\n\t\tThe minority very much hoped to call a witness today at this hearing to testify in support of DOMA. I am sure she would have done an excellent job.<\/p>\n

\n\t\tShe declined, however, citing as one reason the threats and intimidation that have been leveled against not only her but her family as a result of her public support for DOMA. She will continue to write on this subject, but will no longer speak publicly about it. This chilling of First Amendment rights is unacceptable.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\tWhen Chris Johnson, a reporter from the Washington Blade<\/em>, called and asked if that woman was me, I was at first amused. No, of course not. I am not refusing to make public appearances. I was not invited this time.  <\/p>\n

\n\tBut I could sympathize. I just returned from interviewing a Toronto sportscaster who was fired for tweeting that he believed \u201cin the true and authentic meaning of marriage.\u201d Next week, I will go to North Carolina to interview another man whose contract was terminated when the HR head of his company found out he had written against gay marriage.  <\/p>\n

\tThe death threats and hateful mail New York state senator Rev. Ruben Diaz says he has received are not unusual. Whole professions are in the process of being closed to anyone who espouses \u2014 and acts \u2014 on the view that marriage is the union of husband and wife.<\/p>\n

\n\tFox News is not covering this. Conservative media outlets, except for a few beacons such as NR, are virtually silent.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe underlying truth that \u201cpro-equality\u201d Republicans need to understand is this: They are aiding and abetting a political movement that, at this point in history, seeks to make traditional Christian views on sex and marriage unacceptable in the public square \u2014 just as racist views on interracial marriage are unacceptable \u2014 by heaping scorn and hatred on any American who does something to support marriage as one man and one woman.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe marriage debate is about redefining not only marriage, but the relationship between Judeo-Christian values and the American tradition.<\/p>\n

\n\tI just wonder what these \u201cpro-equality\u201d conservatives think will be left to conserve after that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am out of town all week attending a conference in Bozeman, Montana. That’s the reason updates have been infrequent. Source: National Review Online | Maggie Gallagher The First Amendment is more than a legal guarantee. It is a culture \u2014 a key American value \u2014 which holds that in a decent and free society, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1784],"tags":[11,1692,362,1691],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10447"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10447"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10450,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10447\/revisions\/10450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}