Chuck Colson, the Watergate figure who founded Prison Fellowship ministries, is credited with initiating the declaration, and he drafted the text with two professors, Timothy George of Samford University and Robert George of Princeton University.

Before its unveiling in Washington Nov. 20, more than 140 Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Christian leaders joined in a show of support.

Among the original signers were 17 Catholic bishops including Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York and Archbishop Allen Vigneron and Cardinal Adam Maida of Detroit, and Orthodox leaders Bishop Basil Essey and Father Chad Hatfield. Among the prominent Protestant leaders who signed are Anglican primate Peter Akinola; James Dobson; Gary Bauer; Joni Eareckson Tada; Ravi Zacharias, and Tim Keller.

Neither the large number of supporters nor the protests from gay-rights activists has surprised Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and one of the original signers.

He told The Blade this week that the Manhattan Declaration appeals to multitudes of Christians who feel as though they and their beliefs are under attack.

"The opposition," meanwhile, who have called for disruptions in services in dioceses whose bishops signed the document, has protested such issues before, he said, citing California's Proposition 8 restricting marriage to one man and one woman.

"Orthodox Christians, and I'm using that term with a small 'c' as well as with a large 'c,' conservative Protestants and other evangelical Christians, and conservative Catholics have felt for a number of years that they are under sustained assault by various elements of this society: the media, the entertainment industry, and the political elites," Mr. Land said in an interview.

"And they've come to the place where they feel it's important to let those elites know that there are some nonnegotiables.

And we felt it was necessary to explain why - why we believe what we believe and why those are nonnegotiables - and to give fair warning that these are not preferences, these are convictions," he said.

Stephen Brooks, associate director of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron, said such declarations serve to "rally the troops" and "get people excited" about a cause.

"When you sign the petition, it means you are committing yourself to these causes," he said.

At the same time, legislators do not give much weight to online petitions because they are so easily signed. A few hundred handwritten letters to an elected official's office will generate more clout than thousands of online signatures.

"For those who are in power, this took absolutely no energy from almost all of these people to do it. Technology makes it a whole lot easier and I would argue that the ease of doing it makes it easier on policymakers to ignore," Mr. Brooks said.

The Manhattan Declaration states that it is not just a theoretical document but could require civil disobedience.

"Christianity has taught us that civil disobedience is not only permitted, but sometimes required," it states. It quotes Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" as an "eloquent defense" of the call to civil disobedience.

"We must be willing to defend, even at risk and cost to ourselves and our institutions, the lives of our brothers and sisters at every stage of development and in every condition," the declaration states.

It vows that signers "will be united and untiring in our efforts to roll back the license to kill that began with the abandonment of the unborn to abortion" and has extended into such areas as assisted suicide, euthanasia, and embryonic research.

Regarding marriage, the Manhattan Declaration defines it as "a conjugal union of man and woman, ordained by God from the creation, and historically understood by believers and nonbelievers alike to be the most basic institution in society."

In addition, it said there has been "an ominous development" in recent decades with increased restrictions on the free exercise of religion. As an example, it cites efforts to weaken or erase conscience clauses that allow pro-life doctors and institutions to refuse to perform abortions.

The Rev. Jim Bacik, theologian and pastor of Toledo's Corpus Christi University Parish, said of the declaration, "There is much to affirm in it, but there are some problem areas as well."

He credited the "moral passion" of the wording as one of its positive aspects, as well as its raising up of the King legacy, the affirmation of the family as a building block of society, and the right of believers to participate in the political process and have their opinions heard.

Father Bacik said some Christians would prefer that it had offered strategies on how to reduce abortion rather than legal remedies alone.

"It would be a fuller statement if there was talk on how you persuade others in a politically pluralistic society about why human life should be protected, and recognition of looking for ways that coalitions can be formed around reducing the number of abortions," he said.

He said the declaration also would have been more effective if it included ways to protect the rights of people with homosexual orientation in a pluralistic culture.

"I think many people do not find the argument that recognizing gay marriages would somehow hurt married couples, or hurt the institution of marriage, persuasive," he said.

Mr. Land, who represents the 16.2-million member Southern Baptist Convention, said he believes the Manhattan Declaration is already getting legislators' attention.

"It has given a voice to what a lot of people feel and believe. I also think it has caused some who don't agree with us to take pause and perhaps for the first time listen to why we believe what we believe, and not just the fact that they disagree with what we believe."

More information is available online at manhattandeclaration.org.

Contact David Yonke at: dyonke@theblade.com
or 419-724-6154.