The Democratic party has voted to officially add homosexual marriage to its platform, and has called for a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
The decision came down Saturday in Detroit, Michigan in front of a full platform committee. The vote to support “marriage equality” and “to secure equal treatment under law for same-sex couples” was unanimous.
The platform included an exemption for Christians and religious institutions.
“We also support the freedom of churches and religious entities to decide how to administer marriage as a religious sacrament without government interference,” the document stated.
As previously reported, a platform drafting committee, which included openly homosexual senator Barney Frank, pushed for the inclusion when it was first written in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The addition to the platform passed unanimously.
The draft then moved to Detroit for consideration. It will now make its way to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, which will be held next month.
It is believed that a number of Democrats favored adding homosexual “marriage” to the official list of party beliefs following Barack Obama’s announcement in May that he now supports same-sex unions.
Obama marks the first president in American history to support homosexual “marriage,” and the Democratic party becomes the first to include this type of statement in its platform. Historically, homosexuality has been denounced in America, beginning with George Washington, who had a soldier drummed out of camp for allegedly being involved in sodomy.
However, now that homosexual “marriage” has been added to the official party platform, a number of politicians are concerned about how to deal with the matter. Some Democratic senators in states such as Virginia and Montana have not been supportive of the homosexual lifestyle.
Pro-family groups are also up in arms about the announcement.
“We will see that the black community is informed that the president is taking them for granted while pandering to the gay community,” stated William Owens, the president of the Coalition of African American Pastors.
He added that he will be working to exhort African American pastors to “withdraw their support” of Barack Obama.
“Thirty-two out of thirty-two states where voters have weighed in on the issue have upheld marriage as the union of one man and one woman,” commented Peter Sprigg, senior fellow at the Family Research Council. “If President Obama were to lose those thirty-two states, he would face an electoral debacle.”
Former president Bill Clinton is expected to introduce Obama at the convention in September. During his tenure, Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) into law, which federally recognized marriage as being solely between a man and a woman.