From The Kalamazoo Gazette
Monday, March 1, 2004
On most matters, Lorence Wenke is a staunch conservative. The 58-year-old state representative from Richland Township opposes abortion and gun control. He backs small government and tax cuts. A member of a fundamentalist church, he includes a verse of Scripture on his business card and participates in a Bible-study group for state legislators. One would be hard-pressed to find a more unlikely advocate for gay rights.
Yet Wenke plans to be one of perhaps only two House Republicans voting against putting on the November ballot a Marriage Protection Amendment, which would change Michigan's constitution to ban gay marriage. And he is opposing the bill, he said, out of a long-held and deeply felt belief that discrimination against homosexuals violates democratic principles and his Christian values.
Read more about this guy here.
Monday, March 1, 2004
On most matters, Lorence Wenke is a staunch conservative. The 58-year-old state representative from Richland Township opposes abortion and gun control. He backs small government and tax cuts. A member of a fundamentalist church, he includes a verse of Scripture on his business card and participates in a Bible-study group for state legislators. One would be hard-pressed to find a more unlikely advocate for gay rights.
Yet Wenke plans to be one of perhaps only two House Republicans voting against putting on the November ballot a Marriage Protection Amendment, which would change Michigan's constitution to ban gay marriage. And he is opposing the bill, he said, out of a long-held and deeply felt belief that discrimination against homosexuals violates democratic principles and his Christian values.
Read more about this guy here.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-01 08:40 pm (UTC)I saw "Meet the Press" on Sunday. The topic was the child abuse crisis in the American Catholic Church, and the guests were the DC cardinal and the chair of the board that recently released the church's report on the priest scandal.
Anyway, that's just background. The thing that was interesting to me was the chairman of the board's response to a question Tim Russert asked about people linking homosexuality in the clergy and celibacy to the incidence of pedophilia.
The chairman guy started shaking his head, and said, "well ... if a homosexual is going to violate their vows, they're going to want to be with a man. And a heterosexual is going to want to be with a woman. Not children, you see." And he went on in a way that made it clear that homosexuality was no big deal as far as he was concerned.
I was impressed.
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Date: 2004-03-02 05:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-02 06:29 am (UTC)(The extra C is for Classical.)
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Date: 2004-03-02 07:26 am (UTC)