CAN LIBERALS OPPOSE GAY MARRIAGE? Maggie Gallagher

One of the things that happened when MarriageDebate.com went to D.C. aka the Cornyn DOMA hearings, is the testimony of the Rev. and Dr. Ray Hammond, an extremely well-known and well-regarded inner-city pastor and reformer who is on the board of the Alliance for Marriage. Sen. Kennedy went out of his way to compliment Dr. Hammond, despite his support of the FMA, as this story from the Boston Globe. Is it still possible to oppose gay marriage and still be a liberal in good standing? Or are all the "good" people on one side and only bigots on the other? Excerpts below:

"NEWS: On this Isssue, Allies are on Opposite Sides

By Yvonne Abraham, Boston Globe Staff, 9/16/2003

"They have stood together on many an issue, from protecting welfare benefits to curbing youth violence.

But earlier this month, the Rev. Ray Hammond and US Senator Edward M. Kennedy sat in a Senate hearing room on opposite sides of another major question of the day: a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gays and lesbians from legal marriage.

Hammond, pastor of Bethel AME Church and one of the Boston's most prominent community leaders, supports the amendment because he believes same-sex marriage would multiply the number of fatherless families. Kennedy opposes the amendment.

That difference of opinion has surprised and distressed some of Boston's gay and lesbian activists, who argue that Hammond's opposition to same-sex marriage is at odds with his long record as a liberal on other social issues.

"A lot of people locally were shocked," said Mary Bonauto, a lawyer for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders. "He's obviously a very impressive individual and he does incredibly important work, but it's puzzling at a minimum to understand why this is going to be part of his activism."

But Hammond's stand has delighted opponents of same-sex marriage, who see hard-to-pigeonhole supporters like him as the best way to broaden support for their efforts to restrict marriage to heterosexual unions.

Still, Hammond cannot fathom why anybody could think his testimony unforeseen, or read it as antigay. "I'm surprised they're surprised," he said. "This is a view I've articulated for a number of years."

In his testimony before Congress on Sept. 4, Hammond said he supported the amendment in the interests of combating "the epidemic level of fatherlessness in America."

He said his stance reflects that of the community he serves, that the "understanding of marriage as the union of male and female is so fundamental to the African-American community that over 70 percent of all African-Americans in the United States would currently favor a constitutional amendment" like the Federal Marriage Amendment.

"The courts in America are poised to erase the legal road map to marriage and the family," he testified. "If allowed to continue, this revolution will deprive future generations the . . . road map they will need to have a fighting chance to find their way out of the social wilderness of family disintegration."

Without a definition of marriage that restricts it to heterosexual unions, the institution is weakened, Hammond said in an interview. "Marriage is more than a contract and just the love between two people," he said. "[It is the] place where one of the critical divides in the human race is worked on, and hopefully reconciled. This is where kids can see: this is how men and women work together."

Hammond, a married father of two daughters, took great pains to point out that he is in favor of extending many rights to gays and lesbians that heterosexual partners take for granted: "I am not accusing gay and lesbian people of being responsible for the breakdown of the American family," he said.

Copies of Hammond's testimony have been doing the rounds for days among gay and lesbian activists, said Gary Daffin, cochairman of the Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus. "People are definitely talking about it," said Daffin, who also works on HIV prevention, sometimes with Hammond's Ten Point Coalition. "This is someone who testified from Boston, who is not a nut, and someone that a lot of us respect."

Several gay activists said they would contact Hammond to explain their position to him.
"Everyone says that if he understood how harmful the amendment would be to gay families, he would never support it," said Arline Isaacson , a board member of MassEquality, a coalition of gay- and lesbian-rights advocacy groups. "Talking about fatherlessness is so completely and totally off topic to this issue. It is a typical strategy of the radical right to use ministers and have them talk about fatherlessness because it confuses the issue."

Though he disagrees with Hammond on the issue, Kennedy said he was comfortable with the pastor's commitment to gay and lesbian rights. "I'm a big booster and supporter of what he does in the community," Kennedy said. "We may not agree on all same-sex issues . . . but I believe he understands there ought to be protections for gays and lesbians."

posted by maggie at 2:56 PM | link

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