Gay marriage opponents have sponsored billboards across Michigan as the Supreme Court justices consider legalizing same-sex marriages across the United States.
The billboards, carried out by conservative groups nationwide, are turning heads across metro-Detroit with their message, ‘Homosexuality is a behavior. Not a civil right’.
People have been stopping their cars and taking photos of the billboard in disbelief of the message that overlooks the road in Dearborn Heights. One passerby said it was ‘disgusting’.
‘I was just so dumbfounded that I had just seen this,’ one man told WDIV. ‘It’s extremely upsetting to me that somebody would go that far out of their way even though they know they’re going to offend a specific demographic or group.’
An electronic advertisement features the message along with two photographs: One of an African-American man with the phrase ‘Born black’ underneath, and another of a face covered in rainbow colors reading ‘Not born this way’.
The latter message is a reference to Lady Gaga’s hit song ‘Born This Way,’ which became an anthem in the gay community.
Mark Gurley, spokesman for Restrain the Judges, the group who sponsored the advertisements, said the billboards are not intended to read as anti-gay messages.
‘The issue here doesn’t have anything to do, at the end of the day, with the gay community,’ Gurley told WDIV. ‘It has everything to do with protecting freedom of religion.’
Each billboard also includes a website, restrainthejudges.com, a website urging for the preservation of marriage between a man and a woman.
Sponsors of the Restrain the Judges campaign include Faith 2 Action, Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, Judicial Action Group, American Family Association of Pennsylvania and Conservative Republicans of Texas.
The website asks visitors to mail a personalized restraining order to the Supreme Court and all members of Congress, according to the Detroit Free Press.
The letter reads: ‘We the people of the United States affirm our right to self-governance and hereby issue a Restraining Order to the United States Supreme Court and our Federal Courts who would attempt to further usurp: The sovereign vote of the American People. Our State Constitutions.
‘The sacred institution of marriage between one man and one woman. Our Constitutionally protected First Amendment rights.’
Source: Daily Mail