(AgapePress) - Lawyers for a pro-family ministry are launching several court challenges in an effort to curb the tide of illegal homosexual "marriages."

Homosexual couples have been busy in recent weeks, taking advantage of offers from pro-homosexual mayors and other government officials who support same-sex marriage. The most high-profile case has been in San Francisco where the mayor has been defying a state law against homosexual marriage and has allowed thousands of licenses to be issued to homosexual couples. Other mayors in New York, Oregon, and Washington are following suit. (See Related Article)

Michael DePrimo, a senior litigation attorney with the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy (CLP), says the effort to turn back this tide of homosexual activism is critical.

"Frankly what's at issue here is the rule of law, because in each instance the law is plain that same-sex marriage licenses cannot be issued to same-sex couples, nor can same-sex marriages be recognized. So what we're trying to do is simply to maintain the status quo," the attorney says. "It's the government officials who are acting plainly in disregard of settled law."

DePrimo says CLP attorneys have teamed up with some other Christian legal firms to try to broaden the challenge to these illegal homosexual marriages.

Poll: Civil Unions 'Acceptable Alternative'
Meanwhile, a new poll indicates the country is warming up to the idea that civil unions are an acceptable alternative to legalized homosexual "marriage."

Back a few years ago, many conservatives were outraged with Vermont became the first state in the nation to legalize same-sex civil unions. Such arrangements give homosexuals most, if not all, the legal rights of married couples without calling it marriage. But that outrage appears to be subsiding as the threat of homosexual marriage becomes more of a reality.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows just about half the country now favors allowing homosexual couples to form civil unions. That is up six percentage points from a similar poll done last month. Interestingly enough, the same poll shows a growing opposition to same-sex marriage. That figure climbed to 59 percent of Americans in the last month -- a four percent increase from February.

That trend seems to verify concerns raised by supporters of same-sex marriages who have feared numerous television pictures of homosexuals kissing on courthouse steps could result in a public backlash.

Amending the Constitution
The Washington Post-ABC News poll also shows an upswing in the number of Americans who prefer that states be allowed to make their own laws banning homosexual marriage over amending the U.S. Constitution to define marriage. That group has jumped eight percentage points in recent weeks. But the Post cautions about reading too much into the results of the survey, saying that "polling on gay marriage has been particularly volatile."

Opposition to a Federal Marriage Amendment includes, not surprisingly, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church USA. Frank Griswold recently told the BBC in London that he opposes amending the Constitution to ban homosexual marriage because he fears it would stop what he believes is a needed debate over homosexuality in the church and society.

Griswold, who helped consecrate the openly homosexual Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, also suggested that the Episcopal Church might someday conduct same-sex weddings.

Interestingly, former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore -- a respected voice among many conservative and religious groups -- doesn't think a constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage is the right approach. Such an amendment would not work, he says, because the real problem is renegade courts. If marriage was constitutionally defined as a man and a woman, he says some judge would probably let a man marry his sister or daughter.

Moore says Congress would be wiser to pass the Constitution Restoration Act, which would stop courts from forbidding acknowledgment of God as the basis of law. He says marriage as the union of a man and a woman is a God-ordained institution. If that standard is destroyed, Moore says there is nothing to keep three men and a horse from getting married -- or an entire city.

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