ADF: American Bar Association can't speak for all American lawyers on same-sex 'marriage'
ADF, National Lawyers Association object to ABA’s policy under consideration to redefine marriage at August 2010 National Convention
SAN FRANCISCO — Two groups representing thousands of attorneys nationwide are disputing claims by the American Bar Association that it speaks for the legal profession in its plans to endorse same-sex “marriage” later this week. Attorneys associated with the Alliance Defense Fund and National Lawyers Association point out that about three-quarters of American lawyers don’t even belong to the ABA, and many actively work to protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
In addition, National Lawyers Association President John G. Farnan is urging several thousand lawyers in its database to individually voice their objection directly to the ABA, which will decide at its national convention in San Francisco Aug. 5-10 whether it will adopt a policy that urges state, territorial, and tribal governments to eliminate all legal barriers to radically redefine marriage.
“We call upon the ABA to refrain from taking political positions. The first step in that process is for the ABA to reject adopting yet another one--this time on the controversial issue of same-sex ‘marriage,’” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Doug Napier, who resigned from the ABA because of its political stands. “The fact that ADF and other lawyers disagree with the ABA on a number of controversial issues demonstrates the gross inaccuracy of ABA’s claim that it speaks for the U.S. legal profession.”
“The ABA was not originally designed to endorse political agendas,” Napier explained. “But in recent years, it has joined hands with groups like the ACLU on a number of societal issues and wrongly asserts that it speaks for the legal profession. We urge the ABA to abandon its divisive political agenda and return to its original non-partisan mission of advancing jurisprudence, encouraging uniform state laws, strengthening the administration of justice, upholding the profession’s honor, and encouraging friendly interaction among bar members.”
“The ABA’s sojourn into social engineering is not based on scientific facts,” said Farnan. “This is the same ABA which ignored biological facts when it voted to deny basic civil and human rights for the unborn.”
The same-sex “marriage” measure is reminiscent of other actions the ABA has taken over the last two decades, beginning with its 1992 adoption of an official ABA policy advocating abortion. That action resulted in a significant exodus of lawyers leaving the ABA in protest. In 1993, many of those lawyers formed the National Lawyers Association, an alternative bar association for lawyers sharing pro-life, pro-Constitution values. It has members in all 50 states.
Since 1992, the ABA has taken political positions and actions on a multitude of other controversial issues by opposing a critical provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, advocating civil trials for suspected terrorists, supporting a tear-down of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy--and most recently--filing a friend-of-the-court brief in federal court challenging Arizona’s immigration enforcement law.
ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.