NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  March 31, 2008
CONTACT:  Diane Gramley   1.814.437.5355 or 1.814.271.9078

Will Penn State’s Same-sex Commitment Ceremony = A Challenge to PA’s Marriage Law?

(Harrisburg) – Saturday’s same-sex commitment ceremony on the Main Campus of Penn State was an in-your-face attempt to force the normalization of same-sex marriage on Pennsylvania, a traditional values group said today.   The American Family Association of Pennsylvania (AFA of PA), one of the organizations which participated in The Pennsylvania Family Values Rally which took place one hour after the commitment ceremony, recognizes the potential danger of the local mayor officiating over the homosexual event.

“Shortly after Mayor Welch announced he was going to take part in this ceremony on the 29^th, we contacted him.  We noted that even though he may not view his actions as a political statement, homosexual activists would.  Our assertion has proven true,” commented Diane Gramley, president of the AFA of PA and a speaker at the Family Values Rally.

In a March 22^nd Centre Daily Times article, one of the lesbian couples said, “Once it’s legal, we’re going to do it again.  It’ll be fantastic.”   Is this setting the stage for a challenge to Pennsylvania’s Defense of Marriage Act? 

In November, then Philadelphia Mayor John Street also officiated at the same-sex commitment ceremony of a city employee and his same-sex partner.   Steven Goldstein of Garden State Equality commented then that each time a public official participates in a same-sex commitment ceremony that is one step closer to ‘marriage equality’ or the legalization of same-sex marriage. 

Gramley noted during her presentation at Saturday’s Family Values Rally that it is the children who suffer when groups and eventually society redefines marriage and family.   No society has a right to deliberately create motherless or fatherless families and that is exactly what the legalization of same-sex marriage would do.  Children do best in a family with their married biological mother and father.

The activities at Penn State further show the need for a Marriage Protection Amendment to the PA Constitution.  Increasingly we see attacks on marriage and the effort to desensitize us to ‘alternative’ marriages and families.

“This overt attack on marriage has nothing to do with civil rights, but everything to do with a small group of people who want their dangerous lifestyle viewed as normal.  Pennsylvania is behind the rest of the nation in protecting marriage and we call on all Pennsylvania State Representatives and State Senators to support the Marriage Protection Amendment,” further stated Gramley.

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