What Should the Definition of Marriage be?

For Immediate Release Contact: Shannon Craig Straw, West End Strategy Team, 202-776-7700, scstraw@westendstrategy.com

Washington June 1 – On this Sunday’s “State of Belief,” The Interfaith Alliance Foundation’s show on Air America Radio, Rev. Welton Gaddy talks with the president of the Unitarian Universalist Association and hears from grassroots religious leaders about the Federal Marriage Amendment. Welton also talks to Rev. Dr. Marie Fortune about religious leaders recent declaration on violence against women in religious congregations.

The Federal Marriage Amendment is scheduled to go to the Senate floor next week for debate and a vote.  The amendment has been called a “partisan tool” in election year politics as the Administration panders to its radical religious right base.  Many people say the amendment writes discrimination into the Constitution without cause. One of those people is the Rev. Bill Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association.

“This is not an arbitrary or theoretical discussion,” Sinkford says. “This is about real human beings.”

Sinkford has performed many same-sex marriages in his church and remembers the first one with pride.

“My overriding feeling was one of joy as it is with the celebration of any couple,” Sinkford says. “[Same sex marriages] pose no threat to other marriages and they pose no threat to the institution of marriage.”

 

Three grassroots clergy speak about coming to Washington, D.C. last week to talk to their senators about the amendment. Rev. Steve Copley, Rabbi Eugene Levy and Rev. Betty McCollum talk about the reasons many clergy do not support this amendment.

The Rev. Dr. Marie Fortune, founder and senior analyst for the FaithTrust Institute, joins Welton to discuss the National Declaration by Religious Leaders to Address Violence Against Women, saying religious leaders must acknowledge and confront such violence. 

“There is a too common belief among our religious leaders that these things don’t happen in their faith community,” Fortune says.

Interfaith Alliance celebrates religious freedom by championing individual rights, promoting policies that protect both religion and democracy, and uniting diverse voices to challenge extremism. Founded in 1994, Interfaith Alliance brings together members from 75 faith traditions as well as those without a faith tradition to protect faith and freedom. For more information visit www.interfaithalliance.org.