Wedding cakes and marriage amendments seem to be
in the crosshairs of some public sentiment across the nation regarding the
definition of marriage. "At least 27 lawsuits have been filed against
state marriage amendments, many of them just in the two months since the U.S.
Supreme Court handed down its historic ruling on marriage earlier this
summer" in Windsor v. U.S.
"That ruling struck down Section 3 the
federal Defense of Marriage Act, saying the federal government overstepped its
bounds when it passed that portion of the act. The justices reasoned that
the decision about marriage should be left up to each state, paving the way for
a flurry of lawsuits. States facing challenges to their marriage amendments
include: Arkansas, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri,
Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania,
South Carolina, Utah and Virginia. South Caroline is the latest to be added to
that list. There, a lesbian couple is challenging the constitutional
amendment approved by voters in 2006. The complaint says that it
infringes on the couple's right to due process, equal protection,
and violates the Full Faith and Credit Clause [of the U.S.
Constitution] because it does not recognize same-sex marriage licenses from
other states." Kim Tobee, Lawsuit Challenges State Marriage
Amendment, Sept. 4, 2013, CitizenLink.
Simultaneously with
these challenges, personal faith concerns may become irrelevant in the
public sentiment regarding marriage. FamilyRestoration posted on the matter
involving an Oregon bakery earlier. Now, those bakery owners in Oregon have
been forced to close their business due to falling revenues and personal
threats. The Christian owners of "Sweet Cakes" did not
take the order for a wedding cake from a lesbian couple last year, which is
currently resulting in their being forced out of business and into seclusion
for personal safety.
American media outlets
generally do not report a comprehensive perspective on these types of cases,
but the UK Daily Mail is reporting that the owners received death threats over a period of months
and dramatic boycotts of their bakery, forcing its closure.
CitizenLink also reported on these events.
States and families
across the nation are experiencing major challenges to marriage strength and
family stability. Family restoration is a critical component to strong
states, yet those states and families who try to reinforce family strength with
a conjugal definition of marriage (as between one man and one woman for a
lifetime) appear to be targeted for that view point. It seems
that neither freedom of religion nor the democratic process are
providing any assistance to those holding a conjugal definition of
marriage.
For more publications on
why marriage is so essential to family restoration download the article on the proliferation of domestic partnerships
and the article on why an employer would want
to endorse marriage as a good business practice.
The October 6, 2014 decision by the Supreme Court to deny review of certiorari regarding same-sex marriage seems counter to the Supreme Court's ruling in Windsor v. U.S. and examples the overreaching arm of the federal legal system. By denying cert. the Supreme Court essentially upheld the rulings of lower federal courts declaring same-sex marriage in five states unconstitutional.
ReplyDeleteThe federal government has already laid out the limitations within which it may work with regards to the state-specific area of family law. Any federal judge that rules counter to what state law says pertaining to this area of law has overstepped its bounds unless it is truly a matter of Constitutional rights. The right to marry is not in the Constitution. True, in Loving v. Virginia, the right to marry was implied through interpretation from the Supreme Court, but that phrase is not in the Constitution’s plain language. What the Constitution does say, in the 14th Amendment, is that a state cannot deny a person equal protection under its laws. From my perspective, the only true violation of the Constitution, in Loving, with regards to an individual's right to marry was whether a non-white person was considered "a person" under the Constitution. Once that was remedied, essentially in Loving though it was opined under the guise of “right to marry”, all states should have been allowed to define marriage based on their individual state’s public policy.
If a state believes it is offensive to its public policy for marriage to be between more than one man and one woman, two women or two men, a child and an adult, etc., then it offends only that state’s public policy. The state, therefore, is not in violation of any Constitutional “right” as long as it applies its laws equally across the board to “any person” within its jurisdiction.