WASHINGTON - Gary Bauer, former Republican presidential candidate and Campaign for Working Families founder, today issued the following statement regarding yesterday's vote in the Vermont State Senate:
"By approving same-sex marriage in everything but name, the Vermont Legislature has taken a major step toward radically redefining our most important social institution and overturning four thousand years of Judeo-Christian moral teaching.
"Driven to this reckless action by an autocratic state supreme court ruling, Vermont is poised to place homosexual relationships on the same legal footing as marriage. Worse, the Vermont Senate rejected a constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman and referred this profound moral issue to the verdict of the people.
"Once Gov. Howard Dean signs this subversive bill into law, as he has promised, it will only be a matter of time before the radical homosexual activists appeal to the federal courts to compel other states to recognize Vermont's 'civil unions.' It is not clear that even under the terms of the Defense of Marriage Act passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton in 1996 that the federal courts will allow other states to reject Vermont's same-sex unions.
"Same-sex marriage has been rejected in every state where the people have had the opportunity to vote on the issue. The homosexual lobby has sought to achieve in the courts what it cannot accomplish through the open democratic process. Vermont's action is a significant step toward getting the issue into the hands of the federal courts.
"This is why I characterized the original Vermont Supreme Court ruling as an act of judicial activism. Granting same-sex unions the same moral and legal standing as marriage, against the will of the American people, is destructive of society's most important institution. At a time when Americans increasingly are concerned over the breakdown of the family, marriage and morality, this action is extremely damaging." |
