McCain Comes Out in Support of PMA

NEWS & ANALYSIS

McCain Comes Out in Support of Protect Marriage Arizona Initiative

By Len Munsil, President and CEO, Center for Arizona Policy

I met with Sen. John McCain at his Phoenix office today, along with several members of the Protect Marriage Arizona coalition, to receive his endorsement of the amendment. At the meeting Sen. McCain presented a petition to PMA chair Lynn Stanley with his signature and the signatures of others. Sen. McCain then signed the back of the petition as a petition circulator. He also issued a strong statement of support for marriage as the union of a man and a woman and urged Arizonans to support PMA in a press release issued this afternoon by PMA.

While we and other conservatives have had some public differences with Sen. McCain in recent years, we are thrilled to have his endorsement for the state marriage amendment. Sen. McCain’s bipartisan appeal and his strong endorsement of PMA will enhance the measure’s appeal to many Arizonans. In the next few days, he is likely to be heavily criticized by members of the homosexual community and challenged to abandon his support of the amendment. Please take a moment right now to express your gratitude to Sen. McCain for his decision to sign and endorse the PMAA. You can call his office locally at (602) 952-2410 or (520) 670-6334.

Sen. McCain’s support for PMA is consistent with his oft-repeated statement that individual states should decide their own marriage policy. In light of a Nebraska federal court decision striking down the will of Nebraska’s voters, I urged him to reconsider his opposition to an amendment to the U.S. Constitution on marriage. We were delighted when Sen. McCain committed to support the federal amendment if the Nebraska decision is not overturned, or if activist judges in other states continue to prevent states from voting to protect the definition of marriage.

On Wednesday in Tucson, CAP Legal Counsel Peter Gentala and I spoke to a business fellowship luncheon. I was asked to specifically address the problem of pornography, because Tucson is again battling the presence of a new sexually oriented business. A similar debate is happening in Scottsdale, where porn star Jenna Jamison, who lives in Paradise Valley, is part of an ownership group hoping to revitalize Babe’s Cabaret in south Scottsdale (Bare facts on strip club enforcement).

I spoke about two approaches to pornography -– policy and personal. We will continue to help local activists do battle on the policy front. In the meantime, there seems to be a growing recognition of the personal problems posed by living in a society that is “ Pornified,” in the words of author Pamela Paul. Paul is not a feminist or a Christian, yet she concludes that “Porn is destroying our relationships, hurting our families, and perhaps most frightening of all, fundamentally changing the way our children develop sexually.”

At the same time, the church seems to finally be awakening to the scope of the problem among Christians. (Churches confront an 'elephant in the pews'). The first step toward healing is shining a light on the problem, and that is finally beginning to happen.