The US National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) has disendorsed its Cleveland, Ohio chapter after the group added same-sex marriage to the issues it campaigns against – suggesting you can be anti-abortion and pro-same-sex marriage.

Cleveland Right To Life (CRTL) changed their official mission statement to include same-sex marriage along with abortion, euthanasia and infanticide as things ‘contrary to the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,’ on 24 June – prompting National Right To Life president Carlos Tobias to write to the group to tell them they had been disaffiliated.

‘Recntly, Cleveland Right to Life announced that it has embraced an advocacy agenda that issues beyond the right to life,’ Tobias wrote.

‘Moreover, it promptly issued public criticisms of and implicit political threats against a US Senator who has supported the right-to-life position on every vote that has come before the Senate and who is a sponsor of major NRLC-backed bills because the chapter disagrees with his position on a non-right-to-life issue.’

GSN believes the senator referred to is Republican Ohio Senator Rob Portman who announced his support for same-sex marriage in March after his son Will came out to him.

Portman has been given a political rating of 100% on right-to-life issues by the NRLC for voting for the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, co-sponsoring a bill to ban partial birth abortion, voting for the Human Cloning Prohibition Act, voting to try to ban overseas abortion funded by the US Government, and voting for a bill outlawing minors from being transported across state lines to receive an abortion.

In a June 24 statement CRTL wrote ‘In recognition of the threat to the child’s basic human rights imposed by the attempt to redefine the family, CRTL’s board of directors have expanded the mission of the organization to include a defense of marriage as a union between a man and a woman that is then open for the procreation of human life.’

‘The pro-life movement must recognize that without this inclusion the efforts to protect human life are diminished. If we are to hasten the end of the culture of death in America we must recognize the role of a stable family that has at its core – committed parents,’ CRTL board member Jerry Cirino said.

Cirino claimed that children did less well when both their parents were of the same sex.

‘Single gender parenting should be recognized for what it is – a less then perfect situation for the child.’