A very interesting article in the Yale Herald explored the response of Christians to the recent decision of the Connecticut Supreme Court in Kerrigan v. Commissioner of Public Health, establishing a right to gay marriage in our State. Writer Dennis Howe says Christians have sat silent but his article is also noteworthy for the revealing glimpses it gives of some of the participants at the center of the Kerrigan drama, particularly State Supreme Court Justice Richard Palmer.
The court issued its decision on Oct. 10, and, unsurprisingly, initiated an immediate backlash from opponents of gay marriage. Social conservatives and the religious right formed the Connecticut Constitution Convention Campaign to encourage voters to vote “yes” on a ballot proposal to call a constitutional convention that could reexamine the Supreme Court decision and potentially propose a constitutional amendment to overturn it. Supporters included Republican governor Jodi Rell, the Family Institute of Connecticut, and the state’s Roman Catholic bishops, who called on Catholic voters to vote “yes” on the convention. This was no small matter—46 percent of the state is Catholic, placing Connecticut second among the 50 states.
But in the weeks leading up to Election Day, this initially fervent conservative reaction began to steadily decline. In California, religious conservatives were busy raising $35 million in support of Proposition 8, and their amendment banning gay marriage in the state passed by four percentage points. In the closing days of the Connecticut campaign, however, proponents of the constitutional convention were being outspent 83 to 1 by their opponents, and despite polls that suggested that the majority of Connecticut citizens were opposed to same-sex marriages, the anti-gay marriage camp was conspicuously subdued. The convention failed by an overwhelming margin—almost 20 percentage points—and Kerrigan and Mock received their marriage license just one week later.
“People don’t seem to have a lot of energy to spend time undoing our decision,” said Justice Palmer when asked in a Trumbull College Master’s Tea on Mon., Nov. 20. “We can say with certainty that there is going to be gay marriage in this state for the foreseeable future. Unlike in California, it’s not going away.”
Justice Palmer has taken the spiritual temperature of the State’s Catholics and Evangelicals and found us to be as cold as ice. Time alone will tell but for the moment he is probably correct.
The piece also contains an in-depth profile of Evangelicals working at Yale and their response to the culture as a whole on these issues, which is well worth your time.
