October 9, 2014
Column #1,728
How To Fight Supreme Court's Backing of Same-Sex Marriage
By Mike McManus

The Constitution of the United States begins with the words, “We the people.”

However, a handful of judges have decided to ignore the clear will of 4l million people who opposed same-sex marriage by voting for state constitutional amendments that defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

The people voted for the Biblical position.

Jesus himself said, “Have you not heard that He who made them at the beginning `made them male and female,’ and said, `For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’”

Two men cannot become one flesh, nor two women. Of course, people of the same gender can live together and can experience sexual intimacy. But they cannot become one flesh and produce a child. Therefore, it is not a marriage, despite what any court says.

This week the Supreme Court decided to allow five Appellate Court decisions to stand that overturned state constitutional amendments in Virginia, Utah, Oklahoma, Indiana and Wisconsin. Oddly, it did not issue an opinion in those cases, but simply refused to hear them, though advocates on both sides of the issue urged the Court to render an opinion.

Furthermore, the Court’s implicit endorsement of same-sex marriage is likely to expand gay marriage to other states covered by those federal appeals courts – Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Two days after the Supreme Court decision, the U.S. Appeals Court in San Francisco invalidated one man – one woman marriage amendments in Nevada and Idaho. That could mean that same-sex marriage is legal in 32 states.

The drive for same-sex marriage seems to be an unstoppable train.

However, the people of only three states have endorsed gay/lesbian unions – Maryland, Maine and Washington. “Together, they represent only 4.5 percent of the U.S. population,” asserts Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council. “If that’s a `growing consensus’ on same-sex `marriage you could have fooled us.”

The 41 million who have voted for traditional marriage are 12 times the tiny number who redefined marriage in those three states.

The question is will the American people supinely swallow a substitution of “We the judges” for the Constitution’s “We the people…”

Will America’s political leaders stand up to the courts on behalf of the people?

Not in Wisconsin. “For us, it’s over in Wisconsin,” said Gov. Scott Walker, whose administration had fought to uphold the state’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. My interest in him as a Presidential candidate just plunged.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee takes the opposite stand – that governors CAN stand up to the courts: “It is shocking that many elected officials, attorneys and judges think that a court ruling is the `final word,’” Huckabee asserted.

“It most certainly is not. The courts are one branch of government, and equal to the other two, but not superior to either and certainly not to both. Even if the other branches agree with the ruling, the people’s representatives have to pass enabling legislation to authorize same-sex marriage, and the President (or Governor in the case of the state) has to sign it. Otherwise it remains the court’s opinion. It is NOT the `law of the land’ as it is often heralded.”

One governor who agrees is Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback who says the state should defend the ban: “The people have spoken on this. I don’t know how much more you can bolster it than to have a vote of the people to put it in the constitution that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.”

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead said the state’s attorney general will also defend the constitution defining marriage between a man and a woman, and that the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to hear appeals of gay marriage bans had no impact on a state case contesting that definition.

South Carolina's attorney general, Alan Wilson, said if a court specifically rules against that state's gay marriage ban, he will then decide how to proceed. He said a judge hasn't ruled in a lawsuit by a same-sex couple from South Carolina who were married in Washington, D.C., and that he must defend the state's ban.

Gov. Huckabee position should be adopted by every state with constitutional amendments – that there is no same-sex law without enabling legislation.

Finally, states backing traditional marriage should take the lead in fighting for a U.S. Marriage Amendment defining marriage as a union of a man and woman.