By L.A. Williams
Christian Action League
November 7, 2014
A day after proponents of same-sex marriage began celebrating the fall of Missouri’s marriage protection amendment; the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit issued a 2-1 ruling on Thursday upholding the rights of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee to define the sacred institution as between one man and one woman.
“In the Missouri case, the court’s ruling on marriage determined that the state’s Constitution was unconstitutional. That’s one of the most ludicrous rulings I’ve ever heard and clearly a blatant case of the worst kind of judicial abuse. My heavens, how can a Judge be so arrogant as to rule his own state’s constitution as unconstitutional?” said Dr. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League.
“The significant thing about the 6th Circuit ruling, besides the fact that it rightly upholds traditional marriage, is that it gives the Supreme Court an appellate ruling that contradicts those from the 4th, 7th, 9th and 10th circuits, meaning the High Court will virtually be forced to take up the issue, said Dr. Creech.”
In fact, it was the contrary 4th Circuit ruling knocking down Virginia’s marriage amendment that brought same-sex marriage to the Tar Heel state when the Supreme Court refused to hear appeals, he explained.
The Liberty Council, which had filed an amicus brief on behalf of the American Family Association of Michigan, was thrilled to read 6th Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey Sutton’s 42-page opinion, in part decrying judicial activism.
“Of all the ways to resolve this question, one option is not available: a poll of the three judges of this panel, or for that matter all federal judges, about whether gay marriage is a good idea. Our judicial commissions did not come with such a sweeping grant of authority, one that would allow just three of us—just two of us in truth—to make such a vital policy call for the thirty-two million citizens who live within the four states of the Sixth Circuit,” Sutton wrote three months after hearing oral arguments in six cases that involved everything from recognizing gay marriages performed elsewhere to whether same-sex couples should be able to adopt or have their names put on one another’s death certificates.
Sutton also pointed out that states had been in the business of defining marriage since the nation’s founding, a right that he said was clearly reiterated in a 1972 Supreme Court ruling. His wise words also addressed what happens when judges fail to allow the populace to have what he said was a shot at becoming “the heroes of their own stories.”
“When the courts do not let the people resolve new social issues like this one, they perpetuate the idea that the heroes in these change events are judges and lawyers,” he wrote. “Better in this instance, we think, to allow change through the customary political processes, in which the people, gay and straight alike, become the heroes of their own stories by meeting each other not as adversaries in a court system but as fellow citizens seeking to resolve a new social issue in a fair-minded way.”
Meanwhile, the Missouri ruling, based on claims that prohibiting gay marriage violates the equal protection and due process rights of the 14th Amendment, is headed to the state’s Court of Appeals.