Friday, October 30, 2009

Religious leaders and faith-based opponents are mounting strong challenges against same-sex marriage legislation in the nation’s capital,

but not all backers of gay marriage are seeing eye to eye on the D.C. bill. The D.C. battles play out as Maine voters prepare to cast ballots Tuesday on whether to repeal the state’s same-sex marriage law.

Both sides in the coast-to-coast battle consider Question 1 on Maine’s ballot to be an issue of whether Mainers will live and let live or the issue of morality will emerge victorious.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington opposes any measure to redefine marriage as other than between a man and a woman. It also says that the D.C. legislation, titled the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act, could trample on the First Amendment.

In written testimony to the D.C. Council, the archdiocese said the current version of the bill “would restrict the free exercise of religious beliefs” and contains “no exemptions for churches and faith-based organizations that oppose gay marriage for religious reasons but provide services to the general public or rent space to individuals or groups outside their faith.”

If there is no “expanded protection for religious conscience,” groups that oppose gay marriage but serve the community at large could be denied access to government facilities and contracts, the archdiocese said. Those groups include adoption services, doctors and nurses, child care and home health aides, and social workers.

Meanwhile, some pockets of the gay community complain that the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act will grant same-sex marriage rights but simultaneously deny another right - domestic partnerships.

The legislation would “discontinue” the registration of new domestic partnerships after Jan. 1, 2011, and allow existing partnerships to continue or “convert” to marriage without requiring the partners to pay additional fees. The problem is that there are varying schools of thought on phasing out partnerships, which were legalized in 1992. For example, some gay-marriage supporters say the issue of domestic partnerships should be debated on its own merits and not muddied with the same-sex marriage bill. Others point to the notarized registration form domestic partners must fill out.

The form, which is supplied by the D.C. Health Department, requires adults to meet several requirements, such as sharing a mutual residence and being at least 18 years old. The form also requires partners to swear, “Neither of us is married or a member of another domestic partnership.”

D.C. Council member David A. Catania, the lawmaker who oversees the Health Department and is the sponsor of the gay-marriage bill, said Monday that “it is at our peril that we cast religious freedom against civil equality.” Opponents disagree.

Two issues are uppermost in any discussions, say opponents of gay marriage and supporters of human rights - God’s law and civil rights. They say proponents of the measure being pushed by Mr. Catania aren’t asking for civil rights, human rights or equal rights.

They want “special rights,” said the Rev. Patrick J. Walker of Washington’s New Macedonia Baptist Church, which has a congregation of 2,100.

Mr. Walker, who can cite chapter and verse from the Bible on the “abomination” of homosexuality, said a cornerstone of the faith-based argument against gay marriage also considers polygamy. Will laws be changed to legalize bigamy and polygamy, child marriages and forced marriages, he asked?

The council held a public hearing Monday, the same day the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics held a hearing to decide whether the gay-marriage question will be put on next year’s ballot. The council is scheduled to hold another hearing on Nov. 2, the day before Maine voters take to the polls.

D.C. voters, who lost round one to the elections board earlier this year but continue to push for a ballot measure, said all eyes and prayers will be on Maine on Tuesday because of the high stakes.

In Maine, voters are battling to repeal a gay-marriage law that was passed in the spring. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, which remains on the front line of the repeal movement, has been asking its parishes to pass a second collection plate during Mass.

The battle line was explained in a homily: “The current public debate is not, despite the efforts of some to so spin it, about civil rights. If it were about civil rights, we would be opposing this repeal effort. It is not about who is a family: Gay persons in committed relationships with or without children are a family. It is not about who you can love. It is about marriage and the definition of marriage: nothing more, nothing less, nothing other.”

If Maine’s same-sex marriage law is upheld, it would be the gay-rights movement’s first victory at the ballot box.

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