Old Orchard Beach, Maine --- Conservative polygamy activists had been noting that, until recently, President Bush had not outrightly supported the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment. In his State of the Union address, Bush had only supported the constitutional "process."
A series of news events in February, 2004, however, changed everything.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court re-affirmed its Goodridge decision. Massachusetts may not exclusively license heterosexual civil marriages and simultaneously create civil unions for others. Subsequently, the city of San Francisco, California, and a county in New Mexico both began defying their respective state laws, issuing civil marriage licenses to "same-sex couples." On February 24th, President Bush responded by officially announcing his support for the marriage amendment.
Mark Henkel, national polygamy advocate and founder of the Christian polygamy --- non-Mormon --- organization, TruthBearer.org ( www.TruthBearer.org ), expressed his disappointment in the announcement. "As a constitutionalist conservative, I am sad to see that the supposed-to-be conservative President has now joined --what I've dubbed as-- the 'New Liberals.'"
Henkel argues that true conservatism is about the rights of the individual and limited government. In his view, a rapidly rising number of "alleged conservatives" are now reversing those principles as an ideology.
President Bush's latest announcement stated that it was important for government to protect an important "social institution" as marriage. To Henkel, that is liberalism. "As a Christian who supports the true Biblical marriages of polygamists Abraham, Israel, Moses, and David, I do understand not supporting homosexual practices. Even so, using the false god of big socialist government for any form of social engineering is ungodly and purely liberal.
"And so is 'let-the-majority-rule democracy.' Many 'New Liberals' used to rightly cry, 'Democracy is two wolves and one sheep voting on what's for dinner.' But now, it's, 'Let the collective decide.' The rights of 'the people' over the constitutional rights of the non-criminal individual is Marxist collectivism. That's more than just liberalism. It's socialism."
Henkel also says that the marriage amendment is being sold via deceptive demagoguery. "The 'New Liberals' sell it as supposedly 'protecting marriage,' which most people support, of course. But it's not about real marriage. It certainly has nothing to do with the Bible's definition, which never once used the false god of government for marriage. Actually, the amendment is only about protecting the idolatrous idea of 'government marriage,' known as civil marriage. Good people are getting demagoguery instead of having that important difference explained."
Henkel believes that Bush and others like him have simply caved in to that misrepresentation out of an otherwise genuine desire to stand up for true marriage.
According to Henkel, "If you really want to protect true marriage with a capital-M, then stop abominating it with the liberal and ungodly social engineering idea of 'government marriage.' Do the truly conservative thing. As I have been saying for years, get the false god of big socialist government out of marriage altogether. Then no one will have to recognize, support, or interfere with anyone else's decisions about marriage ---whether it's real, fictional, or otherwise."
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