The Conservative Action Project (CAP) just released a Memo for the Movement entitled "Conservatives Must Reject the So-Called 'Respect for Marriage Act.'" By introducing the “Respect for Marriage Act” mandating that social and religious conservatives accept same-
sex marriage under threat of law, Democrats have taken another step in their campaign to destroy the foundational unit of society – marriage between one man and one woman.
Conservatives must oppose this latest intrusion of sexual politics into the religious life of Americans. The nearly 100 signers of the CAP Memo for the Movement and many other conservatives oppose the bill, and we join them by urging CHQ readers and friends to call their Representative and Senators (the Capitol Switchboard is 1-866-220-0044) to demand they vote NO on the Democrats’ inaptly-named Respect for Marriage Act.
The CAP Memo for the Movement and list of signers follows.
July 26, 2022
Washington, DC
The inaptly-named Respect for Marriage Act seeks to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 (DOMA) and codify the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) to legalize same-sex marriage. Such a troublesome policy pronouncement by Congress in favor of same-sex marriage would not only legislate a harmful, anti-family policy but also would unleash further religious freedom violations, threaten the tax-exempt status of religious entities, and wrongly marginalize social conservatives.
Even before Obergefell, government actors were using the levers of state power to go after those who disagreed with this new orthodoxy:
* Barronelle Stutzman, the Washington state florist who was sued by the state and would eventually be forced to sell her business in order to avoid government confiscation of all of her personal assets, simply because she could not make custom floral arrangements for her long-time customer’s same-sex wedding.
* Aaron and Melissa Klein, the owners of Sweetcakes by Melissa, who were sued by the state and fined $135,000 for declining to bake a custom cake for a same-sex wedding.
* Jack Phillips, the Colorado baker who has been to the U.S. Supreme Court twice to defend his First Amendment right not to make expressive cakes celebrating same-sex marriages. He is now being sued a third time by the state because he cannot create a gender transition cake in good conscience.
* Dick and Betty Odgaard, whom the Iowa Civil Rights Commission tried to force to rent their gallery space (a former church) to a same-sex couple for said couple’s wedding ceremony. As a part of a settlement agreement to end the litigation, Dick and Betty agreed to pay the couple thousands of dollars and not host any more weddings.
* Cynthia and Robert Gifford, who were fined $13,000 and ordered to implement staff re-education training classes that contradicted the couple’s beliefs on marriage. The couple had been willing to make their farm available for a same-sex wedding reception but not the ceremony itself.
* A Methodist congregation that ceased making a pavilion located on church-owned property available for weddings after the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights held that the church was required to host civil unions.
* Atlanta fire chief Kelvin Cochran, who was suspended and ultimately fired from his job for authoring and giving away, on his own time, a devotional book that touched on the biblical model of marriage being one man and one woman.
* Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who declined to sign the marriage license (as then required by state law) for a same-sex couple. She was willing for her staff to sign the form, but that accommodation was not allowed by state law at the time. Writing about her case, Justice Clarence Thomas said, “those with sincerely held religious beliefs concerning marriage will find it increasingly difficult to participate in society without running afoul” of Obergefell “and its effect on other antidiscrimination laws.”
* The (reportedly dozens) of magistrates in North Carolina that the attorney general forced to resign in 2014 for refusing to perform same-sex marriages. One finally won her case in 2018 for $300,000.
* The judge in Washington state who was admonished by the state bar for daring to express his preference not to perform same-sex marriages.
Yet that was only the beginning. The Court’s decision in Obergefell unleashed religious freedom violations across the land, launching a new era of harassment and coercion of millions of Americans who hold a sincere religious belief or moral conviction that marriage is, or ought to be, between one man and one woman. President Barack Obama’s solicitor general signaled at this during oral argument in the case, saying that it was “certainly going to be an issue” if schools with a moral code of conduct prohibiting extramarital sexual involvement, including homosexuality, wanted to retain their tax-exempt status in the wake of the ruling.
The Respect for Marriage Act will further usher in this new era of oppression. Not only does it increase the threat of legal liability for those who decline to affirm same-sex marriage, but it would help cement a “national public policy” on same-sex marriage that would have drastic consequences. In Bob Jones University v. United States, the Supreme Court looked at whether a school’s actions were contrary to a “fundamental national public policy” to determine whether tax exemption could be denied to that school. If this bill becomes law, the executive branch could argue that same-sex marriage is a “fundamental national public policy” to justify the denial of the tax-exempt status of schools and other entities that decline to affirm same-sex marriage.
DOMA, which recognized natural marriage in federal law, was approved in 1996 by overwhelming bipartisan majorities in both chambers of Congress (342-67 in the House, 85-14 in the Senate). Nothing has changed about the science behind natural marriage; it is still in children’s best interest to be raised in homes with a married mother and father. This was true thousands of years ago, twenty-five years ago, and is still true today.
Further, the Respect for Marriage Act doesn’t “merely” codify United States v. Windsor, which struck down Section 3 of DOMA; it fully repeals DOMA, which has never been done. Under this bill, if any state recognized polyamorous marriages, the federal government would be forced to recognize them as well (as a matter of federal law).
Natural marriage is part of the very fabric of a free society. It is a pre-political institution that has existed for millennia. It was wrong of the Supreme Court to rule against the federal definition of marriage in Windsor, it was wrong to overrule over 30 states that recognized natural marriage in Obergefell, and it is wrong for Congress to attempt to legislate the redefinition of marriage now.
The Respect for Marriage Act must be rejected.
The Honorable Edwin Meese III
Attorney General
President Ronald Reagan (1985-1988)
The Honorable J. Kenneth Blackwell
Chairman, Conservative Action Project
Chairman, CNP Action, Inc.
The Honorable Tony Perkins
President
Family Research Council
Terry Schilling
President
American Principles Project
The Honorable Russ Vought
Director, Office of Management and Budget (2020-2021)
Kelly J. Shackelford, Esq.
President and CEO
First Liberty Institute
Chad Connelly
Founder and President
Faith Wins
William L. Walton
The Bill Walton Show
Resolute Protector Foundation
Marty Dannenfelser
Vice President for Government Relations and Coalitions,
Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE)
Lori Roman
President
ACRU Action Fund
Ed Corrigan
Vice Chairman, Conservative Action Project and
President & CEO, Conservative Partnership Institute
Kevin Roberts, Ph.D.
President
The Heritage Foundation
Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D.
President
The Ethics and Public Policy Center
Travis Weber
Vice President for Policy
Family Research Council
Anne Schlafly Cori
Chairman
Eagle Forum
Michelle Easton
President, Clare Boothe Luce Center for Conservative Women
Jon Schweppe
Policy Director
American Principles Project
Guillermo J. Aragon
Chief Strategy Officer
Martin Capital
Lourdes Cosio
Campaign for the American Future
Shawn A. Mitchell
Former National Chaplain, National Federation of Republican Assemblies
Karen England
President, Nevada Family Alliance & Capitol Resource Institute
Dr. Paige Patterson
President
Sandy Creek Foundation
Peggy Dau
Co-Founder
Nationsnet.org
Gary Marx
President
Madison Strategies
Richard H. Wright
Owner
R & S LLC
Allen J. Hebert
Chairman
American-Chinese Fellowship
Steve Berger
President
ASI
Alan Sears
Founder
Alliance Defending Freedom
Dr. E. Calvin Beisner
President, Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation
Ron Pearson
Executive Director
Conservative Victory Fund
Richard D. Hayes
Partner
Hayes, Berry, White & Vanzant
James L. Martin
Founder/Chairman
60 Plus Association
Rick Rounsavelle
Trustee
MRC
Kielle C. Horton
President
The Lindsey Foundation
Jay Mount
President
MDS Communications Corporation
Mat Staver
Founder and Chairman
Liberty Counsel
William W. Pascoe, III
Our Man in Washington
Tea Party Patriots Action
Sheryl Kaufman
Board Member
Americans for Limited Government
Dr. Chris Hughes
Founder & Chairman
Citizens for America Foundation
Jonathan M. Alexandre, Esq.
Senior Counsel for Governmental Affairs
Liberty Counsel Action
Tom DeWeese
President
American Policy Center
Joan Holt Lindsey
President
Lindsey Communications
Tim Throckmorton
President
Lifepointe Ministries
Cleta Mitchell, Esq.
Senior Legal Fellow
Conservative Partnership Institute
The Honorable Morton C. Blackwell
President
The Leadership Institute
David N. Bossie
President
Citizens United
David Bozell
President
ForAmerica
The Honorable T. Kenneth Cribb, Jr.
Chief Domestic Advisor
President Ronald Reagan (1987-1988)
Star Parker
President & Founder, Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE)
Thomas E. McClusky
Principal
Greenlight Strategies, LLC
The Honorable Jim DeMint
Chairman, Conservative Partnership Institute
Member, US Senate (SC 2005-2013)
Brian Burch
President
CatholicVote
Penny Nance
President & CEO, Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee
The Honorable Timothy Huelskamp, Ph.D.
Member of Congress (retired)
1st District of Kansas
Jeff Hunt
Director, Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University
Andresen Blom
President
Hawaiian Values
Judson Phillips
Founder
Tea Party Nation
Rod D. Martin
Founder & CEO
The Martin Organization, Inc.
Christina Murphy Lusk
President
The Martin Foundation
Sherri R. Martin
Executive Vice President
The Martin Organization, Inc.
Floyd Brown
Founder
The Western Journal
Mark Fitzgibbons
President of Corporate Affairs
American Target Advertising
Shannon O. Royce
President
Christian Employers Alliance
Saulius "Saul" Anuzis
President
60 Plus Association
Paavo Ensio
Chairman
Universal Minerals Group
C. Preston Noell III
President
Tradition, Family, Property, Inc.
Don Woodsmall
Interim President
Center for Security Policy
Elaine Donnelly
President
Center for Military Readiness
Dr. Jerome R. Corsi
Founder of DrJeromeCorsi.com
JRC Publishing LLC
The Honorable George K. Rasley Jr.
Managing Editor
ConservativeHQ.com
The Honorable Mike Hill
Former Member
Florida State Representative
Michael Lunsford
Executive Director
Citizens for a New Louisiana
The Honorable Rick Green
Founder
Patriot Academy
Lee Beaman
CEO
Beaman Ventures
Rod Vandenbos
CEO
R2 LLC
The Honorable Peter J. Thomas
Chairman
Conservative Caucus
Dr. Richard G Lee.
President
There's Hope America
Kristen A. Ullman, JD
President
Eagle Forum
Melvin Adams
President
Noah Webster Educational Foundation
Eunie Smith
President Emeritus
Eagle Forum
Brian Rogers
President
The Jesse Helms Center
Mario Navarro da Costa
Director, Washington Bureau
Tradition, Family, Property
Robert K. Fischer
Meeting Coordinator
Conservatives of Faith
Ben Case
Dobbs decision
Respect for Same-Sex Marriage Act
traditional marriage
Dobbs decision
privacy
sexual politics
LGBTQ agenda
Defense of Marriage Act of 1996
Obergefell v. Hodges
tax exempt status
DOMA
United States v. Windsor