GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich (Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Gage Skidmore)

Mother Jones reports that presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has received an endorsement from former Rep. Fred Grandy, R-Iowa, an anti-Islam activist.

Via Tim Murphy at Mother Jones:

Since leaving the House, Grandy has reinvented himself as an anti-Islam activist, delivering dire warnings of the threat of what he calls “galloping Shariah” law. At a tea party event in Maryland in October, Grandy warned that Occupy Wall Street was being propped up by the Council American Islamic Relations—which, according to Grandy, is in turn a front for the Muslim Brotherhood. Is #OWS part of an Islamist plot to take over the United States? In the eyes of Gingrich’s newest endorser it is.

Grandy’s pet issue is the perceived creep of Islamic law into American courts—in October, he wrote that there had been “attempts in 23 states to use shariah law either in trial or appellate cases.” After losing his job as a talk radio host in March (in part because his wife, who co-hosted the show, had warned that the government had been infiltrated by “Shariah-compliant” officials), Grandy embarked on a ”Shariah Awareness Tour,” culminating in a  appearance at the national Constitution or Sharia Conference in Nashville last month.

Grandy is not the only anti-Islam activist claiming the Muslim brotherhood is behind the Occupy Wall Street movement. Tom Trento, a Florida-based activist and ally of U.S. Senate candidate Adam Hasner, claimed his team found what it considered evidence that Occupy Orlando is part of a “move by a Muslim activist to take over control of ‘Occupy Orlando,’ in the ‘spirit of the Arab Spring.’”

Plans to draw money and support from Maryland’s African-American churchgoers to fight next year’s marriage-equality legislation have moved forward, but fundraising particulars have not yet been sorted out, the top leaders of a group organizing the mobilization recently told The American Independent.

The Rev. Errol Gilliard, Sr., of Baltimore’s Greater Harvest Baptist Church, is the leader of this religious coalition against gay marriage, presently called the Progressive Clergy and Laity in Action (PCLA). Gilliard told TAI that membership is currently up to about 75 people, made up of mostly of Christian clergy and non-clergy — and several attorneys — from Baltimore and surrounding counties. The group has been meeting regularly in Baltimore County and will hold its first fundraiser in November, he said.

Organizations* involved in PCLA so far, according to Gilliard, include an ad hoc group of Baltimore City ministers, the Family Research Council affiliate the Maryland Family Alliance, the Missionary Baptist Ministers’ Conference of DC & Vicinity and several Baptist churches in Baltimore, such as Sharon Baptist Church and Gospel Tabernacle Baptist Church.

When Gilliard and Maryland House Del. Emmett C. Burns, Jr., announced the formation of the PCLA at a press conference at Gilliard’s church in September, the two leaders explained that the group’s purpose was to combat legislation legalizing same-sex marriage expected to be reintroduced to the Maryland General Assembly next year. Efforts to bring marriage equality to Maryland during the 2011 session of the General Assembly did not go far after furious mobilization by opponents of same-sex marriage.

However, Gilliard told TAI this week that the organization eventually intends to take up issues beyond same-sex marriage.

“We are not just a fly-by-night group,” he said. “We’re not a hate group. This is not just a few preachers who are bigots.”

Speaking with TAI, Gilliard repeatedly said his group is not against gay people or against same-sex partners having legal benefits. He was adamant about the Progressive Clergy and Laity in Action not being perceived as sponsors of hate speech. Responding to Southern Poverty Law Center’s designation of the Family Research Council — one of PCLA’s members — as a “hate group,” Gilliard said his organization is only aligned with FRC on its position against same-sex marriage but none of its other controversial positions.

“We are not fighting the homosexual lifestyle,” he said. “We are fighting the attempt to redefine marriage.”

The team has not created a budget nor officially filed a political action committee (PAC) with the Maryland State Board of Elections. Gilliard said his personal attorney is deciding whether or not the PCLA will create a PAC or organize for and donate money to another PAC organized to oppose same-sex marriage legislation. The PCLA will attempt to raise more money at a fundraiser to be held sometime next month, though the details have not yet been finalized.

Civil unions vs. marriage rights

Gilliard said he supports civil unions for gay and lesbian couples, but not same-sex marriage, which he said is “just a means of making legal what God has already declared unlawful.”

“The Bible is right,” he told TAI. “Same-sex marriage is wrong.”

Gilliard preaches every Sunday at the Greater Harvest Baptist Church at 8 a.m. and at 11:30 a.m. His boisterous sermon is broadcast live on the “Grace & Glory Show” on local Baltimore TV the first Sunday of each month and every Sunday at 8 p.m. on WCAO Heaven 600 AM.

One episode, broadcast in August was devoted to the topic of same-sex marriage, titled, “The Bilble [sic] Is Right Same Sex Marriage Is Wrong.”

An excerpt from the live-recorded sermon:

“And Paul says, ‘This thing called homosexuality is nothing more than a slap in the face of God.’ He says, ‘I got three reasons why homosexuality is wrong, because it’s listed among all the other sins. … He put it right there with adultery, right there with fornication, right there with … lying, right there with stealing. …’ Because all unrighteousness is sin. … John said, ‘If you’re guilty of offending one part of the law, you’re guilty of offending the whole law.’ … You can’t be a thief and not be a liar. … You can’t be an adulterer and not be a murderer. … You can’t be a fornicator without being a freak or a pervert. …

Here’s the problem with homosexuality. It calls God a liar, from the beginning of creation. Because God made Adam and Eve. He made both male and female, and then God put Adam with Eve, not Steve and Stefan. Come on, not Eva and Erlene. … And then God said, ‘What I have joined together, let no man put asunder.’ If I put you together, don’t you let the governor, don’t let Obama … don’t let none of them separate what God –- same-sex marriage is wrong. It’s rebellion against God. And anytime you rebel against God, you are headed with a rendezvous in judgment.”

It was on the issue of civil unions versus same-sex marriage that Gilliard and other PCLA members recently sparred with Maryland state Sen. Joan Carter Conway (D-Baltimore City), who was invited to a meeting last Thursday at Greater Harvest Baptist Church to explain why she supported same-sex marriage this year.

“I told the ministers that I was conflicted because based on my Christian upbringing, [I support] traditional marriage, but [I voted for the bill because of the] benefits to partners and to the children of partners,” Conway told TAI.

Conway estimated between 40 and 50 people attended last week’s meeting, a mix of ministers, non-clergy and attorneys from Baltimore, Prince George’s County and Anne Arundel County. She said there was denominational and racial diversity among the members, and the majority appeared to be members of the Democratic Party, noting that Dels. Burns and Talmadge Branch (D-Baltimore City) were in attendance.

Conway said she explained to the group that certain legal benefits, depending on different situations, such as employment, were only available to married spouses; therefore, a civil union would still not be a legal equivalent to a marriage. She said she encouraged the group to read the religious exemptions proposed in the bill (PDF) and then explained to them aspects of the Maryland’s political process she said appeared to confuse them.

Some members wanted to know how Maryland’s unenforced sodomy laws (which at one time made crimes of “non-child-bearing sexual acts” punishable by a $1,000 fine and up to 10 years’ imprisonment) would be affected by legalizing same-sex marriage. Conway said she told them they would be repealed.

Conway said she left the meeting agreeing to disagree with the PCLA members.

“They were agitated that I had voted for the bill,” she said. “They do not want marriage redefined.”

Opposing the broader state Democratic Party

Burns previously told TAI that this coalition’s role is partly to sway Maryland Democratic leaders who are African-American to vote against the same-sex-marriage bill. More recently, he told TAI: “We have a big tent. We can oppose certain legislation.”

Asked to respond to comments Gilliard made after the September press conference, when he referred to Maryland’s Democratic party as “immoral,” and likely to “support bestiality,” Del. Burns said he did not think his party was immoral, just “very liberal.”

Recently, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who has promised to support the marriage-equality legislation when it is reintroduced in the state’s 2012 legislative session, appeared in a video sponsored by the pro-same-sex-marriage coalition Marylanders for Marriage Equality, which includes NAACP’s Baltimore Chapter; the Service Employees International Union (SEIU); the American Civil Liberties Union’s Maryland chapter; Progressive Maryland; Equality Maryland; Human Rights Campaign; the National Black Justice Coalition; the Gay and Lesbian Task Force; Family Equality Council; Catholics for Equality; Maryland Faith for Equality; Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFFLAG)’ and the Maryland chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW).

“I’m a Marylander for marriage equality,” O’Malley says in the video. “As a free and diverse people of many different faiths, we choose to be governed under the law by certain fundamental principles. Among them, equal protection under the law for any individual and for free exercise of religion without government intervention.”

“The governor is in another world on this one,” Burns said about O’Malley’s support for the marriage-equality bill, suggesting the governor should instead focus on issues more relevant to Marylanders, such as the high rate of foreclosures in the state, particularly in Baltimore.

When asked the same question, Burns replied that the campaign to oppose same-sex marriage was about the “cart pulling the horse,” in defeating bad legislation.

*Correction: TAI previously reported that the Maryland Catholic Conference was among the organizations affiliated with the Progressive Clergy & Laity in Action, but a spokesperson for the Maryland Catholic Conference has since told TAI the organization is not officially affiliated with the Rev. Errol Gilliard’s group, though the Maryland Catholic Conference does support the effort to prevent the marriage equality legislation from passing.

“We have to fight nuclear war with nuclear weapons,” said the Rev. Errol Gilliard, Sr., during a Friday press conference at his church, the Greater Harvest Baptist Church, in West Baltimore.

Maryland Del. Emmett C. Burns, Jr. (D-Baltimore County), the Rev. Errol Gilliard, Sr., discuss their strategy fighting upcoming marriage-equality legislation in Maryland at a press conference Friday, Sept. 9, 2011, at Gilliard's Greater Harvest Baptist Church in Baltimore (AMERICAN INDEPENDENT/Sofia Resnick)

Gilliard — flanked by Burns and seven other Baltimore black clergy — told about 10 audience members that this new PAC, the Progressive Clergy in Action, would begin targeting senators and delegates who expressed support for the marriage-equality legislation when it was introduced in the 2011 session. Part of the strategy will consist of advertising and distributing materials to church leaders to pass along to their members, Gilliard said.

“We will stand with any elected officials [that oppose same-sex marriage],” Burns said, noting that as a Democrat against the marriage-equality bill, he has been bullied by colleagues and says his District 10 might be redistricted out of retaliation. Though the marriage bill is unlikely to come up in the upcoming special session, when the focus will be on the state’s redistricting maps, Burns said he believed it will come up.

Gilliard said 35 members belong to the PAC, but the group is also trying to recruit mega churches and “our Muslim brothers” as well. He said they are also working with Derek McCoy, president of the Maryland Family Alliance, an affiliate of the Family Research Council (FRC), which Gilliard referred to as the Family Resource Council.

In campaigning against the legislation, the Progressive Clergy in Action plan to stress the arguments that same-sex marriage “is not natural” or a civil right. They will also emphasize that, according to them, if the bill passes next year, children in Maryland public schools will be forced to learn about gay marriage in school and that children’s emotional health would be negatively impacted. Gilliard also said there would be an increase in bullying among children of same-sex couples if they were allowed to marry.

“This is an attempt to literally legalize homosexuality,” Gilliard said of the marriage-equality legislation. “We’re trying to prevent this virus from spreading any further.”

Gilliard noted that the coalition supports gay and lesbian couples being able to form civil unions with legal benefits.

“We do not believe this is about gay-bashing,” he added.

Outside his church, after the press conference, Gilliard told The American Independent he has increasingly been disappointed with the Democratic Party, generally.

“Anything that’s immoral, they support,” he said. “If given an attempt, they would support bestiality. I really believe that.”

Meanwhile, the Marylanders for Marriage Equality, a broad-based coalition supporting same-sex marriage in Maryland, has also acquired supporters, including the Baltimore branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

“We believe gay and lesbian couples have the same values as everyone else,” said Tessa Hill-Alston, president of the Baltimore Branch NAACP, in a statement released by Marylanders for Marriage Equality. “We look forward to working with the coalition and lawmakers to pass a marriage equality bill that protects religious freedoms.”

The NAACP joins Progressive Maryland, 1199 SEIU, ACLU-MD, Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Equality Maryland and National Gay and Lesbian Task Force as steering committee members for Marylanders for Marriage Equality.

“Having the NAACP on board is a welcome addition to the coalition working to win marriage equality in the Free State,” said Sultan Shakir, Campaign Manager for Marylanders for Marriage Equality. “The NAACP’s long history of working for equality and fairness for all will be instrumental in harnessing the supportive voices in the African-American community and throughout Maryland.”

Groups and key delegates of Maryland’s General Assembly that are against marriage equality have targeted churches, especially those in African-American communities, with the hope of rallying against the bill ahead of the 2012 legislative session, when the General Assembly will resume consideration of legislation that failed to come to a vote in 2011.

The IRS is firm on rules preventing churches from endorsing specific candidates during elections. But when it comes to promoting legislation, the law reads much more loosely. In essence, religious leaders are at liberty to preach from the pulpit in favor or in opposition to political issues and upcoming legislation so long as specific candidates are not endorsed.

Ira C. Lupu, professor of law at George Washington University Law School, said the law is written to ensure limitations and fairness among organizations with tax-exempt status, like churches.

“The idea is there are limitations,” Lupu told TAI. “If I want to stop Barack Obama, and I donate money, [my contribution should not be] tax-deductible. It would give [tax-exempt groups] an unfair advantage.”

But with social-issue legislation, it’s different. Lupu said that even among lawyers and law students, tax law on this issue can appear tricky, so he tries to make it simple: “Churches cannot use their resources to urge to vote for or against a particular candidate,” Lupu said. “Churches can encourage members from the pulpit to take a stand [on an issue].”

A gray area emerges, he said, if the line between endorsing a piece of legislation and endorsing a candidate pushing that particular issue is muddied. Another questionable area involving churches’ legislative activity has to do with raising money for legislative campaigns.

If a church spends a large sum of money on a referendum campaign, it can begin to dip into violation territory, said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State (AUSCS), a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to preserving the U.S. Constitution’s religious liberty provisions.

“In general the tax laws do allow participation in referendum campaigns,” said Lynn, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, who lives in Chevy Chase, Md. “Where a religious organization will run afoul [of the law] is if they use a ‘substantial’ amount of their overall budget.”

The word “substantial” is what the IRS uses in its tax code, a word that Lynn pointed out is not very clear. The way for tax-exempt organizations to avoid potentially violating the law is to set a limit, Lynn said, noting that AUSCS, a tax-exempt organization, only dedicates 20 percent of its budget expenses to lobbying.

Another way churches could potentially violate IRS law, Lynn said, is by selling lists of church members’ contact information to campaign committees or legislators. However, gathering the lists and giving them away is not illegal, he said, though church members might not appreciate it.

IRS spokesman Anthony Burke told TAI the law is clear. During every election cycle, the IRS puts out a press release about political activity tax-exempt organizations, which states:

Organizations other than churches and private foundations may elect the expenditure test under section 501(h) as an alternative method for measuring lobbying activity. Under the expenditure test, the extent of an organization’s lobbying activity will not jeopardize its tax-exempt status, provided its expenditures, related to such activity, do not normally exceed an amount specified in section 4911. This limit is generally based upon the size of the organization and may not exceed $1,000,000, as indicated in the table below.

However, the IRS is not clear on the lobbying rule as it relates to churches.

Even though preaching policy at the pulpit is usually legal, Lynn said he does not agree with the practice.

“I wish churches didn’t spend any money on [political activity],” he told TAI. “There is a fundamental misunderstanding on how laws are made in this country.”

In the case of same-sex marriage, Lynn said the bulk of the arguments against are based on religion, hence much of the support and lobbying comes from religious organizations.

“Historically [the argument against gay marriage] is always rooted in the interpretation of Christian biblical principle.” Lynn said. “But we don’t make laws based on our understanding on biblical principle. Martin Luther King, Jr., never endorsed a candidate from the pulpit.”

Burns, a Democrat and black pastor who has served as Baltimore County’s delegate since 1995, recently told The American Independent that he is determined to organize a massive coalition of anti-marriage-equality supporters, consisting largely of black Baptist leaders. Additionally, he is trying to drum up united opposition against another effort to pass a same-sex-marriage bill in 2012 from every black delegate and senator in the Maryland General Assembly.

“We’re working very, very hard to make sure the bill will not pass in 2012,” Burns said. “We are meeting, as we speak, to come together in force to let legislators know [if they vote to legalize marriage, they] will be under the spotlight.”

At its core, Burns’ layered plan involves coalescing all gay-marriage opponents into a single force. He told TAI that he and other delegates are working on forming a Prince George’s County Coalition and Baltimore County Coalition, legislative groups whose main goal will be to drum up support against the legislation in those two counties with large African-American populations. Burns held a press conference on this renewed effort at his Rising Sun Baptist Church last month and has another conference planned later this week.

“Last time, the religious community slept this issue, but they’re not going to sleep it this time,” Burns told TAI. “Rather than too little too late, it’s going to be so much so soon.”

Burns’ targets: blacks and churches

Toward the end of this year’s gay marriage campaign in Maryland, the black community became a focal point of the legislation, with opponents pushing the narrative that same-sex marriage advocates were co-opting the Civil Rights movement from the African-American community.

Burns said that, this time around, the strategy of rallying the churches will be intensified. He told TAI he intends to focus on black Baptist churches in Prince George’s County, as well as apostolic and Methodist churches. “Even some white churches,” he said. “We’re going to tell pastors to let their members know their delegates are down in Annapolis supporting same-sex marriage.”

But another major bullet point on Burns’ to-do list is to summon support against the marriage-equality bill from the state’s Catholic community. The first step in that direction, he said, is finding a replacement for Archbishop Edwin O’Brien, who last month was elevated to the position of a cardinal and reassigned to Rome.

“[O’Brien] was stalwart in his support against same-sex marriage,” Burns said.

Before his departure, the archbishop privately asked Gov. O’Malley not to promote the same-sex legislation when it is revived in the Legislature next year, as reported the Baltimore Sun last month after the governor’s office released O’Brien’s July 20 letter and O’Malley’s Aug. 4 response. The governor defied the archbishops’s request “not to allow your role as leader of our state to be used in allowing the debate surrounding the definition of marriage to be determined by mere political expediency” by announcing two days later that he would make legalizing same-sex marriage a legislative priority.

According to the Sun, O’Malley told O’Brien that they shared similar views on eradicating poverty, supporting a progressive income tax and opposing the death penalty, but “on the public issue of granting equal civil marital rights to same sex couples, you and I disagree.” (O’Malley himself opposed legalizing same-sex marriage when he ran for governor in 2006.)

Burns said even if the archbishop was unable to sway the governor, he did influence Catholic Marylanders. He told TAI that he has been in touch with the Catholic hierarchy in Baltimore and will be meeting with the Maryland Catholic Conference to work on finding a new archbishop who will be as outspoken against gay marriage as O’Brien was.

Blacks in the Legislature are also major targets for Burns, who said that if all of Maryland’s black senators and delegates voted against the marriage-equality bill, it would not pass.

“Same-sex marriage is anathema to our tradition,” Burns said.

Despite Burns’ focus on his African-American colleagues, he would not comment on the position of the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland, of which he is a member.

The Black Caucus did not include same-sex marriage among its 2011 legislative priorities (PDF). When asked if the caucus would be taking a position on same-sex marriage in 2012, Black Caucus Executive Director Deriece K. Bennett told TAI via email that that the Caucus “has not discussed any legislation for the 2012 General Session.”

At present, Burns said he is summoning the Prince George’s County and Baltimore County Coalitions against same-sex marriage. Once these legislative caucuses are formed, Burns said he will work on trying to united Maryland’s various anti-gay marriage groups, such as Protect Marriage Maryland, Marriage for Maryland (folks4md.com) and Maryland for Marriage, which is run by the National Organization for Marriage .

The strategy of targeting religious and minority groups on this issue is not exclusive to same-sex-marriage opponents.

Equality Maryland, the largest LGBT-rights group in Maryland and one of the leading groups in a coalition supporting same-sex marriage in Maryland, has stated plans to try to summon support from churches and communities with high concentrations of African-Americans, mainly in Prince George’s and Baltimore Counties.

“We plan to have a strong presence in various religious groups,” Patrick Wojahn, chair of Equality Maryland Foundation, told TAI. “We are focusing more on churches.”

Burns will be hosting a strategizing press conference at the Greater Harvest Baptist Church in Baltimore on Friday, but on Wednesday, Equality Maryland is hosting its own strategy session, billed as a cocktail event to “celebrate and honor” support already provided from O’Malley and other state leaders, something that didn’t happen earlier this year.

The event, which will be held at the Chevy Chase Town Hall in Chevy Chase, Md., at 5:30 p.m., is “a chance to celebrate the progress made in what we believe will be a victory,” Wojahn said. “We have the momentum behind us to win. We are on the right side of history.”

Overturning same-sex marriage … before it’s legalized

Though Maryland’s Legislature has not yet begun a debating same-sex marriage, Burns has already begun talking about starting a petition and collecting enough signatures to ban same-sex marriage via voter referendum.

While amending a state’s constitution to exclude marriage to straight couples has been a tactic some states — most recently Minnesota — have considered to preemptively thwart marriage- equality legislation, Maryland law doesn’t work that way. The people don’t have the power to amend the constitution; they do, however, have the power to veto legislation passed by the General Assembly. Thus, if enough signatures are collected to qualify for a referendum, Marylanders could attempt to reverse a law expanding marriage to same-sex couples.

But a few things must happen before the petition could begin gathering signatures, according to  referendum petition procedures (PDF) published by the Maryland State Board of Elections (SBOE):

• A political committee would have to be already established with the election board.
• The petition sponsor must know or anticipate the referendum question will be placed on the ballot “before money is collected or spent to support or oppose the question.”
• The 2012 bill legalizing same-sex marriage must pass.

Burns told TAI that he has not yet started gathering signatures for such a referendum — not just because it would be violating state law, but because he’s not convinced the same-sex marriage bill will pass. But, he said, he will do everything in his power to make sure it doesn’t

“The ball is in my court,” he said.

The conference, scheduled for Jan. 22, 2012, at the North Bethesda Marriott just outside of Washington, D.C., falls on two important anniversaries for both sides of the anti-abortion rights movement: the 39th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions, marking the 39th anniversary of legal abortion in the U.S.

“This January, Students for Life of America calls on you to Envision the future of the pro-life movement, the overturning of Roe v. Wade/Doe v. Bolton, and a world where no more women cry and no more babies die,” wrote SFLA Executive Director Kristan Hawkins in a press release, which estimates the conference’s attendance at 1,800.

Already, SFLA has carved out panel discussions and strategy sessions that focus not on how to criminalize abortion in all cases, but how to shape the debate and the abortion movement once Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton have successfully been overturned. On the schedule now are sessions titled: “What’s the New Standard of Healthcare without Abortion?” and “How to Bring Healing to Those After Abortion.” Birth control is also on the agenda for discussion.

“Some may say that our theme is too grand, too forward thinking, un-realistic,” Hawkins said. “However, I think it’s just [what] our movement needs. If we are ever going to end legal abortion in America, we need to start talking about it, envision what it will look like, and make our plans for victory now.”

Confirmed conference speakers include the Family Research Council’s Patrick Fagan, Operation Rescue’s Troy Newman, 40 Days for Life’s David Bereit and representatives from the Christian litigation firm the Alliance Defense Fund.

SFLA’s 2011 national conference included Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), author of the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” which passed the U.S. House of Representatives this year.

Because marriage-equality supporters have for years compared states’ bans on same-sex marriage to the interracial-marriage ban, a strategy for gay-marriage opponents has been to mobilize African-American communities, where gay marriage is often a divisive subject.

In the fall, this strategy played out in Maryland, where a coalition of groups against same-sex marriage tried to appeal to the black community’s perceived ownership of “civil rights” and encouraged preachers and citizens to urge their state House delegates to vote against a bill that would have legalized same-sex marriage. When support for the bill waned, the House recommitted it until 2012.

Advocates and opponents for marriage equality in Maryland have already begun campaigning ahead of next year’s vote in the state Legislature, and surfacing again is the argument that gay and lesbian couples are unfairly co-opting the black Civil Rights movement.

Del. Emmett C. Burns, Jr. (D-Baltimore County), who has been a member of the Maryland House of Delegates since 1995, has long been outspoken against same-sex marriage and has made the point that gay rights are not civil rights.

Burns, who is black and a pastor, last month held a press conference at the church he founded, the Rising Sun First Baptist Church in Woodlawn, to announce his formal opposition to Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s decision to support gay-marriage legislation in 2012. According to the Carroll County Times, during the conference, Burns urged attendants to persuade “minority churches” to get involved in the campaign to defeat the same-sex marriage bill.

Last month, Dr. Ruth Jacobs of Rockville, Md., erected the website Folks4md.com, which gathers information from media that argue against legalizing gay marriage. One of the main features on the “Resources” page of the site is a 10-part series of videos produced by Focus on the Family (FoF). Glenn Stanton, director for Family Formation Studies at FoF, counters the interracial-marriage argument in a three-minute video titled: “Is same-sex marraige [sic] like interacial [sic] marriage?”

Is same sex marriage like interracial marriage? … They are nothing alike, and here’s the difference: Racism is about keeping the races apart, and that is always wrong. Segregation was a serious, serious social problem. The fact that marriage exists exclusively between men and women, folks, is not a social problem; it is a deep, deep social good. … Striking down the bans on interracial marriage is nothing like striking down bans on exclusively heterosexual marriage. And it really is an ugly thing to equate the two. Segregation was run by an ugly, really evil system that kept people apart. What drives exclusively heterosexual marriage is a good thing. And to say that the two things are equal really does pollute the public discourse and really has no place in civil dialogue.

Stanton is white, and his audience, captured on film, appear to be predominantly white, as well.

Watch:

In the “Take Action” section of the site, a letter-generating program allows users to create an e-mail to send to state lawmakers using arguments such as “Same sex marriage is NOT a civil right. The father of the Civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote, ‘A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God.’”

Sharon Lettman-Hicks, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC), a self-described “Black LGBT civil rights organization,” told The American Independent that the black-centric argument against legalizing gay marriage is no argument at all.

“This conversation is getting old,” she said. “At the end of the day, one part of [same-sex-marriage] opponents’ campaign is a manipulation of words [that] trumps history. … Civil rights – little ‘c,’ little ‘r’ – belongs to everyone in the United States.”

Lettman-Hicks, who lives in Maryland, said the issue of same-sex marriage is about the “preservation of personal privacy” and about “two consenting adults [wanting] to be a family.”

She pointed out that African-American households are overwhelming single-parent run. (Figures from the Census Bureau in 2010 indicate that only 38 percent of African-American families in America consist of two parents.) “You’re going to tell me that two mommies is worse than one?” she said.

Since 2003, the NBJC has attempted to unite the black and LGBT communities, but despite the efforts of gay African-Americans to convince socially-conservative African-Americans that marriage equality is about equality for all Americans, the community is still divided on the issue.

Though the NAACP does not have an official position on whether same-sex marriage should be legal, its leadership is reaching out to the LGBT community. This year’s NAACP convention involved discussion of same-sex marriage, mainly from comedian Wanda Sykes, who has famously said during stand-up routines “I didn’t have to come out black.” NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous and Chairman Emeritus Julian Bond both support LGBT rights.

Next month, the NBJC is hosting its second annual OUT on the Hill Black LGBT Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C. There, black LGBT leaders will advocate for various federal policies (PDF) that include following through with the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). Because the summit is about federal policy, marriage equality is not on the list, but other policies -– including the Family and Medical Leave Act and a health-care reform proposal to extend hospital visitation rights to same-sex domestic partners –- unavailable to same-sex couples in most states will be part of the focus.

Like many LGBT-rights advocates, Lettman-Hicks believes that a federal policy legalizing gay marriage is a matter of when rather than if, but, in the meantime, she hopes the battle continues within state legislatures rather than in voter referendums.

“I don’t want my freedom to be someone’s vote,” she said.

The information presented on the site, which is sponsored and produced by Maryland Citizens for a Responsible Government (MCRG), is promoted as non-religious, fact-based and intended to supply same-sex marriage opponents with talking points to convert other voters, as well as elected officials. The information is distilled into 13 paragraphs to be used to generate a “personal message” to Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley; Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown; Judicial Proceedings Committee Chair Brian Frosh; state Senate and House leaders; and the sender’s specific district representatives.

In reality, the reasons not to support marriage equality as provided by MCRG are based on newspaper editorials and articles and videos from religious right policy groups such as the Heritage Foundation and the Knights of Columbus. A 10-part video series produced by Focus on the Family offers myriad hypotheticals and talking points but little in the way of documented evidence that supports its intended message, that same-sex marriages negatively impact straight marriages and children.

This letter, if used in its entirety, begins by instructing the state lawmakers that, “[b]y a 54 to 37 margin, Maryland voters believe that marriage should be only between a man and a woman.” The source cited is a February 2011 poll conducted by Lawrence Research, whose president, Gary Lawrence, is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and worked on California’s Proposition 8 campaign, which helped ban same-sex marriage there in 2008. The Minnesota Independent, a sister publication of The American Independent, previously reported that Lawrence Research has ties to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and was paid more than $500,000 from gay marriage opponents in California between 2007 and 2008. Other public opinion polls of Marylanders’ marriage views have shown different results from Lawrence’s poll, e.g., an Annapolis-based Gonzales Research poll showing that 51 percent of Maryland residents support same-sex marriage.

Other potentially misleading points presented in the letter:

“Redefining marriage impinges on freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of action. … At least one father has been jailed for insisting on his parental right to be notified when sexually objectionable material was being presented to his kindergartner.”

For years anti-marriage-equality groups have used this story about David Parker, who in April 2005 was arrested for refusing to leave the principal’s office at Joseph Estabrook School in Lexington, Mass., following repeated failed attempts to get the school to agree to notify him and offer a possible opt-out for his five-year-old son in the event that “homosexual curriculum” would be taught in his son’s kindergarten class. The original dispute resulted after Parker’s son came home from school with the book “Who’s in a Family?” which is a children’s book about different types of families and includes a page about a family made up of two women and their two children.

“Mothers and fathers are not interchangeable parts; studies have shown that children fare best, in all respects, when raised in a loving home with both biological parents. Same sex couples by definition deprive a child of one, if not both, biological parents.  Maryland must not do this to the children.”

During a recent hearing on the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) chastised Focus on the Family’s Tom Minnery for citing a 2010 Department of Health and Human Services study (PDF) supposedly showing that children of married gay and lesbian couples are negatively impacted in comparison to children of straight married parents. Franken pointed out the study actually stated that children thrive better with intact two-parent families, making no distinction between gay or straight parents.

Minnery actually gives the introduction for the video series promoted on MCRG’s site, wherein he says: “We all need to know how to defend marriage intelligently and persuasively. … These arguments are composed of common sense, historical fact and scientific research results, but not scriptural passages. … [W]e’ve taken this approach because we want to reach as many people as possible, especially those who may not believe in the Bible.”

Other arguments employed by MCRG:

• “Redefining marriage renders at least one gender ‘unnecessary.’ … Ample sociological data show the devastation of fatherless families. Common sense tells us of the need for a mother. Maryland must not set the false standard that things we know to be tragic social problems are, in fact, good.”

• “Same sex attraction is not genetic or an immutable characteristic. Ann Heche, former lesbian partner of Ellen DeGeneres, left Ms. DeGeneres to marry a man. Sinead O’Connor, a pop star who was once a lesbian, fell in love with a male and married him. Donnie McClurkin, Grammy award-winning gospel singer, after 20 years living as a homosexual is now a heterosexual.”

• “In the first three years after legalizing “same sex marriage” in Massachusetts, less than 5% of the estimated LGBT population and less than 0.2% of the total population of the state chose to enter into same sex marriage.  However despite the miniscule numbers, the result was still just as devastating.”

The treasurer of MCRG, to whom this website is registered, is Dr. Ruth Jacobs, an infectious-disease specialist in Rockville, Md. In 2009, Jacobs testified at a hearing over whether the Council of the District of Columbia should legalize same-sex marriage. Jacobs had brought with her statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and told the council members, “[W]hile new HIV infections have decreased among both heterosexuals and injection drug users, the annual number of new HIV infections among men who have sex with men has been steadily increasing since the ’90s. The surgeon general has stated ‘condoms provide some protection, but anal intercourse is simply too dangerous to practice.’ … Anal sex has higher HIV transmission than vaginal sex; estimates are as high as one life-altering HIV deadly conversion for every 20 anal-sex acts.”

Her many points boiled down to the following conclusion: “The immediate action of passing same sex marriage bill 18482 is to normalize predominately homosexual activities such as anal sex and require their promotion in schools as a legal, normal activity and part of the sex education.”

In response to Jacobs’ testimony, D.C. Council Member David Catania told Jacobs that, by her logic, only lesbians in the District should be able to marry, since their HIV/AIDS prevalence rates are lower than any other sexual group. The D.C. City Council approved gay marriage in December 2009.

In response to renewed efforts to pass same-sex marriage in Maryland through legislation in 2012, a new website dedicated to maintaining marriage rights for straight couples only in the state popped up last month. Among the goals of the website is to help religious organizations influence legislation without violating tax laws.

Marriage For Maryland, or Marriage4Maryland, is billed as a “resource of information and action tools to help preserve traditional marriage and protect the people’s right to be represented fairly by their legislators.”

The website is registered to Ruth Jacobs, treasurer of Maryland Citizens for a Responsible Government and operated by Rockville, Md.-based software-development firm Moshe Technologies, LLC. Moshe Technologies founder Michael Starkman also contributes blogposts on the site.

The American Independent previously reported that religious leaders and organizations played a large role in preventing the passage of same-sex marriage in Maryland in 2011. A coalition of political and religious groups called Protect Marriage Maryland encouraged church leaders to appeal to the state delegates in their districts to vote against same-sex marriage.

The “church resources” listed on the M4M site include a brochure (PDF) produced by the conservative group Concerned Women for America (CWA), titled “Political Guidelines for Churches and Pastors: General guidelines for churches in determining how to affect government and public policy without jeopardizing their non-profit status.” The CWA encourages church leaders to educate its members on issues such as abortion, education and taxes in order to “make a tremendous difference in government and public policy.” Methods of education that are encouraged include “preaching from the pulpit” and “teaching Sunday school classes.”

However, CWA offers churches advice on how to influence policy while avoiding having to pay taxes:

• “The Internal Revenue Code places no limitations on the legislative activity of church members — including pastors who act as individuals, not as representatives of the church.”

• “A church may loan its membership or mailing list to another organization for the purpose of influencing legislation. However, the cost of providing the list would constitute a legislative expenditure.” However: “A church may not loan its membership list or mailing list to a candidate or political committee for use in an election campaign.”

• The Internal Revenue Code absolutely prohibits 501(c)(3) organizations, including churches, from engaging in activity in support of or in opposition to any candidate for public office—or from participating in a political campaign. On the other hand, a church may engage in some nonpartisan election-related activities, including voter registration and voter education projects.

• A church may conduct a voter registration drive in a coalition effort with other organizations. However, care must be taken that the other organizations do not engage in prohibited partisan activities under the auspices of the coalition, since those activities could be attributed to the church.

Also included on the site is a brochure (PDF) produced by the Alliance Defense Fund that offers guidelines for churches and pastors for how to engage safely in political activities. However, ADF’s brochure offers a caveat, that IRS restriction on churches are unconstitutional:

[W]e believe that churches and pastors have the right to speak Biblical truth from the pulpit about candidates for office, even if that means opposing or supporting particular candidates from the pulpit. … Unfortunately, churches and pastors have allowed themselves to be censored by the unconstitutional IRS guidelines prohibiting any speech that may be considered to endorse or oppose a candidate for office.

The ADF offers similar advice as CWA, with a few additional points about advertising, informing churches that they can post political ads and news stories about candidates in church publications as long as they are not editorials obviously endorsing or opposing specific candidates. According to the ADF, churches “may speak out about social and moral issues, the actions of government officials in office, and the positions of candidates on issues” but not endorse or oppose a specific candidate. Otherwise a church “has broad freedom to praise or criticize officials and candidates.”

Five bills — passed in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah — were omnibus laws inspired by Arizona’s 2010 immigration law. These laws share common qualities like a requirement that law enforcement check the legal status of people detained for traffic violations, as well as mandatory implementation by employers of the E-Verify system, which aims to verify worker identification. In addition to the states with Arizona-style omnibus laws, five other states passed bills requiring E-Verify.

Not all bills were enforcement-only measures, however. In addition to its Arizona-style legislation, Utah enacted legislation which would create a temporary guestworker program allowing undocumented immigrants to legally work in the state, a policy innovation which GOP state lawmakers disagree on and which the federal government has said it finds objectionable.

Two states, Connecticut and Maryland, passed bills allowing undocumented immigrants to qualify for in-state tuition. A total of twelve states have passed similar legislation in the past decade.

The number of state-level immigration bills introduced yearly has risen since 2005, and the range of issues covered by the bills has also expanded. The year 2007 holds the record for most immigration-related bills introduced in a single year. If past trends continue, 2011 looks to break that record.

Despite the increasing interest from state legislatures in immigration issues, undocumented immigration to the United States has substantially decreased in the past two years. Experts credit the stagnated U.S. labor market, improved economic conditions in Mexico (and other developing countries) and more effective border security for the decline in undocumented immigration.