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TOP6NEWS - October 20, 2004 1-NEWS: LDS Church issues statement favoring marriage measures 2-NEWS: Report on oral arguments in GA Supreme Court 3-NEWS: PA judge dismisses DOMA suit 4-NEWS: OR poll shows 50% to 42% support for m amendment 5-NEWS: Mary Cheney still in the news 6-OP-ED: M. Gallagher on the politics of ssm ________________________________________________________ 1-NEWS: LDS Church issues statement favoring marriage measures THE NATION The statement, two weeks before Utah voters decide a proposed amendment that would ban same-sex marriage, says that only men and women should be married. ... Scott McCoy, campaign director of the Don't Amend Alliance, said he didn't think the new church position was a substantial departure from previous statements. "If anything, they just said they don't support civil unions or domestic partnerships either," he said. "We of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reach out with understanding and respect for individuals who are attracted to those of the same gender. We realize there may be great loneliness in their lives but there must also be recognition of what is right before the Lord. "As a doctrinal principle, based on sacred scripture, we affirm that marriage between a man and a woman is essential to the Creator's plan for the eternal destiny of His children. The powers of procreation are to be exercised only between a man and a woman lawfully wedded as husband and wife. "Any other sexual relations, including those between persons of the same gender, undermine the divinely created institution of the family. The Church accordingly favors measures that define marriage as the union of a man and a woman and that do not confer legal status on any other sexual relationship." ________________________________________________________ 2-NEWS: Report on oral arguments in GA Supreme Court Justices: Clarify marriage ban goal The justices heard oral arguments for less than an hour in a lawsuit attempting to stop a scheduled Nov. 2 referendum on the question. The jurists did not say when they expected to issue a ruling, but both sides anticipate one before Nov. 2. We think the court's questions appropriately focused on the significant constitutional issues at stake here," said Atlanta attorney Johnny Stephenson of Alston and Bird, who argued against the amendment. Justice Leah Ward Sears asked Stefan Ritter, a senior assistant attorney general representing the state, to explain a sentence in the amendment that reads: "No union between persons of the same sex shall be recognized by this state as entitled to the benefits of marriage." Ritter said "union" is used as a proxy for "marriage." ... ________________________________________________________ 3-NEWS: PA judge dismisses DOMA suit Legislators lose bid to keep gay pair from marrying By Walter F. Naedele Judge Mitchell S. Goldberg concluded that "there is no actual controversy" in the matter before him that could cause him to favor the legislators. And, Goldberg wrote, the lawmakers lacked standing even to bring the lawsuit. ... ________________________________________________________ 4-NEWS: OR poll shows 50% to 42% support for m amendment Same-sex marriage ban, Kerry lead in Oregon poll A survey of 700 likely voters contacted in a CNN-USA Today-Gallup Poll had Kerry leading Bush 53 percent to 45 percent. A larger pool of registered voters chose Kerry over Bush 52 percent to 45 percent. Likely voters supported the proposed state constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman 50 percent to 42 percent against. Five percent either had no opinion or remained undecided. The highest level of opposition to the amendment, Measure 36, was among people 18 to 34, voters in Multnomah County and people living in other urban areas in the state. Measure 36 had its strongest support among men, people in rural areas and people 55 and older. The telephone poll was conducted Friday to Monday and has a margin of error of 4 percentage points. The survey commissioned by Gannett News Service is the latest entry in the flurry of polls being conducted in battleground states. ... ________________________________________________________ 5-NEWS: Mary Cheney still in the news Democratic double standard? Dallas -- WITH FRIENDS like these, who needs Republicans? ... As someone who has gay family members, I can't stomach what the Kerry- Edwards campaign did to this young woman and her family. I had hoped that Democratic-leaning gay advocacy groups would say as much. Instead, they're defending Kerry and attacking his critics. They claim that anyone who raises a fuss over Kerry's comments must think that homosexuality should be hidden. But they're also saying that it was Dick Cheney who -- in what they would have to admit was a poor job of hiding -- first brought up the fact that his daughter is gay. ... Now, in light of Kerry's remarks about Mary Cheney, the Bush critics have to put up or shut up. Is this what passes for compassion and empathy in the Kerry-Edwards campaign? Is this the extent of what Democrats have to offer those who believe that gays and lesbians should have the same dignity as everyone else? If the homosexual lobby lets Kerry get away with this, then it'll have about as much credibility as the feminist supporters of Bill Clinton who held their tongues during the Monica Lewinsky scandal or black activists when they let Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd get away with using the N-word or Latino activists who remained in silencio when Teresa Heinz Kerry went around identifying herself as an immigrant. Gays and lesbians have a choice. They can demand a public apology from Kerry. Or admit that, when it comes to political correctness, there's one set of rules for Democrats and one set for everyone else. ________________________________________________________ 6-OP-ED: M. Gallagher on the politics of ssm GAY MARRIAGE IN SOUTH DAKOTA Take the basic fact: Kerry appears to be slipping behind Bush once again. John Zogby, whose poll gives Bush a 4-point lead, says Kerry's problem is that he doesn't command the same enthusiasm among Democrats that Bush does among Republicans: 89 percent of Republicans support Bush, compared to 79 percent of Democrats who support Kerry. Even minor defections from the base can spell doom in a tight election. (In the latest New York Times poll, 17 percent of black Americans say they plan to vote for Bush, about double the 2000 vote.) And gay marriage is the kind of issue that, as former Democratic pollster Pat Caddell pointed out on the Oct. 15 "Hannity & Colmes," splits the Democratic base up the middle: "Among (the) most ardent opponents of gay marriage are African-Americans, Hispanics, and voters over 65, the heart of the Democratic Party. That's who Kerry was trying to speak to," says Caddell. He means in that last debate, when John Kerry (news - web sites) threw in the fact -- have you heard? -- that Mary Cheney is gay. The Kerry campaign thinks the worst about the American people. They must imagine that voters who oppose gay marriage are all homophobes who will recoil in horror at the idea of voting for a man whose running mate's daughter is gay. Dick Cheney (news - web sites)'s daughter is gay. That fact is supposed to somehow counterbalance Kerry's anti-anti-gay marriage voting record (Kerry was one of only a handful of senators to vote against the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, for example, which he denounced as unnecessary gay bashing) against President Bush (news - web sites)'s strong defense of our marriage traditions. The Kerry campaign imagines that black Americans aren't really angry that the Democratic Party is misdirecting the moral capital of the civil rights movement away from poor black kids to the sexual politics of adults -- they are just illiterate homophobes who can be brought back to the fold by learning that Mary Cheney is (shudder) a lesbian. ... In response, a new 527, "You're Fired Inc.," has started to run ads attacking Daschle on this issue. (To view the ads, go to www.heartlandvalues.com.) Like most of the political advertising I have seen on this issue, they aren't anti-gay at all. They are pro-democracy and pro-marriage: "Tom Daschle refuses to protect traditional marriage. He would let liberal activist judges redefine it. Most South Dakotans believe marriage should be between a man and a woman, and every child should have the chance to have a father and a mother. We're not interested in depriving anyone of any rights, but let's not allow liberal judges from Massachusetts to redefine marriage for us." How will that play in South Dakota and the rest of the nation? Stay tuned this November |
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