ORLANDO,FL - Florida Red and Blue, a political committee opposing Amendment 2, has released a TV ad which is both factually wrong and attempts to mislead and scare senior citizens. The ad will be aired on Florida stations during the Democratic National Convention through out this week.
The campaign commercial has a prominent theme which is repeated three times asserting that the marriage amendment is an attempt by the government to interfere “into our private lives”. Other parts of the ad state that defeating Amendment 2 would “keep government out of our private lives” and that “personal marriage issues should be decided by you, your family and clergy, not by the government.” *
“This ad is just factually wrong and Red and Blue needs to be held accountable for false and misleading advertisements” said John Stemberger, State Chairman of Yes2Marriage.org the official sponsor of the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment. “To the contrary, the citizen initiated and citizen led Amendment 2 has nothing at all to do with government action. It has everything to do with citizen action stopping the government from redefining marriage against their will. Amendment 2 allows the people and not activist judges to decide how marriage will be defined in Florida. This is only the first of a series of ads in an avalanche of fraud and deception that is going to flood the airways in the October.”
The campaign commercial also states* that “Democrats are United against Amendment 2 in Florida.” This is not accurate or factually correct. Over three quarters of a million Florida voters signed a citizen’s initiative petition to get the marriage amendment on the ballot. Well over 33% of those Floridians who signed the petition are registered Democrats. The recent June 3, 2008, Quinnipiac Florida poll demonstrates that a significant 45% of Democratic voters in Florida support Amendment 2.
Senator Barack Obama in the recent Saddleback forum with Rick Warren clearly stated, “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman.” “This hardly seems like unity among Democrats on the issue of the definition of marriage” said Eladio Armesto, the Chairman of the Florida Democratic League who is a major supporter of Amendment 2 in South Florida.
Stemberger said, “Marriage is not a Democratic or a Republican issue. It’s not even a liberal - conservative issue. It is a human issue and a moral issue—and one which Floridians will vote yes on in overwhelming numbers on November 4, 2008.”
Finally, the unanimous Florida Supreme Court made up of Democratic and Republican appointees has ruled that Amendment 2 is about the “singular subject” of marriage and that the effect of the amendment does nothing new as it merely takes the existing law on marriage and places it into the state constitution as 27 other states have done. (1) “Telling senior citizens that they will lose Social Security and or domestic partner benefits by voting yes on 2 is outright fraud and preys upon Florida’s most vulnerable and precious citizens” stated Stemberger.
Amendment 2 has received strong support from the Florida Catholic Conference:
The Catholic Church teaches that “the marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman form with each other an intimate communion of life and love, has been founded and endowed with its own special laws by the Creator. By its very nature it is ordered to the good of the couple, as well as to the generation and education of children. Christ the Lord raised marriage between the baptized to the dignity of a sacrament.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1660)
Unity, indissolubility and openness to fertility are indispensable to marriage. It is only through the union of one man and one woman that the authentic marriage bond can be realized.
The Florida Marriage Protection Amendment will define marriage in our state’s constitution as the legal union of one man and one woman as husband and wife. As evidenced in our 2005 statement, Marriage is Between One Man and One Woman, the bishops of Florida have taken a position in support of Amendment 2.
http://www.flacathconf.org/Marriage.htm
3 comments:
Protecting marriage really is a bi-partisan issue that Democrats can wholeheartedly support. Find out more at www.Yes2Marriage.org.
Amendment 2 has nothing to do with protecting marriage. It is based on misguided religious beliefs, irrational fear, and outright hatred.
People who really care about marriage, families, and children aren't trying to further disenfranchise homosexuals. They are fighting child and spousal abuse, supporting education, fighting crime and drug abuse, keeping the environmental clean, and creating a strong and fair economy.
Amendment 2 is a silly distraction to the real work that needs to be done.
Vote NO on Amendment 2. Stop the arbitrary discrimination and support ALL of Florida's families (even those that don't look like yours). And let's work together to build a just and great society.
This amendment is just another hate-filled attempt on the part of the Religeous Right to shower bigotry upon a given group, a form of institulionalized intolerance that claims to be honoring the letter of "God's Law" while in fact violating the spirit of it.
There is no commandment telling you to hate gays. In fact you should be stoning liars, adulters, idol worshipers, etc. before you give gays a second thought. Don't forget, a gay generation is their only generation; by definition, no kids come from a gay marriage. It's a typically gutless exercise in hate to pass over that much more numerous and common bunch of violators of the law as being 'detrimental to marriage' than it is to focus on an obvious group of 'outsiders'.
The two biggest contributers to divorce are financial problems and infidelity (adultery). Only a supremely deluded person can make the connection that if a gay couple calls themsleves 'married' that has any effect whatsover on my marriage. The stock market collapse is a much more likely culpret.
What is most telling about this is that the Religous Right has been a tool of statecraft for a number of years now, allowing our politicians to speak nonsense and for far too many otherwise-intelligent people to swallow it hook line and sinker. If you've paid any attention, the results of that are not good.
This is a case where issues like survivorship rights, property rights, medical power of attorney, and health benefits are the core of the motive. Do you think Exxon or any other influential corporation wants to pay benefits to another 7-10% of its employess? I don't think so, and you are falling for it. Again.
Give this matter some thought: does the gay couple down the street calling themselves 'married' do as much harm as the adultress hitting on your husband or adulterer sizing up your wife? Ban them. Stone liars. Boycot Covetousness. And Don't bear false witness even if you think you are doing the godly thing.
It's time stop allowing hate to hide inside your faith. Do you think the laws of Islam were intended to be as toxic as they've become in the hands of intolerant fundamentalists? Do you see the parallel with the members of your own faith? A clever person can use the letter of the law to justify almost anything but the spirit of His law demands greater kindness and compassion than we are seeing lurking behind this amendment.
It is not ours to judge. If you want call them Civil Union Partners. It doesn't hurt you.
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