Topic: CNSNews.com
If CNSNews.com's coverage of the congressional advancement of the Respect for Marriage Act was highly biased, claims made by CNS columnists were even more so. Catholic priest-turned-right-wing demogogue Michael Orsi ferarmongered about the bill in his Nov. 22 column:
Now we are presented with something called the Respect for Marriage Act. And a less accurate legislative title can hardly be imagined.
This bit of political sleight-of-hand doesn’t respect marriage at all — at least not marriage as it’s always been understood. What we have here instead is a brazen attempt to force people of faith into accepting relationships that are contrary to God’s law, and consequently have been considered evil by virtually every traditional religion from the beginning of civilization.
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The Respect for Marriage Act — which would more accurately be called the Disrespect for Marriage Act — is only the latest sign that our society has become almost overwhelmingly secularist.
This legislation is nothing more than a tool for religious persecution. Get ready, because persecution is coming.
Editor Terry Jeffrey spent his Nov. 30 column remembering the good ol' days when Supreme Court justices nominated by both Democratic and Republican presidents hated LGBT people equally, but the Lawrence v. Texas rulling, which found "that there is a right to same-sex sodomy, " and the Obergefell decision finding that "the 14th Amendment did protect a 'right' to same-sex marriage" changed all that, leading to the bill at hand:
This month, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced the Respect for Marriage Act on the Senate floor. It would effectively require nationwide recognition of same-sex marriages even if the Supreme Court were to overturn Obergefell.
Yet apparently even the authors of this bill were concerned that it might help pave the way for expanding the institution of marriage beyond even same-sex unions.
They titled one of its sections: "No Federal Recognition of Polygamous Marriages."
A Dec. 1 column by Roger Severino of the right-wing Heritage Foundation served up a biased purpored "Fact-Checking 7 Claims by Defenders of Democrats’ Same-Sex Marriage Bill," going on to complain:
Christians, Muslims, and Jews with sincere, historic, reasonable (and true) beliefs about human sexual morality and identity have been under accelerated attack by activists and government ever since the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell, despite assurances by same-sex marriage advocates that a “live and let live” world would follow that decision.
The proposed Respect for Marriage Act would supercharge these attacks. The gestures toward religious liberty in the most recent version of the bill do not change this fact.
A Dec. 7 syndicated colunn by Star Parker made an outrageous comparison of the Obergefell decision to the Dred Scott decision that perpetuated slavery:
With the passage of the 14th Amendment, the American people restored the truth and integrity of the word "citizen" -- "All persons born and naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" -- and obliterated a corrupt, ideological ruling of the Supreme Court.
The Obergefell decision did to the word "marriage" what the Dred Scott decision did to the word "citizen."
It took a civil war to bring forth the 14th Amendment. What will it take to restore how, as a society, we understand what it means to be married?
Meanwhile, Parker cares nothing about the rights of people not like her.
