MARRIAGE PROTECTION AMENDMENT Activist urges clergy to back ballot issue

'Stand up for righteousness' in defense of marriage, a minister urged.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Clergy should stand up for family values by supporting the marriage protection amendment on the Nov. 2 ballot, an activist Columbus minister said here Monday.
"We continue to see the erosion of our values in America," said the Rev. Rod Parsley, founder of the Center for Moral Clarity and pastor of the 12,000-member World Harvest Church in Columbus. "You need to stand up for righteousness," he told a gathering of about 50 local clergy.
That gathering was followed by a service attended by about 1,000 people at Calvary Ministries International -- the former Mount Calvary Pentecostal Church -- at 1812 Oak Hill Ave.
The visit was part of the Rev. Mr. Parsley's "Silent no More" tour, which focuses on moral issues in the upcoming election and includes visits to cities in Ohio, Michigan, Virginia and Florida.
Proposed amendment
The Ohio ballot issue is a proposed state constitutional amendment designated as State Issue 1. The proposed amendment says only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage recognized by the state and its political subdivisions.
The amendment also would bar the state and its political subdivisions from creating or recognizing a legal status for relationships of unmarried people that intend to approximate the qualities of marriage.
Although a proposed marriage protection amendment to the U.S. Constitution recently failed in Congress, Mr. Parsley noted that state marriage protection amendments recently passed by 71 percent and 79 percent majorities of voters in Missouri and Louisiana, respectively.
"We are not going to stand by and watch 2 percent of the population of this country determine a redefinition of marriage," he said, urging the clergy to pick up and display yard signs in favor of Ohio's proposed marriage protection amendment.
Elder Bill Canfield of the World Harvest Church cited a recent Columbus Dispatch poll that showed 63 percent of likely voters support the marriage protection amendment. He also noted that the amendment went onto the ballot with 550,000 signatures -- far exceeding the required 323,000 -- but that opponents of the amendment have expressed intentions of spending $3 million to $5 million to campaign against it.
"Our nation has been in a moral free fall for a generation, and we're not going to sit silently by and allow that to continue to happen," Canfield said. "Marriage is an institution that's ordained by God, and it deserves to be defended."
Divided leadership
Ohio's Republican leaders are divided on the marriage protection amendment. Gov. Bob Taft, who opposes the proposed amendment, said last week that it goes too far, could lead to lawsuits because of its ambiguous language and could hurt the state's economy by interfering with recruitment and retention of talented professionals to work in Ohio.
Statewide elected officials who are against gay marriage but oppose the amendment because they think it goes too far are Attorney General Jim Petro and U.S. Sens. Mike DeWine and George Voinovich.
Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who has been touring Ohio with Mr. Parsley, Treasurer Joe Deters and Auditor Betty Montgomery support it. Petro, Montgomery and Blackwell are running for governor in 2006.