The Tennessean reported yesterday that the Tennessee Democratic Party has said that it will not support Mark Clayton, who won the Tennessee primary to run on the Democrat ticket against Republican Senator Bob Corker. Mr. Clayton received nearly twice as many votes as his closest challenger in Thursday’s seven-candidate primary, The reason the Democrats refuse to support him–they are accusing him of belonging to a ‘known hate group.’
Mr. Clayton is an unpaid vice-president for the group Public Advocate of the United States and occasionally writes for them. The group is pro-life and pro-marriage. I need to say something here. I oppose gay marriage. I think it totally creates confusion in terms of the First Amendment rights of the clergy not to perform the marriages and simply complicates something that does not need to be complicated. I support civil unions. I think a committed gay couple should have all the rights of a married couple. I just don’t want to see a Bible-believing pastor forced to perform a wedding that goes against Biblical teaching. I don’t hate gays. I have no reason to hate gays. Frankly, it isn’t important to me whether or not a person is gay. I am perfectly willing to share my world with any person regardless of what they do in their spare time. Opposing gay marriage is not hate speech, and groups that oppose gay marriage are not hate groups–they simply have an opinion different than the mainstream media and much of the Democrat party. We live in a country where differences of opinion are allowed. Stop calling it hate–it isn’t hate, it’s a belief in something different than what you believe.
Meanwhile, back to the story.
The article reports:
Sean Braisted, a Democratic Party spokesman, left the door open for a possible legal maneuver to try to get Clayton’s name off the Democratic line of the November ballot.
“The only option we are taking off the table in this situation,” he said, “is supporting Mark Clayton.”
The people voted. The Democrat Party did not like the results, so they are looking for a way to undo the vote. That really doesn’t sound like the wishes of the people who voted for Mark Clayton were important to the Democrat Party.
