Jim Daly, CEO and president of the
Christian conservative group Focus on the Family, linked gay marriage
to polygamy in conceding that a majority of Americans support the
institution.
Daly, who took over leadership of the
group after founder James Dobson stepped aside, made his remarks
during an interview in the June
4 issue of World Magazine.
When asked how things stand on the
issue, Daly replied: “We're losing on that one, especially among
the 20- and 30-somethings: 65 to 70 percent of them favor same-sex
marriage. I don't know if that's going to change with a little more
age – demographers would say probably not. We've probably lost on
that one.”
“Focus on the Family finally got
something right—the American people are rejecting their anti-gay
toxic rhetoric and punitive politics, and are siding with loving and
committed couples seeking the freedom to marry,” Evan Wolfson,
president of Freedom to Marry, said in a statement. “With six
national polls now confirming that a majority of Americans support
the freedom to marry, it’s time for Focus on the Family and other
anti-gay industry activists to move on and, ideally, redirect their
resources toward tackling the real problems gay and non-gay Americans
could be confronting together in these tough economic times.”
On Friday, a
Gallup survey found a large majority (70%) of adults under 35 and a
majority of Americans (53%) support marriage equality. It was
the latest in a string of polls with similar findings.
Daly went on to link gay marriage to
polygamy.
“We've got to look at what God is
doing in all of this,” he added. “Have we done such a poor job
with marriage, is He so upset with our mishandling of it in the
Christian community, along with our lust of the flesh as a nation,
that He is handing us over to this polygamy and same-sex situation in
order to, perhaps, drive the Christian community, the remnant, into
saying, 'OK, there's no-fault divorce in our church'?”