Friday, August 13, 2010

ABA Pushes For Gay Marriage Nationwide

From CNS News:
The American Bar Association (ABA) adopted a resolution this week calling for same-sex marriage nationwide, and urging government at every level to “eliminate” any restrictions on homosexual unions.
The ABA’s policy-making House of Delegates adopted Resolution 111, which states: “RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges state, territorial, and tribal governments to eliminate all of their legal barriers to civil marriage between two persons of the same sex who are otherwise eligible to marry.”
The only voice of opposition came from former Ohio Bar Association President Leslie Jacobs, who said that it would be “cowardice” for him to remain silent about the issue. Jacobs urged his ABA colleagues to avoid overreaching into areas of contentious social policy.
“We owe it to this House [of Delegates] to avoid action that would jeopardize the Association,” he said. “I personally believe it can be suicidal for the House to defer to an impulse to impose social and political and cultural values on the entire membership of the ABA – rather than to reflect some clear consensus of the bar.”
“When an attitudinal value is not broadly shared, and when people of goodwill have sharply divergent views that are fundamental and – frankly – irreconcilable, it is axiomatic I believe that lawyers will be found not only to disagree with each other but to be engaged as advocates on both sides of the proposition on the merits, whether in litigation or in legislation,” Jacobs said. . . .
Douglas Napier, senior legal counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund, told CNSNews.com that Jacobs’ caution was well founded, adding that the ABA had gone “far afield” of its founding mission to address issues affecting the legal community.
“They [the ABA] aren’t speaking for the majority of attorneys,” Napier said. “They don’t represent the majority of attorneys in the United States, yet they put themselves out as the voice of the American legal profession.
“This is just another very, very clear indication that they’re out of sync with the majority of Americans and that they don’t speak for American attorneys,” said Napier. . . .
For the entire story see CNS News.

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