LaBarbera Urges President-elect to Honor His Pledge to GOP Voters to Defend Traditional Marriage by Working to Reverse SCOTUS Obergefell Ruling

Contact: Peter LaBarbera or Brad Wallace, AFTAH, 312-324-3787

CHICAGO, Nov. 15, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ -- AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera called on President-elect Donald Trump to revise his estimation that the Supreme Court has "settled" the issue of homosexual "marriage" -- and instead honor his pledge to America's voters to defend natural marriage against the "shocking" 2015 Obergefell ruling.
 
[Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) is dedicated to exposing and opposing the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) agenda. Sign up for AFTAH updates.]
 
In an interview with CBS "60 Minutes" Sunday, Trump asserted that the Supreme Court's 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling imposing homosexual "marriage" on all 50 states was "settled" law, and that "gay marriage" as a political issue is "done … And I'm fine with that."
 
That directly contradicts what then-candidate Trump told GOP primary voters in South Carolina last February: that he opposed the "shocking" Obergefell decision and that evangelical voters can trust him to protect real, man-woman marriage. Trump said he favors letting the states decide marriage laws for themselves.

Just prior to the Iowa caucuses, where he was appealing to evangelical voters, Trump said he would like to see Obergefell overturned: "If I'm elected I would be very strong in putting certain judges on the bench that maybe could change things, but they have a long way to go."

The late Antonin Scalia--whom Trump holds up as the type of Supreme Court Justice he would appoint--ripped into Obergefell in a powerful dissent--saying it was a "naked judicial claim to legislative--indeed, super-legislative--power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government.

"[T]o allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation," Scalia wrote.

AFTAH's LaBarbera described what is at stake with Trump and marriage: "Many millions of evangelical, Catholic and moral-minded voters trusted Mr. Trump with their votes because they did not see him as just another slippery politician. Now it is up to President-elect Trump to show that he is worthy of that trust by clarifying his defeatist statement on Obergefell.

"America cannot become great again by defying God, and homosexuality-based 'marriage' is about as godless as it gets," LaBarbera said. "Trump needs to do all he can to reverse the Supreme Court's unconstitutional Obergefell ruling—just as he pledges to overturn Roe v. Wade and abortion-on-demand.

"It would be a YUUGE mistake for Trump to break his pledge to the pro-marriage Republican voters who put him in the White House. His victory was a stunning rebuke to the arrogant, corrupt and dishonest political-media elites who think they know better than the American electorate—even as they push extremist agendas like allowing men into female restrooms," LaBarbera said. "Trump must not pander to the media on 'gay marriage.'"

In the "60 Minutes" interview, Trump returned to his view expressed in an 2015 interview with the Hollywood Reporter— which he said: "anybody that's making that an issue [of homosexual 'marriage'] is doing it for political reasons. The Supreme Court ruled on it."

LGBTQ-identified citizens voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton for president. Even the tiny "gay Republican" group, Log Cabin Republicans, voted NOT to endorse Trump. Meanwhile, evangelicals and traditional Catholics voted overwhelmingly for Trump.
 
AFTAH is based outside Chicago: AFTAH, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522