Heroic President Champions Amendment to Protect Families

Tuesday, June 8, 2004

FOX NEWS

This is a partial transcript from HANNITY & COLMES, June 18, 2004, that has been
edited for clarity.

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Because of the illegal gay marriages in New York, California, New Mexico, and Oregon, and the activist judges in Massachusetts rewriting the law, the president and Republicans in Congress have been forced to back an amendment establishing marriage as an institution only between a man and a woman. To speak with us on the issue here today is Jim Harrison from the Patriotic Americans for the Preservation of Loving Families. Welcome to the program, Jim; happy to have you here.

JIM HARRISON, PATRIOTIC AMERICANS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF LOVING
FAMILIES: Happy to be here, Sean.

HANNITY: Now, as you know, we're fair and balanced here at Fox News Channel, so to vigorously defend the liberal viewpoint on this issue, we have Heidi Sterett from the Glen Heights High School debate team in Texas. Welcome back to the show, Heidi.

HEIDI STERETT, GLEN HEIGHTS HIGH SCHOOL DEBATE TEAM: Sean.

HANNITY: Jim, tell us about why this amendment is so important.

HARRISON: Well, what activist judges and city officials have done here is defy thousands of years of tradition, and what we're all trying to do with this amendment is simply to make sure that the future of the American family is protected, and that marriage is defined as between one woman and one man. It's a slippery slope, if same-sex marriages are allowed to occur, how long will it be before polygamy and incest are legal, and the concept of the family is just destroyed completely?

HANNITY: I couldn't agree with you more, Jim. What I don't get is why a whole state has to legally change its view of what defines marriage just because some activist judges think that it should.

HARRISON: I just can't believe that these people could act with such flagrant disregard for the future of the American family.

STERETT: Jim, with all due respect, how does codifying the exclusion of a portion of the
population from marriage protect the concept of the nuclear fam...

HANNITY: Heidi, I'm not sure if you know this, but when they legalized same-sex marriage in the Scandinavian countries, the idea of the family disintegrated there.

STERETT: First of all, that's a faulty analogy, considering that out-of-wedlock parenting is viewed completely differently there from how it is here, and how can one possibly connect the expanded legal impetus to start a family with the decline in the number of families? It makes no sense.

HANNITY: You liberals always use that argument, "it's a faulty analogy."

STERETT: What are you talking about? Who are "you liberals?"

HANNITY: Heidi, you hate the president, don't you?

STERETT: I don't hate him personally, but I don't...

HANNITY: Yes, you do.

STERETT: ...See what your question has to do with what we're talking about.

HARRISON: I can't believe that you liberals are trying to destroy the idea of the family. It's been a tradition for thousands of years, and you're trying to destroy it.

STERETT: This does not...

HANNITY: Heidi, you are completely out of line, and your reasoning is absolutely immature, and frankly, despicable.

STERETT: How am I being out of line? I...

HARRISON: I urge every member of our audience to write to their congressman, and tell them
to vote "yes" on this amendment, so we can put an end to these immoral relationships.

STERETT: If you'd let me talk for just one second...

HANNITY: I'd just like to remind our audience that my new book, Deliver Us from Evil, is now available in bookstores everywhere.

ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: Welcome to the show, everybody; It's Alan Colm...

HARRISON: I refuse to let these activist courts harm the American family...

COLMES: It's Alan...

STERETT: Jim, it seems like what you're really...

COLMES: I'm Alan Colmes.

HARRISON: ...It just breaks my heart to see that they have no respect for it.

STERETT: Did I hear you say "immoral" somewhere in there?

COLMES: Now, speaking from my own perspective, and I'm a liberal, don't you think we should just give up on a fight we can't win, and just try to keep making sure that there's no anti-gay discrimination in the workplace, for example?

STERETT: You're a liberal?

COLMES: Uh...

HARRISON: If we legalize gay marriage in the United States, marriage will no longer be as sacred an institution, and the populace will abandon it altogether, and begin having children outside of marriage at will.

STERETT: That is absurd. I can't imagine any line of thinking that...

COLMES: Heidi...

STERETT: ...Would rationalize...

COLMES: Heidi, I'm going to have to cut you short to give Jim a chance to speak.

HARRISON: It's absolutely not absurd. If you look at these statistics, provided by the Marriage Protection Action Council for Selectively-Chosen Statistics, you can see that 70% of today's heterosexual married couples, when polled, said that if gay marriage were legal, they would just as well not get married, and have children outside of wedlock.

COLMES: I don't see why we shouldn't just quit trying to strive for an impossible goal, and just settle for trying to protect against workplace discrimination.

HARRISON: You're a liberal?

STERETT: Jim, would you please tell me, using unbiased information, why it is you think that gay marriage would possibly lead to children being born outside of wedlock?

HANNITY: Oh, give me a break.

HARRISON: Well, gay marriage leads to adoption, and artificial insemination.

STERETT: That doesn't really seem so much like an argument against gay marriage as an attempt to discredit any parenting not done completely by both of one's biological parents, which would offend any number of foster children and parents.

HANNITY: Heidi, you are a rude, hateful liberal.

STERETT: It really all comes down to this: same-sex couples will parent children either way, as they rightfully should, so it's more a question of if you're going to try to promote married, nuclear families for these relationships, or if you're going to try your best to leave them in a dehumanizing legal situation, implicitly stating that their relationships are inferior. I would like to see you walk up to a same-sex couple, look them right in the eyes, and just try to tell them that their love is any less meaningful than...

HANNITY: We have to go to break -- thanks, Jim Harrison, for showing up; thanks for your comments, Heidi, though I totally disagree with you. When we come back from commercial, the New York Times seems to have a lot to say, but do they have the appealing, 3D-animated graphics it takes to properly cover news in this day and age? Ann Coulter will be on to discuss the issue with us after the break. Stay with us.