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National Quaker Organization Calls For Peace Building Rather Than Waging A "Cultural War"

President's Endorsement of Constitutional "Marriage Amendment" Fosters Division, Endangers Families and Threatens Religious Liberty in Pluralistic Society

Philadelphia, PA - The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), an international social justice organization, today expressed sorrow and regret over the endorsement of a federal "marriage amendment" to the U.S. Constitution, and called for a new era of leadership that promotes peace building in a time of "cultural war."

The proposed amendment is negative in several ways. First it would shatter the principle of equality in civil law by ensuring that committed, loving couples of the same sex are never permitted to marry.  It also would create a legal framework for dismantling domestic partnership benefits policies in public and private institutions, prohibit civil unions, and threaten the legal status of partners and children in families headed by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) parents. 

"Good and faithful people of conscience from all different religious and spiritual traditions can and do disagree about LGBT rights and recognition," said Kay Whitlock, AFSC national representative for LGBT issues, "and each faith tradition, denomination, and congregation must discern for itself its own spiritual leadings on these matters.  But there should be a single standard of justice for all in civil law in a pluralistic society.  The Quaker testimony of equality leads AFSC to declare that civil law must treat people equally, without exception."

She noted that campaigns to promote marriage amendments at both state and federal levels are exploiting a culture of fear and resentment that has been escalating in the United States for the past several years.

"In countless ways," she said, "people are being convinced that ours is a society of scarcity, that there aren't enough civil rights, social and economic justice, and religious liberty to go around."

Many politicians and religious leaders are encouraging a variety of cultural wars that split people of conscience into endlessly warring camps of 'us' and 'them,' Whitlock adds. Some of the organizers of the anti-marriage equality campaigns say that faith itself is threatened by the prospect of LGBT equality. 

"Rather than being encouraged to regard one another across differences as good neighbors, we're urged to join wars against LGBT rights and recognition, affirmative action, multicultural education, immigrant rights, and reproductive choice," Whitlock states. "We're constantly being warned that our own rights are in jeopardy if the rights of somebody else are affirmed.  On the contrary, there are plenty of social and economic goods for everybody if our leaders call us to a vision of love and justice rather than one of fear and resentment."

Whitlock urged fewer calls to division and a greater celebration of the power of love and justice. 

"Faith is not finite and fragile, and never requires 'cultural wars' to protect it," she concludes. "There is no need to create fences of separation in our hearts or our laws.  We are strengthened by the conviction that justice is love made tangible in every form of social, economic, and spiritual relationship."

Founded in 1917 to provide conscientious objectors with an opportunity to aid civilian victims during World War I, AFSC is grounded in Quaker beliefs respecting the dignity and worth of every person.  In 1947, the AFSC and the British Friends Service Council accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the Religious Society of Friends for humanitarian service, work for reconciliation, and the spirit in which these were carried out.

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