The links between Florida’s proposed Amendment 2 and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family are exposed in an editorial in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Stephen Goldstein explains some of the problems with the initiative.

Floridians will be given a chance to vote for or against frivolous, mean-spirited Constitutional Amendment 2, banning same-sex marriage, which is already illegal here…

The amendment should never have been allowed on the ballot because, if approved, its confusing wording will jeopardize the status and benefits of unmarried, domestic, heterosexual partners and their children, not just ban same-sex marriages: “Inasmuch as marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.”

Everyone knows Orlando personal injury lawyer John Stemberger is leading the call for “protecting” marriage. That Focus on the Family is behind this bad idea isn’t widely noted.

If you have ever hesitated to believe in conspiracy theories, you have reason to believe one now. Amendment 2 has been made to look home-grown, but…It’s an integral part of a multi-state, carpetbagger strategy to shape America in the image of Dr. James Dobson, self-anointed prescriber of moral values.

From Colorado, his Focus on the Family wants to tell us how to live…Floridians are being used as pawns in an assault that is as much big business as religion. For the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2006, Dobson’s Focus on the Family had revenue of $142 million and assets of $79 million…

But Stemberger and Dobson seem to realize that just as the amendment’s true backers don’t want to be seen, neither do its financial supporters.

Stemberger is waging as stealth a campaign as he can get away with. In September, he sent a memo to potential donors, stressing which of his three front organizations could accept “confidential gifts with no public disclosure.”

Since 2005, he’s bagged $1.1 million in bucks and in-kind contributions to ban same-sex marriage. Biggest contributors: the Florida Republican Party ($300,000), Amway’s Richard Devos ($100,000), the Florida Catholic Conference ($45,500), and the Florida Baptist Convention ($55,000).

Stemberger has publicly acknowledged that as soon as his cronies get Amendment 2 passed, they will go after divorce. That’s right, they want to protect marriage to the point that once you’re in it, you can’t get out.

The Dobson/Stemberger agenda goes beyond fighting the same-sex bugaboo. Florida Family Action, Stemberger’s lobbying arm, pushed for creationism to be taught in Florida classrooms. His next issue is going to be doing away with Florida’s no-fault divorce.

If you weren’t being told otherwise, it might seem that Stemberger is really pissed off at marriage. His amendment would turn heterosexual relationships into all-or-nothing life sentences and homosexual ones into…well, nonexistence. This isn’t how people live in America. Maybe Dobson and Stemberger should consider residence in a place that already treats human relations the way they want. The Taliban, for example, stones to death homosexuals, and women who have sex outside of marriage. Sound like things Focus on the Family could take up next.