Rev. Anthony Evans

You know, after the highest court in the land hands you yet another defeat, you think you’d shake hands and admit that maybe, just maybe, you’d lost this one battle. But that’s not the custom of opponents of same-sex marriage in the District, who took this week’s Supreme Court decision not to hear an appeal on marriage equality as a, well, declaration of war.

“This law was forced down the church’s throat and what the Supreme Court has set up is the greatest civil war between the church and the gay community,” said Rev. Anthony Evans to the Washington Blade yesterday. “And let me just state for the record, we don’t want that fight. We love our gay brothers and sisters. But if the Supreme Court is not going to acknowledge the fact that we have a right as religious people to have a say-so in the framework of religious ethics for our culture and society, then we reject the Supreme Court on this issue.”

But there’s more! The Blade also quotes Evans admitting that he and fellow marriage equality opponents lobbied Congress to strip D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton of her House vote, which she lost two weeks ago.

“[O]ur first action was to make sure that Eleanor didn’t get a vote as punishment for her wholehearted support for same-sex marriage in this city and also for her to ignore the black religious community. There is a consequence to her actions. That was one of them,” said Evans to the Blade.