Religion Motivates The Few Participants In National Anti-Gay Marriage Rally

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2014/06/19/3451144/march-for-marriage-religion/


Signs distributed at the march had Spanish on one side and English on the other.
CREDIT: SHANNON GREENWOOD, THINKPROGRESS

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) hosted its second annual “March For Marriage” Thursday in front of the U.S. Capitol, a rally with speakers opposing same-sex marriage followed by a march to the Supreme Court. An estimated 2,000 people participated, many of whom had traveled by bus from New Jersey and New York City. After last year’s march, which was held in conjunction with the Supreme Court hearing on the Defense of Marriage Act, NOM attempted to inflate the numbers, but this year’s crowd was smaller than even the most conservative estimates from last year.

Both on the dais and in the crowd, religious beliefs were the driving force behind attendees’s opposition to same-sex marriage. ThinkProgress spoke with several members of the crowd to get a sense of why they were participating, and most cited their religious beliefs as their primary motivation. In particular, many were religious leaders themselves or specifically came to the march with a church group. Watch a compilation of ThinkProgress’ interviews from the March for Marriage:



Mary from Virginia Beach explained to ThinkProgress that she is a devout Catholic who believes that marriage is a covenant between a man, a woman, and God, and “we cannot change what the Bible defines.” She actually suggested that she would be okay with civil unions for same-sex couples, but she was also concerned that children would read books and learn that same-sex marriage is okay, even though it’s against their families’ beliefs: “Civil unions? What you do is your business, but what you teach my children is a whole different thing.” She added that if she learned that her own children were gay, she would be “disappointed,” and that it would “break her heart” if they got married, because she believes that acting on homosexuality is a sin.

Jasmine came to the march from New York City because she was asked to by her church: “I was told by my church ministry to come out here and support what we believe in, which is a man and a woman to get married and unite and have children… If a man and a man were to get married, that would violate that law.” Even though New York now has same-sex marriage, she believes in “repentance” for same-sex couples and that “God can still touch their hearts and turn them into His steps.”