February 2007

The Alliance for Marriage, a group founded to agitate for a federal constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, is starting a “Marriage Protection Caucus” of state legislators as part of a “fifty-state strategy.” Citing November’s “shift in the balance of power in Washington,” AFM President Matt Daniels says he is building support for future ratification of such an amendment in state legislators – but at the same time, the group is pushing for more states to amend their own constitutions to prevent gay marriage.

Other groups fighting against gay unions, such as Family Research Council and Focus on the Family, are welcoming the move, but they are looking beyond marriage to other legal protections they could ban:

"The first phase of the fight has been passing state marriage amendments declaring marriage as one man and one woman," [Focus on the Family Action’s Carrie Gordon] Earll said. "However, the next phase will be fighting against what has been called 'marriage lite' -- passage of counterfeit marriage efforts through domestic partnership and civil union legislation. That's where the battle lies, and we welcome everyone who will help with it."

AFM gave its supporters a preview of their new strategy in an e-mail last November, and in addition to “expanding our massive power base in the states,” apparently manifested in its new “Marriage Protection Caucus,” it plans on “deploying” minorities and making the case that same-sex unions portend “the loss of civil rights for those who believe in the timeless definition of marriage.”