Invitation to gay marriage forum on April 28
Posted by request
From: Sarah Wheaton
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2004
Subject: Pew Forum Gay Marriage event w/ Andrew Sullivan
On Wednesday, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life is hosting an event about gay marriage. Please post this invitation in your office, to your website, and on your listserv. Also, feel free to forward this to anyone else who might be interested. It’s free and open to the public.
Thanks,
Sarah Wheaton
On Wednesday, April 28, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life will host a discussion of the legal and policy implications of religiously informed arguments for and against gay marriage. The discussion, titled The Ties That Divide: A Conversation on Gay Marriage with Andrew Sullivan and Gerard Bradley, will take place at 10 a.m. at the J.W. Marriott Hotel (1331 Penn. Ave., NW, Washington, DC). For more information and online event registration, visit http://pewforum.org/events/index.php?EventID=56. Or call Kirsten Hunter at 202/955-5075.
The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
1150 18th St, NW Ste. 775
Washington, DC 20036
202.995.6014
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The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
The Ties That Divide
A Conversation on Gay Marriage with
Andrew Sullivan and Gerard Bradley
On May 17, the state of Massachusetts will begin granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In reaction to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's legalization of gay marriage last November, state lawmakers approved a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage but permit civil unions. Lawmakers in numerous other states also are seeking to amend their state constitutions to legally enshrine traditional conceptions of marriage. Meanwhile, Congress is considering a federal constitutional amendment that would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
The actions of public officials in all three branches of government have galvanized Americans on both sides of this debate, and not surprisingly, religious communities have joined the fray. What are the religious convictions at the root of deeply held beliefs regarding the definition of marriage? Should theologically based arguments inform the public debate, and if so, how? In our increasingly pluralistic society, should marriage laws stay as they are, should we separate the civil from the religious dimension of marriage, or should we broaden the right to marriage? The Pew Forum invites you to a discussion of the legal and policy implications of religiously informed arguments for and against gay marriage.
10:00 - 11:30 a.m.
Continental Breakfast Provided
J.W. Marriott Hotel, Salon 3
1331 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C.
Speakers:
Gerard V. Bradley, professor of law at the University of Notre Dame; filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on behalf of the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family in Lawrence and Garner v. Texas (2003), the Texas anti-sodomy law case
Andrew Sullivan, senior editor and former editor at The New Republic; columnist for Time; Washington correspondent for the Sunday Times of London; author of Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality; editor of Same-Sex Marriage, Pro and Con; and blogger at AndrewSullivan.com
Moderator:
E.J. Dionne, Co-Chair, the Pew Forum, and Senior Fellow, the Brookings Institution
RSVP online at www.pewforum.org, or by calling Kirsten Hunter at 202/955-5075.
