WASHINGTON - Thomas Wang arrived at the National Mall on Oct. 15 after spending a week driving from the San Francisco Bay area in a van that declared "Marriage: One Man and One Woman."

He joined thousands of evangelical Christians for "Mayday for Marriage," a rally supporting heterosexual marriage and condemning same-sex marriage. They traveled by car, bus and plane to spend three hours on the grassy expanse in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol to hear Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson, Focus on the Family Chairman James Dobson and other evangelical leaders decry a court decision in Massachusetts legalizing same-sex marriage and promote a federal constitutional amendment banning such marriages.

 

Now or never

"Are you tired of the courts making all the decisions about the great moral issues of our time?" Dobson asked, receiving a resounding "yes" in response.

"Do you realize that everything we care about is on the line? It's now or never."

Colson, who called gay marriage an "oxymoron," explained his opposition to same-sex marriage as a stance for children rather than against gays.

"It separates parenthood from marriage," he said. "Those children need a male and female, a mother and a father role model, and you can't have that without a mother and a father."

Wang gave an on-stage invocation. He asked for a divine blessing on the nation, and said he and his wife of 42 years, Rachel, were among many who see same-sex marriage as a threat to heterosexual marriage and a more general turn in the wrong direction for the nation.

"This is going to undermine ... traditional marriage," said Wang, 79, who helped coordinate attendance of Chinese Christians from around the country. "God created Adam and Eve. He did not create Adam and Eric, nor did he create Eve and Nancy."

Exact crowd figures were hard to come by. Asked at a press conference about attendance, organizers declined to give a figure beyond "it was a lot." The U.S. Park Service no longer gives crowd estimates.

Bill Goddard, 28, of Frederick, Md., said he feels blessed by his marriage and came in an effort to protect it.

 

Built on the family

"Our country is built on the family," said Goddard, who accompanied his pregnant wife. "We're messing with the foundation of this country. It's a giant social experiment. Many people don't realize what it's going to do."

Spectators and speakers alike worried whether God's blessings would continue if same-sex marriages became the norm.

"Make no mistake about it: If we allow same-sex marriage to be foisted upon us by an imperial judiciary in the United States, God will not bless this nation," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

 

Traveling to support

Jacques Deadwiley traveled from Monroe, N.C., with his wife and 3-year-old son to express his support for the proposed federal amendment, which was voted on in both the House and Senate but didn't receive the required votes for passage, despite being endorsed by President Bush.

"Once there's no differentiation between right or wrong, then what's to stop people from crossing the line?" asked Deadwiley, a 39-year-old general manager of a car dealership.

"God created this covenant and for man to destroy one of God's first covenants, then we're smacking God in the face."