Pro-family Groups Support Mass. Governor's Attempt to Stop Gay Marriage

Apr 20, 2004 05:50 PM EDT

Many pro-family groups are praising Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s action to stop gay marriage.

Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has filed emergency legislation in an effort to press the state's Supreme Judicial Court for a stay of its homosexual marriage decision that is planned to take place on May 17.

According to Agape Press, Romney, after hearing that Attorney General Tom Reilly refused to seek a rehearing before the SJC, announced last Thursday that he wants to bypass the Democrat attorney general and take the case against homosexual marriage to the court himself. He said he would appoint former SJC Justice Joseph R. Nolan, who criticized the court’s November ruling, to argue the case.

The Family Research Council is commending Governor Romney for taking a bold step “to protect the constitutional process and check the powers of a few justices who are trying to make laws rather than interpret them," they said.

Concerned Women for America, also supports Romney’s decision and urges state lawmakers to act immediately to allow the governor's special counsel to take the case that Reilly has refused to pursue.

Concerned Women for America's chief counsel, Jan LaRue, said Romney is doing exactly what John Adams would want to see and his action is reflective of effort to protect the citizens’ right. "Adams was the principle author of the Massachusetts Constitution, and his words provide ample justification for the governor's action," she said. The constitution declares that the executive, judicial, and legislative branches must maintain separate powers if the state is to remain "a government of laws and not of men."

She added that the four SJC justices, in their "unconscionable ruling" allowing same-sex marriage, "made themselves a government of men and not of laws."

Ron Crews, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, urged citizens to let Massachusetts legislators know that what they want to see is preserving marriage as between one man and one woman so that they could be encouraged to pass the governor’s emergency legislation.

"This decision by them impacts not only the citizens of Massachusetts," he said, "but all of the rest of the nation on what the definition of marriage may be in the future."

While the gay marriage controversy is still pervading the nation, a Christian publisher, World magazine, noted future coming of another battle involving the tax exempt. Joel Belz, publisher and CEO of the magazine said that it is possible for churches, schools, and other charitable organizations to lose their tax exempt status unless they abide by the homosexual activists’ view of tolerance, as they are looking at homosexual rights as racial justice.

Alliance Defense Fund also stated that "it is only a matter of time, application of legal logic, and litigation before it is claimed that sex/gender and sexual orientation/behavior 'discrimination' is akin to racial discrimination, and thus is in all instances contrary to public policy and therefore not 'entitled' to the public benefit of tax exemption."