Perhaps due to a stiff primary challenge from conservative Rep. Pat Toomey (R.-Pa.), Sen. Arlen Specter (R.-Pa.) last week would not rule out voting for the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) forbidding same-sex "marriage"- nor would he rule it in. President Bush endorsed the amendment February 24.
Despite Specter's current waffling on FMA under election pressure, he has a strongly pro-homosexual record. He is a co-sponsor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) pushed by Sen. Teddy Kennedy (D.-Mass.). ENDA would create (1) special "civil rights" protections on the basis of sexual orientation, forcing people to hire and work with homosexuals, bisexuals, and transgendered, and (2) the process generating the same sorts of quotas and lawsuits as other "civil rights" laws based on race and sex.
On June 14, 2001, he voted against an amendment by Sen. Jesse Helms (R.-N.C.) that would have withheld federal funds from public schools that prohibit the Boy Scouts from using their facilities-which some governments have done because the Boy Scouts exclude homosexuals from their ranks. On January 31 of this year, Specter went to a fundraiser for Out Front, an activist homosexual rights group that wants same-sex marriage.
As recently as February 25, the day after Bush's endorsement of FMA, Specter was on the host committee for an event on Capitol Hill demonizing those opposed to the homosexual agenda. The event featured a film called Jim in Bold, about a homosexual Pennsylvania teenager who committed suicide despite acceptance from his family. The boy's family members "tell of their undying love and support for Jim and wonder why it was never enough," says a press release from the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, which sponsored the event. "They examine the warning signs in his poems and paintings. Jim in Bold shows that homophobia can kill."
Next year, after the election, Specter is slated to take over the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will consider the FMA and any other such proposals.
