, and that there are other ways to fight which are more likely to win.

(Emphasis added). Ill-timed lawsuits likely to set the fight back. Nice to see they finally get it.

I believe the recent California Supreme Court ruling will make it easier for the ballot proposition amending the state constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman to pass. It’s too bad Wolfson and his cohorts didn’t consider that before supporting the lawsuit which lead to that unfortunate decision.

Filed Under: Gay Marriage, Gay Politics, Legal Issues

Comments

  1. ThatGayConservative says

    June 10, 2008 at 3:56 pm - June 10, 2008

    I’ve never understood why some folks are inclined to try to get what they want by pissing off everybody else. I can’t think of an example where that has worked. Just as laws forcing people to like you aren’t going to accomplish that.

  2. American Elephant says

    June 10, 2008 at 8:07 pm - June 10, 2008

    How about Roe v Wade?

  3. Vince P says

    June 10, 2008 at 9:02 pm - June 10, 2008

    What about it

  4. ThatGayConservative says

    June 11, 2008 at 4:58 am - June 11, 2008

    #2
    I stand corrected (sorta).

  5. Peter Hughes says

    June 11, 2008 at 12:18 pm - June 11, 2008

    All Roe v Wade did is to take what was formerly a state’s jurisdiction and federalize it. Anyone who wants to “overturn” Roe v Wade is simply asking for the law to be interpreted as it was before, without the 9th Amendment’s “penumbra” clause (you know, it doesn’t say abortion in the Constitution but per the 9th Amendment interp, it really does).

    In other words, just like marriage, let the states determine abortion laws. Plain and simple. It does not mean having women resort to back-alley abortions.

    Or as Joan Crawford would have yelled: “NO WIRE HANGERS!” 😉

    Regards,
    Peter H.

  6. North Dallas Thirty says

    June 11, 2008 at 5:29 pm - June 11, 2008

    But of course, the reason leftists don’t want that is because they know that the vast majority of Americans do not support abortion on demand.

    What they do support is abortion being allowed in the case of rape, incest, and imminent danger to the mother’s life — which, if they’re lucky, constitutes roughly 15% of the million-plus abortions performed in the United States annually.

    Or, put differently, given that the average cost for an abortion is around $450, $382 million dollars would immediately vanish from Planned Parenthood and other leftist abortion groups’ pockets — and thus from the campaign funds of leftist Democrat politicians.

    Realize that the reason Planned Parenthood and other groups push to promote teenage sex through “sex education” classes is simple; teenagers are notoriously bad at being responsible, and each time they fail to be, Planned Parenthood stands to profit from it.

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