The last thing that the black community, which has the nation's highest incidence of new AIDS cases, out of wedlock births, and abortions, needs is formal institutionalization of our nation's moral degeneration.
A legitimate concern commonly expressed, even among social conservatives who oppose gay marriage, is whether our Constitution is the appropriate place to address this social issue. I confess to having had this same concern. Does defining marriage really belong in our Constitution? However, Judge Robert Bork has laid out a convincing case that without such an amendment, legalization of gay marriage by our Supreme Court is a virtual certainty.
Judge Bork depicts a scenario in which a gay couple is married in a state such as Massachusetts where gay marriage is legal. The two then move to a state where it is not legal and ask for recognition. The state will invoke the Defense of Marriage Act to deny the legality of the marriage. This decision will then be appealed to the Supreme Court, which can be expected uphold the appeal and invalidate the act.
In the same vein of questioning about the marriage amendment, we might ask if we really needed to amend our Constitution to prohibit slavery. Unfortunately, we did.
Our society and our institutions are already under daily siege by the liberal elites at the helm of our entertainment industry who get rich producing an endless flow of television and movies that appeal to the very worst instincts of our young people. In a way, the federal marriage amendment would act as a counterbalance to our First Amendment, which essentially guarantees that popular culture will be seized by irresponsible and exploitive entertainment industry power brokers.
We should keep in mind that legalization of gay marriage would be a significant formal gesture of our society to reject a basic tenet of Christianity and Judaism. To reject one basic tenet is to reject the legitimacy of the whole package. The Judeo-Christian tradition would become a "lifestyle" rather than a central cultural pillar of our society.
Black pastors see every day in their communities that societies without values and standards do not nurture free people but nurture slaves. We don't want this. Blacks have been struggling for freedom for hundreds of years. This chapter of our struggle must be defined by restoring traditional values and personal responsibility in our communities.