District of Columbia

As we noted yesterday, the Washington D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics has ruled that the ballot initiative being pushed by Harry Jackson and company seeking to prevent marriage equality in the district would not be placed on the ballot.

Not surprisingly, Religious Right groups are not happy and are saying that the decision only proves that the District doesn't deserve voting representation in Congress:

Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America, said, "The D.C. Council reeks of rank hypocrisy. For years they have demanded that D.C. citizens should have the right to vote for congressional representation, which is in direct contradiction to the Constitution. Yet now they are denying D.C. citizens the right to vote on marriage, an institution so fundamental to America's well-being that territories were not allowed to become states unless they kept marriage between one man and one woman.

"D.C. officials are proving, once again, why they need congressional oversight. They need to be reminded that citizens are not serfs."

The Family Research Council made the same point:

While the House is deciding whether or not to give the District of Columbia more autonomy, the city is bent on denying the same freedom to residents. Yesterday, the D.C. Board of Elections refused to let voters decide the fate of same-sex "marriage" by denying the petition of Stand4MarriageDC to put an initiative on the ballot. The Board, which has just two members, said that Bishop Harry Jackson's Marriage Initiative "authorizes discrimination." In the end, the only real discrimination is what this Board is practicing against 399,127 registered voters who have a fundamental right to decide this issue. If the District can't be trusted to enforce the U.S. Constitution--housed within its own city limits--then Congress should be suspicious of the authority D.C. already has- not consider offering it more.

Do you suppose that if the D.C. Board of Elections had put the initiative on the ballot, these groups would suddenly support efforts to implement congressional representation for the District?  Not likely.

Furthermore, aren't they basically saying that because D.C. voters won't be allowed to vote on this issue, then they shouldn't be allowed to have votes in Congress? If they are so concerned about giving D.C. voters the power to decide issues for themselves, then why are they saying that those same voters shouldn't have a right to representation in Congress, considering that the current lack of representation means that D.C. voters are essentially being treated like "serfs"?    

We don't call Harry Jackson the "point man for the wedge strategy" for nothing:

The truth is that the gay community has “manipulated” the political process through extravagant campaign contributions and strategically infiltrating the city’s Democratic Party’s hierarchy over the last five years. DC council members have ironically participated in the suppression of the citizens’ right to vote in order to advance a privileged minority’s pet issue. This has been done in the name of “civil rights.”

If anybody knows what civil rights are, it would have been my father, who was threatened at gunpoint by a state trooper for his participation in voting registration efforts in the South. The officer who threatened him actually discharged his weapon in an attempt to make it clear that if my father spoke up again, he would be killed. My father could speak about civil rights because as a teenager he saw lifeless bodies hanging from lynching trees as part of the “strange fruit of the South” while taking shortcuts to deliver papers on several mornings. My father understood about civil rights as he heard the stories of an African-American man in his town who was brutally beaten, mutilated, set on fire, and dragged through the town square of the city.

But my father is not the only one who understood civil rights. The unwed black mother, living on public assistance, understands true discrimination. She understands that there are privileged people in our culture and institutional barriers that prohibit whole segments of our society from experiencing the American dream. In DC, gay activists enjoy better education, better jobs, better housing, greater access to the system, and now – legislative power. Something is wrong when the privileged feign that they are the persecuted, when the powerful posture themselves as victims. In this strategic period of American history, when many major issues are being decided, the least the city council could do would be to slow down and allow liberty to have her voice.

From the Washington Post:

Bishop Harry Jackson is refusing to relent from his campaign to stop same-sex marriage in the District, despite the drubbing he took before the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics this summer.

Jackson sent out a statement Monday stating that he and other opponents of same-sex marriages will file an initiative request with the elections board Tuesday.

If approved by the board, the initiative will give District residents an opportunity to vote sometime next year on whether to legalize same-sex marriage in the District. Jackson, who believes that most city voters oppose same-sex marriage, is hoping his proposal will slow efforts in the D.C. Council to legalize those marriages.

Yesterday, The Washington Times ran a profile of Bishop Harry Jackson and his fight against marriage equality in Washington, DC which took at face value his questionable claims that he is a resident of The District.

And, as a "resident," Jackson vows to keep fighting this effort for a long as it take:

Mr. Jackson said he will continue to fight same-sex marriage in the District, even if the judge denies the motion for a stay.

"This is the first battle in a war — in a bigger skirmish," Mr. Jackson said. "The other side determined that this is where it begins."

He vowed that he and his supporters will take further legal action when the council introduces the anticipated same-sex-marriage bill in the fall.

"We do have a plan, and we're not going away," Mr. Jackson said.

The reason he must fight on, he insists, is to save black families which will otherwise somehow be destroyed by the fact that gays can get married:

Mr. Jackson's opposition to same-sex marriage stems from a firmly held belief that same-sex marriage will hurt the institution of marriage, which he said is already suffering in the black community.

"Marriage in the black community is nearly at the extinction level, and right behind it, Hispanic and white communities are following," Mr. Jackson said. "A decade from now, we continue on this trend, marriage as we know it will maybe become a historical afterthought."

...

"Everybody in the black community knows that our families are all torn up," Mr. Jackson said. "I don't think you have to be a rocket scientist to say this is not going to strengthen marriage."

Now, if the concern is that marriage and families are falling apart, it seems that allowing gays to get married and establish families would actually strengthen both.  And that is apparently what Jackson believes on at least some level because, despite his vows to never give up this fight, he says that if he loses, he's going to turn his focus to this issue:

Should same-sex marriage become legalized, Mr. Jackson said that he will move to "the other side of the equation" — strengthening marriage itself by teaching people about the role of the family and how to develop lasting marriages.

If Jackson's primary concern is developing strong marriage and families, it stands to reason that he should be focusing on that right now instead of waging a war to prevent gays from, you know, developing strong marriages and families.