“This is a good day for the revolution,” said Traditional Values Coalition spokesman James Lafferty following the decision by New York State’s highest court to end a lawsuit seeking marriage rights for same-sex couples. The Right Wing roundly applauded the New York decision, in which a judge cited his own “Intuition and experience” in matters of child-rearing, and applauded another decision in Georgia that a constitutional amendment was not improperly posed on the ballot. But despite their victories, activists on the Right are still pushing for a federal constitutional amendment. “The only real solution will be a federal marriage amendment because we believe there are forces that will not stop as long as there is any chance for them to advance their agenda,” said Rev. Bill Banuchi, executive director of the Christian Coalition of New York.
The American Family Association told its supporters in an e-mail that “This is a good day for pro-family folk in New York and Georgia.
But this fight is far from over. The high courts of the states of Washington, California and New Jersey will be making decisions on the issue of same-sex marriage, and no one knows how they’ll rule. Plus, federal judges are already getting in on the debate over marriage and family. These institutions will never be safe until the U.S. Constitution is amended to declare that marriage is between one man and one woman. The U.S. House of Representatives will be taking up the Marriage Protection Act in the near future, so we’ll be asking you to contact your congressman or congresswoman at that time.
In an almost identical press release, Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council said,
Today, the high courts in New York and Georgia fulfilled their duty by upholding state laws defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. We applaud today’s rulings, which recognize the right of the legislature and the people to regulate marriage for the good of children and society … However, the only sure way to protect the country against more rogue decisions like the one in Massachusetts in 2003–including ones at the federal level–is through passage of a Marriage Protection Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
