Following June’s Supreme Court rulings on marriage, the all-out assault on marriage has picked up steam.
The ACLU, Lambda Legal and other leftist organizations are viewing the rulings as an invitation to challenge traditional marriage laws all over the country. Ignoring laws that were either passed by elected officials or ballot measures, they hope to bully a change in the status of same-sex marriage by judicial fiat.
Regrettably, some who have sworn to uphold the law are aiding and abetting the effort to destroy marriage – by getting out of the way.
When faced with such lawsuit, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced last week that her office will not defend her state’s ban on same-sex “marriage” in court, even though she took an oath to uphold the state’s constitution and laws. While Pennsylvania’s citizens can count on Governor Tom Corbett and his general counsel to defend Pennsylvania’s law affirming traditional marriage in court, the inaction of the State’s Attorney General – taking a pass on defending a law supported by the people – is unconscionable.
Of course, Kane is just emulating her heroes. California’s state officials declined to defend Proposition 8 and the Obama administration declined to defend DOMA when those matters were recently before the Supreme Court.
But this trend must stop, immediately. Government officials are not free to ignore laws to advance their own agendas or political standing. As citizens, we need to be assured that the oath to “support, obey and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth,” as Kane pledged, is more than pomp and circumstance.
Governors, attorneys generals and other elected officials in every state will be facing similar decisions, if they haven’t already.
In North Carolina, the ACLU filed a lawsuit in federal district court in 2012 challenging the state’s ban on second parent adoption, where one partner in an unmarried couple adopts the other partner’s biological or adoptive child. Buoyed by the Supreme Court decisions, the ACLU is now amending that lawsuit to argue that the traditional marriage amendment to the North Carolina Constitution violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
This brazen action, in addition to illogically equating same-sex marriage with freedom from slavery, completely disregards the principle that voters have a voice in government. North Carolina’s citizens overwhelmingly approved an amendment to the state’s constitution affirming traditional marriage just one year ago. Now, it is up to the leadership in North Carolina to defend it.
The battle over marriage is here. Our elected leaders must be willing to wage it.
Posted by Nate Kellum
