On Friday’s “WallBuilders Live” radio program, David Barton and Rick Green hosted another “good news Friday” broadcast during which they traditionally discuss “good news from around the country that the media doesn’t report!”
During the broadcast, Barton commented on the various marriage victories during the recent election, seeing “good news” in the fact that, despite the wins, polls show that most Americans still do not support marriage equality … which is a claim that should probably be taken with a grain of salt seeing as it came from Barton who repeatedly and falsely claimed that marriage equality only won in three out of the four states where it was on the ballot, asserting that “traditional marriage” was victorious in Minnesota:
There is some good news. There are some storm clouds, we saw storm clouds election night. You look at the marriage amendments; three of the four marriage issues went down. In Minnesota, it almost went down, it was like a 50-50 prop; it should not have been that close that marriage is a man and a woman, but going down in Maine, and going down in Washington, and going down in Maryland but preserving barely in Minnesota.
While we did lose three of the four states and almost lost the fourth state, nationally the support is still high. A poll done on election day found that sixty percent of Americans strongly support marriage as a man and a woman.
It’s a rhetorical victory for same-sex marriage proponents because they say “hey, we won three out of the last four states that voted on this.” Yeah, with about 50.5% support, you know, barely.
There’s no compelling victory here, but nonetheless it’s regrettable we lost those three states but at the same time you still have nearly two to one support for traditional marriage in America.
Does Barton really not know that the amendment to ban gay marriage in Minnesota lost? Maybe he ought to visit the Minnesota for Marriage website, which led the fight to pass the amendment:
As we shared with you following the election last week, and as you’ve probably heard ad nauseum from the media since then, despite our best efforts, a majority of Minnesota voters rejected the proposal to secure the definition of marriage in our state constitution.
…
After looking at the results here and in other states, it is clear that we were swimming against a powerful tide that swept the entire nation. Our opponents raised vastly more resources from gay marriage activists across the country who were determined to make this the year their unbroken losing streak would end. They enjoyed the support of the elite in politics, the media and entertainment. And, perhaps worst of all was that many evangelicals, including some prominent pastors and faith leaders, either refused to support the amendment or just remained silent.
Obviously we are very disappointed in the outcome, but we have no regrets in making the effort. Marriage as the union of one man and one woman has served Minnesota well. As our opponents frequently pointed out, marriage remains the union of a man and a woman even after last week’s vote.
