Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver (left) with his wife and Liberty Counsel president Anita Staver. Credit: Liberty University.
After months of preaching that the so-called First Amendment Defense Act was the only way to protect the “religious freedom” of those opposed to marriage equality, one of the nation’s leading anti-LGBT organizations has done a complete 180.
In a press release published Wednesday, Liberty Counsel explained why it abruptly stopped supporting the sweeping federal legislation. As it turns out, the anti-LGBT legal nonprofit that represented antigay Kentucky clerk Kim Davis and a host of other right-wing dissenters wasn’t all that worried about religious freedom. It appears the group was instead primarily concerned with making sure individuals, businesses, and federal contractors could discriminate against LGBT people without “punishment” from the government.
So after the bill’s lead sponsor in the House, Idaho Rep. Raul Labrador, revealed a change in the language of House Resolution 2802 that would protect people from adverse government action regarding any “religious belief or moral conviction” about marriage, Liberty Counsel balked. While the draft bill posted on Rep. Labrador’s website is dated July 7, the official congressional page for the bill has not been updated since it was introduced June 17.
“For the first time, the federal government under the proposed FADA will formerly [sic] recognize and condone same-sex marriage on par with the natural marriage,” read Wednesday’s press release. “Liberty Counsel can no longer support FADA unless the proposed amendment is abandoned and FADA returns to its original language of marriage being between one man and one woman.”
Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver went on to “urge all members of Congress to reject the proposed amendments to the First Amendment Defense Act that include same-sex marriage,” promising that “pro-family” organizations will not be able to support the legislation unless it singles out same-sex couples for legalized discrimination. The antigay language in FADA is “necessary to protect people of faith,” Staver concluded.
Seems to me that what ‘people of faith’ need is lot of quiet time. Quiet time used to reflect on your personal morals not only being evil, but being used as the justification to treat other people as objects to be crushed.
The Advocate has the full story.
I can’t even.
You know, those organic, free-range, MSG-free, locally produced marriages? As opposed to…?
They make it sound like marriage just pops up and happens, regardless of the individuals involved, but only if they are mixed sex, mind!
I shouldn’t say, but I’m always a tad creeped when I see the Stavers together, they look so much like siblings.
How does a “natural marriage” differ from a “traditional marriage”? I know that traditional marriage is the process of a man purchasing a woman from its current owner…
The hell is natural marriage?
Oh. Well, how do I tell those apart from all the other marriages?
(Also, you forgot GMO-free…)
“Pro-family” organizations are just like other eupemistically titled theocratic organizations: the opposite of what the title implies. They read “1984” and thought it was a work of non-fiction.