For conservative
Christian activists, this month's California supreme
court ruling legalizing gay marriage provides an opportunity
to rekindle interest in an issue that has fallen well
behind the price of gas in the national consciousness.
But it won't be
easy, and not just because of pressing secular issues
like the housing downturn and an unpopular war in Iraq.
Voices within
evangelicalism are pushing for a broader agenda, and
evidence suggests younger evangelicals are more accepting of
gays and lesbians. Meanwhile, amendments against
gay marriage are on the ballot in only a few states,
and the issue doesn't play to presumptive GOP
presidential nominee John McCain's strengths.
Yet opponents of
gay marriage say the California ruling will help them
broaden their religious coalitions to include more Hispanic
Catholics and evangelicals.
The ruling, they
say, made their argument for them: Constitutional
measures are needed to prevent judges from subverting the
will of the people and reinventing a sacred
institution they believe is central to society's
well-being and part of God's design.
''I think the
California decision does refocus our movement on the threat
of marriage being redefined,'' said John Stemberger, who as
head of the Florida Family Policy Council is
supporting a proposed amendment in that swing state
that would define marriage as between one man and one woman.
It would also prohibit civil unions from providing the same
benefits of marriage.
Thirteen states
approved amendments in 2004 prohibiting gay marriage, a
reaction to a Massachusetts supreme court legalizing
same-sex marriage the year before.
Conservative
Christian groups credited the marriage measures with
inspiring ''values voter'' turnout and helping to reelect
President Bush. Several studies disputed that, showing
partisanship, the Iraq War, and national security were
far more important factors nationally.
Other research,
however, found that in Ohio, a battleground state that
went for Bush, a successful amendment banning gay marriage
did move votes toward the president.
Clyde Wilcox, a
Georgetown University political scientist who reached
that conclusion in his study of the Ohio vote, said that
four years later things have changed: Far fewer states
have a marriage issue on the ballot, conservatives'
''raw fear'' of gay marriage has declined, and McCain
opposes a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay
marriage, an amendment Bush supported.
''I think in a
year of war and a weak economy -- not to mention race as a
campaign issue -- that this will not be nearly as big as
before,'' Wilcox said.
McCain has said
he thinks defining marriage should be decided by states,
and in 2006 he supported an anti-gay marriage
amendment in his home state of Arizona.
It failed, the
first such amendment to do so. A bill that would return
the question to the November ballot is pending before the
state's Republican-controlled senate.
Already,
activists in Arizona are looking to California to make their
case a second time.
''The California
decision shows exactly why the people of Arizona should
vote for a marriage definition in November and not leave it
for judges or politicians,'' said Cathi Herrod of the
Center for Arizona Policy, an affiliate of the
conservative Christian group Focus on the Family.
California is the
third state gearing up for gay marriage amendment
campaign this fall, significant because some analysts think
McCain can challenge the Democratic nominee there.
''The malaise
that some (conservative Christians) felt about the upcoming
election has in large part been wiped away by the California
decision,'' said Mathew Staver of the conservative
Christian legal group Liberty Counsel, who is raising
money to overturn the California decision. He also
coauthored the proposed Florida amendment.
The California
decision not only deepens the resolve of religious
conservatives, Staver said, but should anger ''people who
might not otherwise get involved in values. Most
people do not respond well to having four judges
determine the definition of marriage.''
In Florida and
elsewhere, efforts to broaden support to include more
Hispanic Christians are intensifying. The Virginia-based
Alliance for Marriage Foundation is uniting Hispanic
evangelical and Catholic leaders to ''stand up for
marriage'' at rallies this summer in Denver and
Minneapolis during the Democratic and Republican National
Conventions, respectively.
''We believe
that, demographically, the Latino community is very much the
future of our cause,'' said Matt Daniels, the foundation's
president. ''Because they are an immigrant community,
they have largely been silent in the debate.''
Nearly nine in 10
Hispanic evangelicals oppose legalizing gay marriage,
while slightly more than half of Hispanic Catholics are
opposed, according to a survey last year by the Pew
Forum on Religion and Public Life.
Polls also show,
however, that younger evangelicals are more accepting of
homosexuality than previous generations. The Reverend Adam
Hamilton, pastor of 15,000-member United Methodist
Church of the Resurrection in suburban Kansas City,
Mo., said he is witnessing a shift that could alter
the conventional wisdom about marriage amendments turning
out evangelical votes.
''There are an
increasing number of people who are trying to find a third
way between the Left, which tends to discard biblical
teaching regarding sex outside marriage, and those who
have made homosexuality the central concern of the
Christian faith,'' said Hamilton, who describes himself as
evangelical. ''They are trying to see the gray between the
black-and-white.''
The California
decision also comes as a growing chorus of evangelical
leaders say the movement's agenda should broaden to include
poverty, global warming, and AIDS.
Richard Mouw,
president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena,
Calif., is among a group of leaders who this month released
''An Evangelical Manifesto,'' a document calling for
''an expansion of our concern beyond single-issue
politics, such as abortion and marriage.''
Before the
California decision, Mouw said gay marriage was on the
margins of the evangelical agenda. Now, he predicted,
it will move back to the center.
Mouw said he
worries about evangelicals' angry rhetoric as well
as gay rights supporters who portray gay marriage foes
as homophobic and the equivalent of racists.
''The more it
looks like this agenda is going to carry the day
nationally, the more evangelicals are going to be pushed
back into a movement of very narrow focus that a lot
of us have been trying to get out of,'' Mouw said.
''For those of us who are trying to broaden the
dialogue, [the California decision] was not the right thing
to have happen." (Eric Gorski, AP)
