North Carolina

North Carolina state Sen. James Forrester appeared on Concerned Women for America radio Tuesday, along with his wife -- who just happens to be the Associate State Director of CWA’s North Carolina chapter -- to discuss the proposed state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Republicans in the state legislature succeeded in getting a referendum on the marriage amendment on the ballot for May of next year.

Earlier this month, Forrester memorably told a town hall meeting that gays “are going to die at least 20 years earlier” than straight people. While proponents of the discriminatory marriage amendment claim that they are only focused on the issue of marriage, Forrester made it clear that there was a much larger goal behind the amendment: to “make it more difficult for the homosexual group to get their agenda recognized as being normal and getting it into schools and things like that.”

Listen:

Forrester: In some states even though the states have ratified having marriage between one man and one woman in the constitution, activist judges have overruled that, overruled the will of the people, that bothers me too, but if we don’t have it in the constitution there’s a whole lot better chance for them succeeding in what they’re trying to do. So I’m very encouraged that we’re gonna have the opportunity to vote on it, hopefully put it in our constitution, and make it more difficult for the homosexual group to get their agenda recognized as being normal and getting it into schools and things like that. So I’m very, very happy this morning.

Ron Baity of Return America, the group behind the campaign to pass an amendment to North Carolina’s constitution that would ban same-sex marriage, which is already barred by statute, joined right-wing radio host Janet Parshall yesterday on her show In The Market. Parshall said that marriage equality efforts come from “the Father of Lies and the Accuser of the Brethren,” two names for Satan (John 8:44; Revelation 12:10). She said that Satan has marriage in his “crosshairs” because he wants “to tear down the idea of Christ’s unconditional love for us.”

Baity agreed with Parshall’s analysis and warned that government will be changed for the worse if same-sex marriage becomes legal. “I’m afraid defense is down in our country,” Baity went on to tell Parshall, “Rght now in our economy and everything else we’re experiencing in our nation I don’t think is anything less than God trying to get our attention”:

Parshall: But as a pastor do you ever stop and think, of course it makes sense that marriage is under attack. It’s the first institution that God created in a place of perfection, it’s emblematic of the love that Christ the bridegroom has for his bride, the Church, so if you were the Father of Lies and the Accuser of the Brethren, boy I tell you marriage would be in my crosshairs, I would go after that with every bit of energy I’ve got because I would want to tear down the idea of Christ’s unconditional love for us and what he’s done for us and that message is repeating in the model of marriage. So from a biblical vantage point doesn’t it make sense that marriage is under attack?

Baity: Absolutely, and it’s been well stated that as the home goes so goes the government. Because the home is the theater for the government and what happens there in that basic institution will eventually determine what happens in that next generation. You know to a great degree it will determine who sits in the Oval Office and who sits in the halls of Congress and in our local legislatures. Our forefathers would not recognize our nation today, we have moved so far. And you know I’m afraid defense is down in our country Janet and I’m afraid that we are right now in our economy and everything else we’re experiencing in our nation I don’t think is anything less than God trying to get our attention.

Republicans in North Carolina are hoping to pass a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, even though gay and lesbian couples are already prevented from getting married under statute. One leading proponent of the ban believes that an amendment, which could potentially be included on the 2012 ballot if it passes the legislature with three-fifths of the vote, would pass because “the public in my opinion knows the difference between perversity and diversity” and that residents “don’t want them here.” The News Observer reports:

Supporters of a bill that would ask voters to write a ban on same-sex marriage into the state Constitution say it has its best chance at passage since they started pushing for it in 2004.

Sen. James Forrester, a Gaston County Republican, has filed the bill consistently for nearly a decade, but the proposal never made it to a full vote. Democrats held control of both the House and Senate for most of those years.

With Republicans now controlling the legislature, Forrester is looking forward to hearings and a victory.

"I think we have enough votes to get it passed," he said. Republicans hold majorities in both chambers, and similar bills in past years have drawn bi-partisan support.

…

The state already has a law banning same-sex marriage, but supporters of the constitutional amendment said the law isn't enough. The law is vulnerable to changes by future legislatures, Forrester said, or to a judge who thinks it's wrong.

The amendment "prevents a liberal judge from saying 'no,' " Forrester said.

…

Mecklenburg County Commissioner Bill James, a longtime supporter of the ban, said the amendment would make a moral statement.

"The purpose is not just to prevent Massachusetts people coming down," he said. "It's also to put a big letter of shame on the behavior. We don't want them here. We don't want them marrying. If you're going to do it in San Francisco, it's your own business."

In an e-mail last week, James predicted easy passage. "Bet it will pass with over 60 percent," he wrote. "The public in my opinion knows the difference between perversity and diversity."

When the North Carolina Council of Churches, a coalition composed of mainline Protestant and Catholic churches, selected an openly gay man as the body’s new president, right-wing activists jumped on the story in their efforts to foster divisions and anti-gay sentiment among church groups. Seventeen denominations, including Episcopal, Lutheran, AME, Roman Catholic, Baptist, Reformed, and Methodist churches, are members of the North Carolina Council of Churches, and President-Elect Stan Kimer promised to make outreach, environmental stewardship, and social justice key parts of his agenda.

“I have a strong belief that as a Christian I'm called to make the world a better place,” Kimer told the Charlotte Observer, “I like to spend my time with groups where I can see an impact.”

Now, the far-right Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) is using Kimer’s election to advance its agenda of splitting Protestant churches by opposing any denomination’s support for LGBT equality.

IRD’s Vice President Alan Wisdom condemned the coalition’s decision to OneNewsNow, saying, “All major branches of the Christian church -- the Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, the evangelicals, the African-Americans, the historic Protestant denominations for the most part -- agree that God's standard of sexual morality is the marriage of man and woman and that homosexual relationships are not in accord with Christian teaching.” Wisdom also condemned the Metropolitan Community Church, of which Kimer is a member, for its foundational support of gay equality.

The New York Times reports that the IRD opposes women’s and gay rights, and leads “traditionalist insurrections against the liberal politics of the denomination's leaders.” The IRD has ties to ultraconservative organizations including Concerned Women For America’s Beverly LaHaye Institute, the anti-immigrant group Numbers USA, the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, Patrick Henry College and The Weekly Standard, and receives its funding from the right wing Scaife, Bradley, Olin, and Ahmanson Foundations.

Reverend Kapya Kaoma of Political Research Associates reported on how IRD mobilizes church groups in Africa to viciously oppose rights for gays and lesbians and to resist mainline Protestant denominations. In “Globalizing the Culture Wars: U.S. Conservatives, African Churches, and Homophobia,” Rev. Kaoma writes that the IRD encourages anti-gay congregations based in Africa to launch missions in North America as “part of a long-term, deliberate, and successful strategy to weaken and split U.S. mainline denominations, block their powerful progressive social witness promoting social and economic justice, and promote social and economic conservatism in the United States.”