Has the Same-Sex Marriage Debate Helped Pro-Life Advocacy?
A recent Weekly Standard article argued that mainstream media can focus on only one social issue at a time. Thus, since the current hot-button issue is gay marriage, pro-life advocates today face less public criticism (but also have a more difficult time getting media coverage).
"Moral or social conservative candidates all want to talk about their conservative values. The homosexual movement is very aggressive and threatening; it's much easier for a politician who wants to prove they are conservative to jump in and say 'I'm pro-life.'"
Tamara Scott Iowa, campaign co-chair for Michele Bachmann
"Yes, because efforts to uphold the sanctity of marriage and of life are mutually reinforcing. We do not fully protect life if we deny children the right to be born and to have a father and a mother."
Galen Carey vice president, National Association of Evangelicals
"In some respects, it is easier today to advocate for pro-life causes under the radar since abortion is not the most controversial issue of the day. At the same time, we live in a culture that doesn't want to be judgmental about anything—whether gay marriage or abortion."
Janice Shaw Crouse, Concerned Women for America
"The public has protected marriage in every state where it has been on the ballot, yet declined to define pre-born human beings as 'persons.' By contrast, the courts have defied the people's will on marriage, but are increasingly protective of innocent life."
Steven Aden senior counsel, Alliance Defense Fund
"It's the other way around. Many leaders in the pro-marriage fight were first involved in fighting abortion. People who mobilized to protect life are organized to defend marriage. They learned a lot advocating for life and are applying that experience to marriage."
Wendy Wright, interim executive director, C-FAM
"No, the pro-life forces are winning because embryology makes it clear that we're dealing with human life. Also, pro-life parents have been more likely to have babies, so a demographic tidal wave undergirds the pro-life surge."
Richard Land president, SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission
Copyright © 2012 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
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Previous topics for Under Discussion include trademarking church names and logos, the liturgical calendar, pastors and marriage for cohabitating couples, church disruptions, politicians and infidelity, politicians and religious persecution, faith healing and legal protection, pastors' housing allowances, sacred spaces, stinginess, TSA screening, and Christmas carols with questionable theology.
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Matthew Hamilton
I would love to see gay marriage legalized so that we can stop arguing about a topic that does not matter. Then we can finally focus our attention on making abortion illegal and making the death penalty illegal. Let's try to focus on kingdom issues and saving lives instead of wasting our time on issues that don't matter.
Jeff
and on top of that Queen Latifah is a lesbian
Joe River
. . . Sexual corruption is one of the chief symptoms of a sick and decaying society. The right ordering of the relations between the sexes is so important to a culture that any culture which fails to deal realistically with the problem is likely to go to pieces. ------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------- No person has ever been born a homosexual. Yet thousands of people in our country believe they are different by design. They believe there is some natural alteration in their body chemistry that draws them to persons of the same sex, and they say they ought to have free and open homosexual relationships. But God's Word says they are wrong. A homosexual becomes so through lust, or through the pressure of homosexual or bisexual friends or relatives, which leads to experimentation, which leads to demon infestation and control. It is not what God intended. Before the slogans of "gay rights" became so popular, homosexual acts were called "sodomy." That term comes from the city of Sodom, which the Bible describes as one of the most wicked cities on the face of the earth. God's Word for "Gays" God has given us a very explicit ruling on homosexuality. Read what His Word says: Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.... Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants (Lev. 18:22, 24,25). God wiped out entire nations because they practiced homosexuality. Did you know that was in the Bible? It's an awesome thing to think about. Amidst all the clamor for "gay rights," we ought to pay careful attention to what God says about homosexuality. God takes this problem seriously, and He deals with it firmly. He classes homosexuality among the most vile sins of humankind.
abey
Gay relationship is a desolation in the name of a union, inherited from beliefs in False Pagan philosophies, entwined in temple prostitutions & human/child sacrifices of old, seen today in symbolic forms & artistic gestures making it into a deceptive & non productive union to disunion in lust, standing against life, which life is GOD.
Bill Gibbons
I am surprised that CT is advertising Dolly Parton's new movie. Dolly has made it plain the she fully supports same-sex "marriage."