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Feb 13, 2004  |  By: RYAN LEE  | COMMENTS |   |  

Her voice quivering and cracking at times, Betty Couvertier spoke to the state Senate Rules Committee Wednesday through pain and indignation.

'For now, for you to decide what my right is going to be, that's horrible...that's incomprehensible to me,' Couvertier said, in the most emotional testimony of a two-hour public hearing on a proposed amendment to Georgia's constitution that would ban gay marriage. 'I will not have my grandchildren grow up thinking their grandma is a second-class citizen, because I am not.'

Less than one minute after Couvertier's testimony, the committee did what many gay activists and politicians considered the inevitable: It approved the proposal and sent it on to the full Senate, where it could be voted on as early as Monday.

'This has been a done deal since the minute they dropped it,' said state Rep. Karla Drenner (D-Avondale Estates), Georgia's only openly gay state legislator. 'This has been a timed, well calculated strategy on their part to galvanize a large group of conservatives.'

The amendment must be approved by two-thirds of the state Senate and House, then ratified by a majority of voters in November, causing many critics to speculate that it's a Republican ploy to increase conservative turnout for the election.

State Sen. Nadine Thomas (D-Decatur), also a candidate for U.S. Senate, provided the only vote against the amendment on the 17-member committee, which includes 12 Republicans and five Democrats.

'It was a waste of time,' Thomas said after the hearing. 'They knew what the vote was going to be, and it was just a show.

'And it's just so unfortunate because we have people who walk up and down these halls who claim they are of God and Christian, but still those same folks are the ones who go out and practice hate in their actions and in the kind of legislation they institute,' Thomas said.

Thomas' sentiments echoed Drenner's comments to about 150 gay marriage supporters who attended Georgia Equality's Family Lobby Day on Feb. 10.

'There are so many people here who think they know what God thinks,' Drenner said in an impassioned speech. 'I know that God loves me, and he loves you, too.'

Gay marriage foes invoke religion
Some 10 of the 21 people who spoke at the public hearing on Wednesday supported the proposed amendment, which would shore up Georgia's existing law against gay marriage by enshrining it in the state constitution.

All 10 said they oppose gay marriage on religious grounds, with several predicting dire consequences for society if the amendment is not passed.

After decades of soaring divorce rates, Americans are beginning to recognize marriage's importance to society, said Sadie Fields, chair of the Christian Coalition of Georgia.

If gay men and lesbians were allowed to marry, 'a promising movement for social recovery will be stopped in its infancy,' Fields said.
One Stone Mountain resident said she prepared her speech supporting the amendment while looking at pictures of her family, and was inspired to protect them from things 'that are not beneficial to the human spirit.'

Rev. D.L. Foster, a pastor at Restoration Church in East Point, said he used to be gay, but has been married for 12 years and has four children. Gay marriage and 'their illegitimate cousins, civil unions' usurp God's word, said Foster, who urged lawmakers to support the amendment.

'How is it that we have evolved to a greater wisdom than our creator?' Foster said.

The bill's lead sponsor, state Sen. Mike Crotts (R-Conyers), also cited religious reasons for introducing the bill.

'The whole basis here, as pointed out many times in that meeting this morning, is that we are a faith-based conservative country and state,' Crotts said after the vote.

But just as often as God's word was invoked to support the amendment, opponents charged hypocrisy.

'There isn't a single gay person that has caused a problem with marriage,' said Allen Thornell, executive director of Georgia Equality, a statewide gay rights group. Adultery and abuse, not gays, are the real threats to marriage, Thornell said.

Several supporters of the amendment conceded heterosexual marriage is currently in flux, citing a Southern Voice report last week that quoted the ex-wife of state Sen. Bill Stephens (R-Canton), the amendment's original lead sponsor. A 'persistent rumor' that Stephens had an extramarital affair led to their divorce after 15 years of ...