Traditional marriage supporters in short supply at Supreme Court as critical decisions drop
A favorite saying of supporters of same-sex “marriage” is “We’re on the right side of history.” But years from now, when future generations look back at Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling in favor of redefining marriage to include homosexual couples, they may wonder whether there was ever any other side at all. Photographs in history books will show hundreds of people crowded outside the entrance to the Court on Wednesday morning – all bedecked in rainbows, equal signs, and pink.
The images are public relations gold for homosexual activists. Unlike the infamous homosexual “pride parades,” where licentiousness, decadence and sexually explicit displays are the norm, the scene in front of the court today was decidedly family-oriented, albeit not always in the traditional sense.
Gay 'marriage' supporters rally outside the Supreme Court today.
Same-sex couples held hands and pushed strollers. One baby, asleep in an infant carrier, sported a pinned-on sign that read, “Can my two moms get married yet?” There was one drag queen, but he was relatively tamely dressed in a long-sleeved blouse, denim miniskirt, tights and sensible flats. Even the woman on a bicycle wearing a masculine haircut and a t-shirt that read “homosexual fascist” was on her best behavior, chatting amiably with curious tourists across the street from the Court and giving passersby the ‘thumbs up’ sign with an excited grin.
Most of the crowd, though, wasn’t gay at all. There were married heterosexual couples with their children, waving dark blue flags with yellow equal signs and cheering for the forward march of the movement toward homosexual acceptance. College boys, with arms around their girlfriends. Elderly couples. Pastors in clerical dress.
To anyone viewing the spectacle, it would seem that everyone in America supports gay marriage.
Polls consistently show that is far from the case. In fact, a Bloomberg poll taken just last week found that less than one-third of Americans favor redefining marriage to include gay couples.
But notably absent from Wednesday’s sprawling crowd was any sort of critical mass of counter-protesters.
Asked if he had seen anyone holding a sign opposing gay marriage, one police officer told LifeSiteNews, “I haven’t seen any counter-protesters all morning long, and I’ve been keeping an eye out.”
Another said, “I don’t think you’re going to find any here. Haven’t seen a single one.”
Indeed, in nearly three hours present at the Court, this LifeSiteNews.com reporter failed to find a single defender of traditional marriage to interview for this piece.
That doesn’t mean they weren’t present. It was a big crowd and no one could possibly have seen every single person. But if two-thirds of Americans do indeed support traditional marriage, that majority was surprisingly invisible Wednesday morning.
Later in the day LifeSiteNews spoke via phone with Thomas Peters, Communications Director for the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), who said that he was present at the Court along with about a dozen other traditional marriage supporters. However, he said that his group wasn't holding any signs.
While he agreed that the poor turnout on the part of traditional marriage advocates is a “concern,” he said that it’s worth keeping in mind that some 10,000 supporters showed up for the March for Marriage during oral arguments in the cases in March. “We outturned the opposition 3-1,” he said.
“Most of our people aren’t professional activists, and it’s on a Tuesday, a schoolday and workday,” he said, adding that NOM had called on people to be present in spirit by praying for the outcome of the cases.
However, he admitted that it would have been better if traditional marriage advocates had put in a greater show of force at the Court. “I think it indicates that the other side understands more than we do what the influence of law and politics are on culture,” he said. “I think a lot of us rightly believe that witnessing in our own marriages and our own communities to the importance of marriage is important, but we haven’t quite grasped on to the fact is that law and politics shape culture and that this is really a clarion call for us to become more involved in these processes.
“In state after state we’ve lost narrow victories simply because our people believe that defeat is inevitable," he said, "and that’s not true.”
