Since Marion Barry, former mayor of Washington, D.C. and anti-gay marriage crusader, declared himself a “politician who is moral” and that “living morally means standing on the moral compass of God,” advocates on both sides have adopted his rhetoric:
The panel set to debate the resolution [to allow same-sex marriages to be performed in D.C.’s Ward 8] was made up of two gay-marriage supporters ([Democratic Party committee-man for Ward 8 Philip] Pannell and the Rev. Dennis Wiley, who has performed two same-sex marriage ceremonies at his church) and one opponent—the Rev. Patrick Walker of the Missionary Baptist Ministers Conference. Walker, a tall, gentle man in a three-piece blue suit and flashy cufflinks, had a rough time of it. He wasn’t only outnumbered on the panel; he was outnumbered in the audience. He had the difficult task of explaining to a room full of gay-rights activists that his opposition to marriage wasn’t rooted in bigotry.
“When I went to Petworth Elementary School, as a part of learning the English language I was taught vocabulary words; one of the words was marriage,” Walker said. “The definition was husband and wife, man and woman, in a loving relationship…for hundreds of years that has been the traditional definition of marriage.” In case that point was lost on the audience, he used Barry’s favorite buzzword. “To redefine marriage,” Walker argued, would mean D.C. “would no longer have, if you will, a moral compass.”
Walker and Barry aren’t the only ones with a moral compass, however. “The word of God is my moral compass as well,” Wiley said, rebutting Walker. (Unlike actual compasses, moral compasses don’t all point the same way.) Walker proposed putting the same-sex marriage resolution to a citywide referendum. Wiley disagreed: “We would be in serious trouble if, as slaves, our freedom was put to a referendum.”
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