‘Bringing people together’? Conservatives say gay ‘wedding’ at Rose Bowl was extreme
WASHINGTON, D.C., January 3, 2014 – Pro-family activists are criticizing the Tournament of Roses Association (TRA) for letting two homosexual men use a float in the annual Rose Parade to conduct a gay "wedding" ceremony.
The TRA allowed its parade “to be used to make a political statement in favor of a radical and controversial cause: the redefinition of marriage," Family Research Council Senior Fellow for Policy Studies Peter Sprigg told LifeSiteNews.com.
Sprigg also criticized the AIDS Healthcare Foundation for sponsoring the float on which the “marriage” took place, telling LifeSiteNews, “it is clear that the single change which would do the most to reduce the impact of AIDS would be for men to abstain from ever engaging in sexual relations with other men.”
The Foundation says it is “the largest provider of HIV/AIDS medical care in the U.S.” and has “the sole aim of saving more lives.” In November 2013, the Center for Disease Control released a report that estimated two-thirds of gay men engage in sexual relations without condoms. A majority of Americans with HIV/AIDS are men who have sex with other men (MSM), and more than 60 percent of new HIV/AIDS victims are men got the disease by having sex with men.
In e-mails to LifeSiteNews.com, a TRA spokesperson said “there have been approximately a dozen wedding themed floats since 1927.” The spokesperson also said the that “the Rose Parade is all about bringing people together to share the hope and joy of a New Year,” and that “each year, we can count on participants, sponsors, float designers, parade-goers, and fans from across the world to engage in ways that expand the allure and excitement of one of the year’s most anticipated entertainment events.”
According to Americans for Truth About Homosexuality President Peter LaBarbera, the media's near-silence on the “marriage” is hypocritical in light of the recent furor over Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson's comments about homosexual relationships.
"It's tragic that the same cultural elites who were outraged by Phil Robertson's biblical remarks about homosexuality had no problem with two men participating in a homosexual 'marriage' atop a float in a parade geared to young children,” LaBarbera wrote to LifeSiteNews.com. “The media want us to believe that Phil Robertson is extreme. But there are few things more radical than publicly celebrating and modeling aberrant sexual behavior to children.”
Sprigg noted that the “marriage” was “'legal' only because of the inexcusable judicial activism of one federal judge, himself a homosexual, who substituted his own opinion for the legitimate democratic decision-making process.” Proposition 8, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman, was passed into law by California voters in 2008. The Supreme Court allowed a lower court ruling overturning the amendment to stand in 2013.
Reuters reports “an estimated 700,000 spectators...millions of viewers,” and many more on the internet, saw the parade.
