The push to amend the Constitution to limit marriage to heterosexuals may soon ignite the fiercest battle in the culture wars since the fight over abortion. The battle lines have already
formed in a predictable manner. Or have they?
The Alliance for Marriage (AFM) which leads the push for a constitutional amendment recently came under fire from its own Christian conservative base. Nationally known figures as well as grassroots Bible believers throughout the country bitterly criticized the very organization leading the effort to preempt what they consider the abomination of homosexual matrimony.
The behavior of those Christians who broke ranks deserves attention because it is a powerful rebuttal to the worst stereotypes about the Christian Right – stereotypes that critics are likely to dredge up as the debate over gay rights heats up.
What exactly happened?
In a series of exclusive articles for JewishWorldReview.com I reported that the AFM advisory board included the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) a controversial Islamic group which at the very least has expressed anti-Semitic anti-American and anti-Israel sentiments. I also noted that author and Islamic terrorism expert Steven Emerson says that ISNA is terrorist-friendly citing among other things the group’s fundraisers for accused terrorists.
AFM countered by saying that ISNA was not on any State Department terrorist list. This argument was rendered moot earlier this month when AFM announced the withdrawal of ISNA from its advisory board the day after I pointed out on Jewish World Review that ISNA indeed was now among the Islamic organizations under investigation for terrorist-related activities.
However even before the news broke of the Congressional investigation AFM’s leaning on the State Department to make ISNA kosher didn’t carry much water with Christian conservatives who after all answer to a Higher Authority.
Here was the dilemma facing Christian conservatives: Do they keep quiet about the ISNA connection and therefore embolden – by granting legitimacy to – an organization they view as malevolent in order to save the country from what they consider to be the abomination of gay marriage? Or do they object to the ISNA connection and therefore weaken at least momentarily and perhaps irreparably the AFM and thus advance the gay rights cause?
For many Christians the answer was obvious. Rejecting the ends justifies the means ethos that animates fanatics and bigots they felt morally compelled to speak out against the AFM-ISNA alliance even at the risk of hurting their own cause.
Paul Weyrich a key conservative religious figure who helped Jerry Falwell start the Moral Majority in the 1970’s voiced unequivocal objections to the AFM-ISNA alliance even likening the AFM to Leninist disciples. Was he worried that the potential political fallout from all the criticism could embolden what he calls the homosexual lobby?
True you don’t know [if that will happen] says Weyrich chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Research and Education Foundation but you do what is right and the Lord can turn evil into good.
In addition to Weyrich prominent religious conservatives who denounced the alliance include former Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer; William Donohue president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights; and the Rev. Bailey Smith former president of the Southern Baptist Convention.
The moral calculus here is somewhat parallel to the wrenching decision that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. made in 1967. With the Vietnam War heating up King was faced with a serious conflict. He considered the war morally objectionable yet he worried that to attack the war could alienate President Lyndon Johnson whose good graces were crucial for advancing the civil rights agenda (which to King was just as crucial as opposing gay marriage is to conservative Christians in our day).
Eventually King despite the expected political ramifications came out publicly against the war. He chose not to hide behind cheap little dodges like saying the war was not really a war because the government (Congress) didn’t classify it as such.
In the best American tradition of Martin Luther King key Christian conservatives refused to allow powerful claims of political expediency to corrupt their core values.
Today they are the real people for the American way.
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