Same Sex Marriage Opponents Urge Defiance

Opponents of same-sex marriage were quick to blast Friday’s Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage, saying the court overstepped its authority.

“We’re not surprised, and we recognize that 31 states where the people have chosen to vote in traditional marriage, the protection of man-woman marriage, should be extremely disappointed and asking what happened to their rights, the rights of the democratic process and people,” Ron Prentice of ProtectMarriage.com told NBC4.

ProtectMarriage.com was the leading proponent of Proposition 8, the measure that banned same-sex marriage in California until it was overturned.

“Today’s decision does grave injury to the basic concept that the people -- not the courts -- make the law,” the group’s general counsel, Andy Pugno, said. “A bare majority of the Supreme Court has abruptly cut off this ongoing debate, unilaterally imposing its view of what’s good for society by suddenly discovering a new constitutional right that almost no one would have imagined just a few years ago.

“The ‘separation of powers’ they taught us in grade school is now dangerously out of balance, and it’s time to remind the government that all constitutional power ultimately resides in the consent of the governed -- not in kings, dictators or judges,” he said.

Jim Domen of the California Family Council, told Channel 4 his group “will continue to uphold the biblical truth about marriage, that marriage is between a man and a woman.”

“And my encouragement to pastors and the church at large is to uphold truth about marriage between a man and a woman,” he said.

Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com, said the court’s ruling was simply wrong.

“Because the Supreme Court has no troops to enforce its illegitimate opinion, sovereign states with constitutional marriage amendments should ignore this unconstitutional edict and should instead faithfully enforce their state constitutions, as all state officials swear to do,” Thomasson said. “While federal judges subvert the written words of the Constitution, it is incumbent upon state-based supporters of our republic to authorize only man-woman marriages -- the natural kind -- as God-given stabilizers for family and society, supplying what’s in the best interest of children.”

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles referred inquiries about the ruling to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which issued a statement from Washington condemning the court’s decision.

“It is profoundly immoral and unjust for the government to declare that two people of the same sex can constitute a marriage,” according to Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky. “The unique meaning of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is inscribed in our bodies as male and female. The protection of this meaning is a critical dimension of the ‘integral ecology’ that Pope Francis has called us to promote.

“Mandating marriage redefinition across the country is a tragic error that harms the common good and most vulnerable among us, especially children. The law has a duty to support every child’s basic right to be raised, where possible, by his or her married mother and father in a stable home.”

City News Service

Photo: Patch Archive