'Prayer Warriors' Battle to Pass Gay Marriage Bans

By John Ireland, In These Times. Posted October 10, 2008.

If the Religious Right seemed suspiciously quiet recently in the fight against same-sex marriage -- get ready for a battle royale.

Conservative groups like Focus on the Family and the American Family Association put up a relatively weak fight when Massachusetts established same-sex marriage rights. Even San Francisco's attempt at marriage equality in 2004 yielded mostly tame and disjointed protests.

But now that the California Supreme Court has ruled that barring same-sex couples from marriage is unconstitutional, the Religious Right's top brass is galvanizing its funding base. It has reportedly summoned vast armies of "prayer warriors" to win the battle once and for all.

Groups from across the country are spearheading efforts in Arizona, California and Florida to amend those state constitutions to permanently restrict civil marriage to opposite-sex couples.

California's Proposition 8 -- a referendum on November's ballot -- would add the following language to its state constitution: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." A Field Poll released in July found that, by a 51 percent-to-42 percent margin, California voters opposed the proposition, with the greatest opposition coming from voters under 30.8.*

Arizona's Proposition 102 states, "Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state." A February poll taken by Arizona State University's Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication found that 49 percent of residents would vote in favor of a marriage amendment if it didn't affect domestic partner benefits. Residents who said they'd vote against it accounted for 40 percent, while 11 percent said they were undecided. A majority vote is needed to approve the measure.

Meanwhile, Florida's Amendment 2 would insert the following language: "Inasmuch as marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized." A June 3 Quinnipiac University poll found that 58 percent of Florida voters would support the proposition while 37 percent would oppose it. The amendment needs the approval of 60 percent of voters to become part of the state constitution.

A Conference Call to Arms

The Religious Right is using these last months leading up to the election to amplify the debate nationally.

On his Aug. 1 broadcast of "Washington Watch" radio show, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins described California as a "springboard for the rest of the nation." He said: "If California goes forward with same-sex marriage, mark my word, we will begin to see this march across the country. ... Don't think you are protected because your state has a state marriage amendment, those will be challenged in federal court under the federal constitution. ... It is vitally important that we help California['s Proposition 8] succeed."

Two days earlier, on July 30, a who's who of the national Religious Right leadership convened a conference call of more than 200 pastors in Arizona, California and Florida to lay out the strategy leading to the Nov. 4 election.

Hosted by pastor Jim Garlow of Skyline Church in San Diego, participants on the call included Perkins, Harry Jackson, senior pastor of the evangelical Hope Christian Church in Washington, D.C., and Maggie Gallagher, president of the Virginia-based Institute for Marriage and Public Policy -- the principal organizer behind California's Proposition 8.

Also on the call was Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, who called the battle over marriage equality, "the Armageddon of the culture war." Over the past few decades, Colson has become an evangelical Christian powerbroker and, more recently, a well-known organizer in the fight to oppose marriage rights for same-sex couples.

Leaders on the July 30 conference call asked pastors to spare no effort in the fight to pass the traditional marriage initiatives on the Arizona, California and Florida ballots and to reverse the gains of marriage equality advocates. Their exhortations met with a passionate response.

See more stories tagged with: religious right, same-sex marriage, proposition 8

John Ireland covers progressive politics and social dynamics in the United States, exploring "democracy in action." He has been published in numerous periodicals, including Newsweek, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Baltimore Sun and the Advocate.

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