(AgapePress) - The president of one pro-family group feels the battle in Massachusetts over legalizing homosexual marriage is a clear example of the struggle between good and evil as the end times approach.

As the drama moves toward its conclusion, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council (FRC) says this fight over marriage will only help bolster the first institution created by God. He frames the issue in biblical terms, recalling the parable Jesus told in the New Testament about the wheat and the tares.

Tony Perkins

"Not only are the weeds going to be very prominent and reach maturity, but so will righteousness," Perkins says, "and so will that which is good. And so I'm encouraged by the good things that are happening, by the Church being awakened from its slumber to stand for righteousness and to stand for marriages."

Although the first attempt to allow Massachusetts citizens to vote on the issue failed, the state legislature will make a second attempt on March 11. And although some individuals are trying to frame the battle over granting homosexuals legal marital status as a civil rights issue, opponents of the measure and even some homosexuals contend that civil rights are not the real issue in this fight.

Perkins was at the forefront of the fight to get Massachusetts to pass a constitutional amendment protecting traditional marriage. During last week's debate in the Bay State, he charged that the whole issue has less to do with civil rights than it has to do with gaining acceptance and approval for the homosexual lifestyle.

Perkins pointed out that in Vermont, a state that has legalized civil unions that are virtually identical to marriage and which confer all the benefits of marriage, only 40 percent of couples have chosen to take advantage of them. And the FRC's president says it is apparent in other states as well that the matter goes far beyond rights and benefits.

"New Jersey signed into law a civil unions law, and [homosexual activists] said that's not enough," Perkins said. "They want marriage. This is about recognition. It's about getting the state's seal of approval on their homosexual behavior."

On the Federal Front
President Bush has voiced his support for the traditional biblical view of marriage, but that has been the limit of his participation in the homosexual marriage debate. However that situation may be about to change.

Gary Bauer

Campaign for Working Families director Gary Bauer believes President Bush will eventually get behind the effort for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. He says Bush is "a president that does not want history to record that on his watch the definition of marriage was radically changed so that men could marry men and women could marry women."

The Campaign's spokesman says he believes the president would regard that as "a terrible footnote in history and in his presidency," and that he will not allow homosexual marriage to become a part of the Bush legacy. "I believe that he will do what he has to do to make sure it doesn't happen," Bauer says.

Conservatives are hoping the president will lead the way in the effort to protect marriage because they feel it will help assure passage of a federal marriage amendment. Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie says a constitutional amendment may be the only alternative capable of settling this nationwide controversy over what defines a legal marriage.

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