Alabama Republican Party Chairman Bill
Armistead on Wednesday warned that allowing gay couples to marry will
“reap God's wrath.”
“God is not one to be mocked, and I
fear for our state and our country when we go against God's word,”
Armistead wrote in a column posted on the
party's website.
“God’s word never changes. What He
proclaimed thousands of years ago as truth is still truth in the eyes
of true believers. So how is it that God's truth can be turned on
its head as the debate now rages in Alabama regarding the meaning of
marriage? The answer is that we, as a society, have become our own
god. We have made God in our image. But, God will not be mocked.
The State of Alabama and the United States of America will reap God's
wrath if we embrace and condone things that are abhorrent to God,
such as redefining marriage as anything other than a union between
one man and one woman.”
As a state senator, Armistead
co-sponsored the 1998 bill that became the Alabama Marriage
Protection Act.
Last month, a federal judge ruled the
law and a 2006 voter-approved constitutional amendment – both of
which limit marriage to heterosexual unions – unconstitutional.
Gay and lesbian couples started marrying in parts of Alabama on
Monday as the judge's rulings took effect, but many probate judges,
led by Chief Justice Roy S. Moore, either have refused to issue
marriage licenses to gay couples or stopped issuing marriage
licenses.
(Related: Federal
judge orders Mobile to begin issuing marriage licenses to gay
couples.)
Armistead said that he supports Moore's
actions.
(Related: AL
Chief Justice Roy Moore: Marriage ban is about “sexual preference,”
not discrimination.)