Pastors could distribute information about same-sex marriage on that Sunday, perhaps preach on the issue if God should lead them to do so, and hold a postcard signing time at the end of the service. The churches could gather the postcards and deliver them to a local office of their senators or mail them to their senators' DC offices.

The Federal Marriage Amendment would define marriage as the union of a man and a woman, making marriage for same-sex couples illegal everywhere in the U.S.  It would also prevent states from conferring the legal rights of marital status on unmarried couples.  If passed, the amendment could affect civil unions and domestic partnerships through the enforcement of the FMA on the state level.  

What are the arguments that the Christian Right makes to garner support for the amendment?  The notion of marriage as a sacred union bestowed by God is central to anti-marriage policy arguments.  However, one key strategy has been for organizations of the Christian Right to pit gay rights against the rights of African-Americans and to accuse proponents of gay rights of appropriating the language of the civil rights movement.

The Christian Right argument claims that there is no biological basis for homosexuality as there is for race, and that the gay rights movement draws inaccurate analogies with African-American civil rights issues.  They view race as immutable and thus deserving of protected status and sexuality as a choice.  This has been a powerful tool for building coalitions between Christian Right organizations like Focus on the Family and African-American conservative Christian churches.  Many anti-gay marriage rallies are billed as racial reconciliation events.  

Glen Stanton, a policy analyst at Focus on the Family, argues that same-sex marriage is an issue for African-Americans because it will destroy African-American families by creating a new definition of marriage:  

The real reason the overwhelming majority of African-Americans and two-thirds of all Americans oppose same-sex marriage is because they understand it fundamentally redefines the family and says mothers and fathers don't matter for children. And the black community, more than any other, has suffered under the ravages of this. The Rev. Walter Fauntroy, coordinator of the 1963 March on Washington and president of the National Black Leadership Roundtable, recently warned, "Don't confuse my people who have been the victims of deliberate family destruction by giving them another definition of marriage."

Instead of addressing economic policies that affect all families, Stanton claims same-sex marriage will exacerbate fatherlessness and motherlessness in African-American communities.  

And while a loving and compassionate society comes to the aid of motherless or fatherless families created by fate, there is no "civil right" to intentionally subject children to fatherlessness or motherlessness in order to fulfill adult desire. That is what every same-sex family does, and exactly why the African-American community, and Americans, oppose the idea in such large and growing numbers.

One group that has worked closely with Focus on the Family is the Coalition of African- American Pastors, a grassroots organization with the goal of promoting "Christ-centered values," religion in public life,"the rights of the unborn," and "defending the sacred institution of marriage."   Supporting the federal marriage amendment is one of the Coalition's goals.  It also explicitly makes the comparison between the civil rights of African-Americans and the "homosexual agenda."

As African American pastors we understand first hand discrimination and the wholesale violation of our civil rights. The overwhelmingly majority of African American Pastors strongly oppose same sex marriage. Many of us were involved in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and we strongly reject the notion that the fight for same sex marriage is equivalent to our struggle against discrimination. Further, we find it extremely offensive to compare the homosexual agenda with the civil rights movement for our basic human rights.

The ability of Focus on the Family, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and the Coalition of African- American Pastors to mobilize the grassroots around the distinction between the "legitimate" civil rights of African-Americans and the non-existent rights of GLBT people is an alarming trend.   However, there are other voices in the debate.  The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force recently released a report on How the Right Deploys Homophobia to Win Support from African-Americans.   The Christian Right consistently frames same-sex marriage as a matter of faith and protecting families rather than civil rights.  However, the rationale behind the Federal Marriage Amendment is precisely to dismantle the economic and political rights of citizenship for GLBT people.  

Digg
del.icio.us
Newsvine
Reddit
stumbleupon
Facebook