Demagogue

Clergy opposed to the Federal Marriage Amendment are coming out of the closet.

Not just a few, either.

About 35 representatives of the coalition, Clergy for Fairness, said at a news conference that more than 1,600 clergy members had signed an online petition against the amendment. The group's Web site has postcards that lay people can print out and send to members of Congress.[ed.- bold mine]
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Among those represented by the coalition are clergy members and groups affiliated with mainline Protestant churches; the Interfaith Alliance; Jewish groups including the Anti-Defamation League, the Union for Reform Judaism and the National Council of Jewish Women; Sikh groups; and the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.

Four weeks ago, 50 prominent conservative Christian and Jewish leaders, including evangelicals and Roman Catholic cardinals and archbishops, signed a petition backing the amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage.

While anti-gay religious folks might dismiss them all as "liberals," the fact is there isn't consensus among all people of faith that we need a Federal Marriage Amendment-- to many people of faith the FMA represents an affront to their beliefs.

Thoughtful people of faith can and do disagree on the issue of marriage. America’s many religious traditions reflect this diversity of opinion, as do we who sign this letter. But we respect the right of each religious group to decide, based on its own religious teachings, whether or not to sanction marriage of same-sex couples. It is surely not the federal government’s role to prefer one religious definition of marriage over another, much less to codify such a preference in the Constitution. To the contrary: the great contribution of our Constitution is to ensure religious liberty for all.

Keep in mind that not all of the clergy who signed the petition are in favor of same-sex marriage, but they believe that the FMA is the wrong way to address the issue.

Let's hope we hear more from the folks of Clergy for Fairness as the GOP leadership attempts to score November votes via demagoguery.