Faith group ready to fight same-sex marriage

Faith group ready to fight same-sex marriage

By MATTHEW ARCO
Legislative Gazette Staff Writer
Mon, Mar 23, 2009

Halting the expansion of marriage for same-sex couples and supporting religious exemptions for abortions at certain medical facilities are among the top issues for more than 1,300 Evangelical and Pentecostal New Yorkers who came to Albany last Tuesday to lobby lawmakers.

The New Yorker’s Family Research Foundation Inc. in conjunction with New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms held their annual legislative day to raise awareness of the issues they oppose and “put out the fires,” said the Rev. Jason McGuire, legislative director of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms.

Allowing women of any age access to contraception and pulling state funding from hospitals that refuse to perform abortions on religious grounds are aspects of potential legislation the groups oppose, McGuire said. Although there are no current bills on the Senate or Assembly floor dealing with these issues so far this session, McGuire points out Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, D-St. Albans, has already pledged his support to advance Planned Parenthood’s priorities.

Any bill that would redefine the meaning of marriage is another fire McGuire said the groups are planning to fight.

They say marriage laws are not discriminatory — rather applicants for marriage must meet minimal requirements, such as finding an opposite-sex spouse — and argue religious freedom is at stake. The groups warned if New York passes new gay marriage or civil union laws, the definition of marriage would be destroyed and the meaning rendered useless.

Speakers included attorney David Gibbs, best known for his role in the controversial case of Terry Schiavo, and Lila Rose, a pro-life activist who at 15 years old started a campaign to investigate and expose illegal procedures in Planned Parenthoods around the country.

“It’s time for Christians to speak up,” Gibbs said to the crowd. “You have people [in America] doing what they think is best with no controlling moral authority.”

Gibbs spoke about the dangers of a nation knowing less and less about the word of God and told people to pray for their representatives in state government. He warned legislation meant to expand abortion rights and permit same-sex marriage would lead to a morally corrupted nation.

“Homosexuals are more protected under the law than Christians are,” he said before asking the question, “Where’s it all going?”

He urged the audience to speak to legislators about the importance of the word of God when they write legislation.

“Your being here is a statement that you understand the power of the Christian voice,” said Gibbs.

Rose, president of Live Action and a frequent guest on The O’Reilly Factor and Hannity’s America, talked about how at a young age she began dedicating her time to exposing what she described as racism and sexual abuse cover-ups by Planned Parenthood.

She showed the audience one of her group’s newest videos named The Mona Lisa Project, which is one of a series of hidden camera investigations documenting “Planned Parenthood’s willingness to repeatedly violate mandatory reporting laws for statutory rape that protects children,” according to the group’s Web site.

The video showed Rose, disguised as a 13-year-old who was impregnated by a man in his early 30s looking to get an abortion, told by a Planned Parenthood worker to lie about her age on paperwork so the young girl’s parents wouldn’t find out about her pregnancy.

Rose said according to state laws where the video was filmed, the Planned Parenthood worker was required to report the young girl’s pregnancy to authorities due to her young age, and the age of the man who supposedly impregnated her.

“I didn’t hear the age, I don’t want to know the age,” the undisclosed worker said in the video.

Additional legislation the groups oppose include a bill intended to fund comprehensive sexual education in public schools and a bill meant to prohibit harassment and bullying in public schools on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Radical Expansion of Abortion

This bill, known as the Reproductive. Health and Privacy Protection Act (RI-IAPP), was first introduced by former Governor Eliot Spitzer in 2008 and was carried in the State Senate by Senator Andrea Stewart- Cousins (D — Yonkers). The bill was deemed too radical for even the liberal Democratic leadership in the State Assembly and never found a sponsor in that house. Though the bill has not yet been introduced this session, it is on Family Planning Advocates legislative agenda. The new Senate Majority Leader, Senator Malcolm Smith (D — Queens) has pledged his support to advance Planned Parenthood’s priorities. The Reproductive Health Act (RHA), as it is currently being identified as, would be the greatest expansion of abortion rights since Rae v. Wade. The bill has many flaws, including violation of religious freedoms and removing what few restrictions exist on abortion, ultimately endangering women. RHA would:
• Establish a fundamental right to abortion.
• Allow even full-term abortions.
• Not require abortions be done in a hospital, even after viability.
• Not require a physician, prior to viability, only a healthcare practitioner.
• Remove five abortion crimes from the penal law.
• Remove unborn children from the definition of homicide.
• Permit females of any age access to any form of contraception, including the dangerous RU486. • Not provide a religious exemption for religious medical facilities or employees, thereby requiring that religious hospitals must perform abortions.
In summary, under this legislation, abortion would be decnminalized, less safe and more available. It undermines parental rights and authority. It prohibits a woman’s right to know and her informed consent.