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Man crows virtues of Big Chicken flag
Posted at: Monday, March 1, 2004, 03:57 PM
One man’s love for Georgia … and the Big Chicken, is unflappable.
While hundreds outside the state Capitol hooted and hollered for, or against, a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage, Johnny D’Farmer tried to scratch up support for a new state flag featuring Marietta’s famed oversized hen.
Dressed in overalls, green-and-white striped shirt and yellow bandana, the two-time unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Marietta passed out fliers displaying the Big Chicken Flag alongside standards he labelled “The Early Georgia Flag,” “The Roy Barnes Flag,” and “The Sonny Perdue Flag.”
“Thousand of Georgians love the Big Chicken,” proclaimed D’Farmer, chairman of the board of the Friends of the Big Chicken Association.
“We all live in the shadow of the Big Chicken,” D’Farmer pressed to passersby, his dyed-red hair burning as brightly as his desire to honor the Cobb County landmark.
“We can all learn from her. Her flag would unite us, not divide us,” he crowed, loud and as proud as any Georgia rooster.
— Patricia Guthrie, ajc.com
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Capitol rally winds down
Posted at: Monday, March 1, 2004, 02:27 PM
As the Georgia General Assembly reconvened Monday afternoon to reconsider a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage, more than a thousand Georgians vigorously exercised their right to free speech.
Though the invective was heated at times, police reported no major incidents or injuries.
Police officers used Washington Street, and about 10 police cars, to divide the protesters and supporters of the proposed amendment that gathered. Reporters at the scene estimated estimated the gay rights crowd as numbering about 700 people and the pro-amendment gathering at 1,500 to 2,000.
The crowd was not shy.
“This is not just a gay issue. It’s about amending a constitution. That is a drastic action and shouldn’t be taken lightly,” said Beth Kirch, a placement director at the University of Georgia Law School. “It shouldn’t be taken lightly. It shouldn’t be a symbolic act. It shouldn’t be a political strategy to bring out a certain group of people to vote.”
“There are a lot of Christians here today who say no to this amendment … real Christians,” added Kirch, who said she was heterosexual.
Zack Baxter, of Marietta, had a different opinion.
“I am here to support God,” Baxter said. “I want to make sure the sewers of sodomy don’t get in my yard.”
Baxter, on the Capitol side of the street with other supporters of the amendment, yelled, “You hate God!” at his opponents. A nearby sign said “Homo Sex is a Sin.”
A 13-year-old girl told gays they were going to hell. Two Boy Scouts held signs railing against gay marriage.
“Look at them,” said Robert Janssen, of Atlanta. “They look like Hitler Youth.”
Marianne Seggerman said she was disturbed by all of the religious vitriol.
“I came into the gay rights movement as a result of my faith,” said the Roman Catholic. “I’m sadden by the young people that they are bringing down here.
Across the street from the Capitol at Talmadge Square, Katheryn Preston and Freda Bonaparte snacked on fast food while watching the demonstrations. The two women work for the Georgia Coalition to End Homelessness and were at the Capitol to meet with the Cobb County delegation to discuss funding issues.
“We’re sitting here taking notes,” said Preston, 52, of Marietta. “It’s an incredible movement. We wish we could get our folks so organized around homeless issues and concerns.”
Shortly before noon, several busloads of church groups from across the state arrived at the Capitol, unloading conservatively-dressed Christians who immediately encountered gay-rights activists as they approached the Capitol steps.
Ann Goff and several of her neighbors from Waycross traveled 240 miles to attend the rally in support of traditional marriage.
“I believe God instituted marriage between a man and a woman,” Goff said. “Those are His laws. I don’t think it’s in man’s place to change those laws. We’re making a choice here to either follow God’s way or man’s way. God can not bless a nation that is not obedient to Him.”
Goff, who attends Emmanuel Baptist Church in Blackshear, said her view is not intended to be hateful or discriminatory toward gays and lesbians. Goff said she believes that “recognizing homosexuality as a sin is not equivalent to discounting the person’s worth.”
At other times, however, the showdown between gay rights activists and supporters of the constitutional ban became much more testy.
As opponents of the proposed amendment sang “America the Beautiful,” a supporter of the gay marriage ban waved a sign that said, “Three Gay rights: AIDS, Hell, Salvation.”
Another sign said, “All queers will burn in hell unless they repent.”
A man speaking with a microphone and loudspeaker ended the pro-amendment portion of the rally.
“If God is going to let you into heaven, he is going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah for burning those cities to the ground. Do you think God is going to apologize? … It makes him want to vomit when he looks down here and sees that,” he said as he pointed across the street at the anti-amendment contingent.
Chris Graham, pastor of Church of the Savior in Roswell, while listening to the closing remarks, said the issue was not a religious matter, but one of civil liberties. “The constitution should not be used to enshrine or codify discrimination,” he said. “This issue has already been decided in Fortune 500 boardrooms.”
— Cameron McWhirter, Milo Ippolito, Ernie Suggs, Etan Horowitz, Mae Gentry, Steve Visser, ajc.com
Permalink | Categories: Gay Marriage Ban
House votes to reconsider gay marriage ban amendment
Posted at: Monday, March 1, 2004, 02:22 PM
The House voted overwhelmingly this afternoon to reconsider Senate Resolution 595, which would amend the Georgia Constitution to add a prohibition of gay marriage.
The vote was 127-48. SR 595 has now been placed on the House general calendar.
The House Rules Committee must now place the resolution on its calendar in order for it to come up for a vote before the full House again. The Rules Committee meets at 9 a.m. Tuesday.
The resolution failed by three votes Thursday to get the required 120 of 180 votes in the House. Rep. Bill Hembree (R-Douglasville) gave notice Thursday immediately after the vote to have the measure reconsidered, a fairly common procedural move.
Shortly before 2 p.m. today, Hembree rose and asked that SR 595 be reconsidered.
Rep. Nan Orrock, the House Majority Whip, objected to the reconsideration. Her objection required a vote to be taken on the reconsideration. The vote was immediately taken with no debate.
— Carlos Campos, ajc.com
Permalink | Categories: Gay Marriage Ban
Democrat blasts ‘gun barrel’ politics on gay issue
Posted at: Monday, March 1, 2004, 01:16 PM
State Rep. John Noel (D-Atlanta) has announced that, even though he opposes gay marriage, he will not vote on the proposed constitutional amendment to ban it, in large part because of the pressure to take a stand on the issue.
“I am opposed to gay marriage,” the District 44 lawmaker wrote in a statement faxed on his House of Representatives letterhead. “I also oppose the partisan, at the barrel of a gun, attempt to embarrass Democrats nationally with this issue.”
On Senate Resolution 595, which is scheduled to come back before the state House today on a motion for reconsideration, Noel wrote: “I have decided to abstain from the vote in protest of gun barrel partisan politics. We don’t need to be forced to spend precious time on this explosive but unimportant issue that is already law in Georgia.”
On Thursday, Noel had an excused absence and did not vote when the resolution calling for an amendment failed by three votes to pass the House. The measure already has passed the Senate.
Noel was one of 12 representatives not to record a vote on the issue, although the lone Republican in the group said his machine malfunctioned and asked the House clerk to record him as a “yes” vote.
The reconsideration motion, which needs a simple majority, or 91 of the 180 House members, is expected to pass this afternoon.
If so, the anti-gay-marriage proposal would be eligible to come back before the House, possibly Tuesday. Proposed constitutional amendments require two-thirds approval in both chambers of the Legislature, or 120 House votes.
Noel, who is a white man, represents a majority-black district in northwest Atlanta and southeast Cobb County, after defeating 30-year African-American incumbent Billy McKinney in the 2002 Democratic primary.
— James Salzer, ajc.com
Permalink | Categories: Gay Marriage Ban
Crowd moved out of Capitol
Posted at: Monday, March 1, 2004, 12:36 PM
Hundreds of protesters both against and for gay marriage crammed into the Capitol Monday were ordered out into the street at noon, because police said the crowds violated fire safety standards.
Proponents and opponents of a proposed amendment to the Georgia constitution banning gay marriage gathered on each side of Washington Street carrying signs and chanting.
Estimates are that there are 500 supporters of the Christian Coalition on hand and about 150 Georgia Equality activists. The two groups are being kept apart by police. There have been no major incidents or arrests, police said. Two gay rights protesters briefly sat down in the street to stop traffic, but they went back to the sidewalk and they were not arrested.
Senate Resolution 595, which narrowly failed last week in the state House of Representatives, is expected to be debated and voted on again this week, possibly Tuesday.
A House vote last week on the proposed amendment fell three votes short of passage. State law requires a constitutional amendment pass the House with a two-thirds majority or 120 votes. Gay marriage already is illegal under state law, but the ban is not codified in the constitution.
— Cameron McWhirter, ajc.com
Permalink | Categories: Gay Marriage Ban
Protesters rally at Capitol
Posted at: Monday, March 1, 2004, 10:15 AM
Political foes gathered Monday morning for a show of force at the state Capitol, where legislators will vote on whether to reconsider a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage.
Senate Resolution 595, which narrowly failed last week in the state House of Representatives, is expected to be debated and voted on again this week, possibly Tuesday.
A House vote last week on the proposed amendment fell three votes short of passage. State law requires a constitutional amendment pass the House with a two-thirds majority or 120 votes. Gay marriage already is illegal under state law, but the ban is not codified in the constitution.
As noon approached and the sun came out after a morning of cold, gray skies, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Capitol. Supporters of the amendment were placed by police on the sidewalk along Washington Street north of the capitol steps. Several gave speeches about the Bible and homosexuality using megaphones. Amendment opponents were gathered south of the steps with signs.
Bill Adams, a street preacher in a navy suit, gripped his Bible and prayed for the amendment to pass.
Adams said that he “did not come down here to preach at people,” but homosexuality “is a destructive lifestyle in addition to being prohibited by the Bible.”
Bill Ball, pastor of Faith Baptist Church in the west Georgia town of Primrose, stood on capitol steps with two other men carrying a sign declaring, “I now pronounce you pervert and pervert.”
“I guess it’s shock therapy because you’ve got three or four seconds for people to go by, and you want to make them think,” he said.
Down the street, gay rights activist Michael Knight, 41, of east Atlanta carried a sign declaring “You call that Christian?”
Some two dozen children from East Side Christian School in Marietta made their way across Washington Street. Cathy Wells, a mother who was among the group’s chaperons, said the children had visited the office of state Rep. Bobby Franklin (R-Marietta), who supports the gay marriage ban amendment and talked with the students about government and the sanctity of marriage.
“So they are aware of the issue,” Wells said, referring to the battle over the proposed amendment. “They can hardly avoid it,” she said as the crowd grew outside the capital.
Wells said she, too, has talked with her 10-year-old son about the controversy. “I tell him that marriage was ordained by God as between a man and a woman.”
“We [Christians] don’t hate anybody,” Wells said. “We pray for them.”
Inside, About 300 opponents of the proposed amendment, including 20 members of the clergy, packed into room 506.
Margaret Aymer, a professor on leave from Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, told the crowd she “heard the dangerous sound of history repeating itself.”
“I stand before you a female, Christian, Presbyterian minister [and] … I come from a people who have had their subhuman status inscribed into the text of the Constitution of the United States of America,” she said. ” … I stand with the [Presbyterian] general assemblies of 1978 and 1987 that ruled ‘there is no legal social or moral justification for denying homosexual person access to the basic requirements of human social existence.’”
Jill Chambers, the only House Republican to vote against the proposed amendment, spoke briefly to opponents of the amendment while sharing a Capitol elevator.
“We will vote for liberty,” said Chambers as she headed to work.
The Central Presbyterian Church, across the street from the Capitol, opened its doors to those opposed to the amendment.
John Huss, a church elder, said his church leadership sent a unanimous resolution to the Legislature last month against the amendment. The amendment would serve “not to protect marriage but to institutionalize discrimination,” he said.
“Not all Christians are on the same side of this issue,” Huss said.
Earlier this morning, at Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse on the east side of Atlanta, a small group of about 12 gay men and women gathered before heading to the Capitol on MARTA.
“It’s tough having a rally the morning after the Oscars,” quipped Philip Rafshoon, owner of the gay and lesbian bookstore in Midtown.
Rafshoon, wearing a gold band, said he has had a partner for eight years but never had a commitment ceremony. “We’re going to wait until we have the right,” said Rafshoon.
Stoney Stone, 18, from Chamblee, was in agreement. “I think we deserve just as much right to marriage as the heterosexuals. Love is love,” he said.
The Christian Coalition of Georgia placed notices in hundreds of church bulletins encouraging supporters to attend a noon rally today in the Capitol rotunda in favor of the ban.
“We’re still calling lawmakers,” Sadie Fields, the coalition’s Georgia director, said Sunday afternoon. “We believe the legislators will do the right thing and give the people of Georgia a vote on this incredibly critical issue.”
Dozens of Atlanta Police Department personnel will assist Capitol police with crowd control and traffic, said Atlanta Sgt. John Quigley.
“We’re working with the people there to allow them to express their First Amendment rights,” Quigley said. “We only hope that everybody participates in a lawful manner.”
While one drama brews outside the legislative chambers, another continues today inside the House. Republicans will move today for a reconsideration of the failed vote, a common procedural tactic with high-profile issues. That vote is likely to pass because it requires only a majority, or 91 votes. But because of House rules, another vote on SR 595 is not expected to come until Tuesday at the earliest.
It was unclear late Sunday how many people would show up for today’s rallies — estimates ranged from the low hundreds to several thousand. Thornell said he expects “several hundred” gay rights supporters to attend Georgia Equality’s 10 a.m. rally and stay to lobby House members, who return to the Capitol at 1 p.m.
Today’s Capitol rallies were planned before last Thursday’s House vote, but have taken on vastly more significance in its aftermath.
There was some speculation that House leaders fast-tracked last week’s vote to try to get it out of the way before today’s rallies and ease pressure on lawmakers. Many legislators say their e-mail in-boxes and fax machines have been jammed by messages from supporters and opponents of SR 595.
But the heat on lawmakers, especially Democrats who control the House, has not let up. Twelve House members did not vote and have been the focus of massive lobbying over the weekend as both sides try to win their favor. Eleven of them are Democrats.
The proposed ban passed in the Republican Senate three weeks ago, but was stymied in the House by a fragile coalition of African-American and urban, white Democrats. Conservative House Democrats — many from rural areas — sided with House Republicans and voted for the constitutional ban.
— Staff writers Cameron McWhirter, Milo Ippolito and Mae Gentry contributed to this article.
Permalink | Categories: Gay Marriage Ban
