I don’t trust them; you shouldn’t either.
The Rev. Donte Hickman Sr. trusts them, as does the Rev. Delman Coates, according to news reports.
Hickman, the pastor of Baltimore’s Southern Baptist Church, and Coates, the pastor of Mount Ennon Baptist Church in Clinton, Md., say they wouldn’t perform a same-sex marriage ceremony in their churches.
Yet there they were with Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley last week, telling members of the House of Delegates about how they support the Civil Marriage Protection Act, a proposed law that would allow same-sex marriage in Maryland.
Supporters of the proposed law claim that all they want is for gays and lesbians to have the same marriage rights as heterosexuals. They claim the CMPA would protect pastors like Hickman and Coates by never requiring them to perform a same-sex marriage in their churches.
The CMPA “doesn’t threaten my religious conviction,” Hickman said in news reports. “Let the church be the church, the state be the state and God be the judge.”
A trusting soul indeed, that Hickman, but one who might ask himself why proponents of the law want the specific name “marriage” included in it.
It occurs to me that the “marriage equality” gays and lesbians seek could be attained through something called a “civil union,” which could give them all the protections, rights and privileges of heterosexual couples married in the church.
There already exist, of course, churches that have no problem marrying those of the same gender, and that’s all well and good. But those churches don’t need to be concerned about the CMPA.
I have the sneaking suspicion that the forces hankering to legalize same-sex marriage won’t rest until pastors like Hickman and Coates are compelled, by law, to perform same-sex marriages in their churches. Here’s the plan I see developing.
The CMPA passes. Within a year, maybe two, maybe three, a same-sex couple or couples challenges that portion of the law that lets pastors like Hickman and Coates decide if they want to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies or not. That part of the law will be challenged because it’s “unconstitutional.”
The lawsuit winds its way through Maryland’s courts, where it would take only one activist judge to rule for the plaintiffs, nullify the clause protecting churches that choose not to perform same-sex marriages and thus compel them to do so.
And yes, call me a cynic, but I do believe that the same-sex couple or couples who will make the challenge have already been selected.
I come by such cynicism honestly, from seeing how some liberals have operated over the years. Decades ago, the late, great Sen. Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota was one of the champions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Addressing concerns of some that the act might lead to racial quotas, Humphrey promised to eat any section of the bill that might be construed as condoning quotas.
Since then, some liberals have used the Civil Rights Act to demand some pretty egregious quotas, and poor Humphrey died before we got the chance to tell him “Bon appetit!” as he chowed down on part of the Civil Rights Act.
The most egregious example of liberal misuse of quotas came when I asked Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings about the admissions policies at the University of Michigan, then the subject of a Supreme Court dispute.
“Is it your contention that there are no black students at the University of Michigan,” I asked him, “or that the university deliberately seeks to deny black students admission?”
“No,” Cummings answered, “but the percentage of black students is only four percent.”
“Only” four percent. Why do Cummings and other liberals get to decide that number is too low?
If liberals moved the goal posts about racial quotas, why wouldn’t they move them when it comes to same-sex marriage?
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
