“The Court got both of these decisions wrong, but they did NOT create a Constitutional right to redefine marriage.”
 
Monday, June 26, 2013

WOBURN — This morning, the Supreme Court of the United States issued opinions in U.S. v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry, the two cases before it dealing with same-sex marriage.  The Court decided that the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which was passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton, violates the equal protection clause of the Fifth Amendment to our Constitution.  Kris Mineau, President of Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI), was disappointed that the Court failed to uphold the federal definition of marriage established through its elected representatives and instead demeaned the widely held moral and social concerns behind the Defense of Marriage Act.  “This decision makes our Federal government complicit in the redefinition of marriage.”  However, Mineau does see some silver lining in the decision.  ”The DOMA opinion recognizes that the federal government allows states to define marriage for themselves.   For the 38 states that have protected marriage as between one woman and one man, this is good news.  In addition,  Justice Kennedy makes it clear that his opinion applies ONLY where states have redefined marriage, so the impact of this ruling is expressly limited to those states.”

The Court also ruled that defenders of Proposition 8, California’s law defining marriage as between one man and one woman, lacked standing to bring their case in Federal Court.  “It is very disappointing that the Court refused to allow for the defense of Prop 8.  If a state-wide referendum serves any purpose, it is to bypass the very state officials who, in this case, refused to defend the law.  Citizens in California that went to the ballot box should have had a right to defend their law.”  Mineau also noted that same-sex activists failed to achieve their ultimate goal in these cases.  “The Court got both of these decisions wrong, but they did not create a Constitutional right to redefine marriage.  They ruled, in essence, that the debate about marriage in our nation will go on.”

Kris Mineau has been the leading the pro-family spokesman since the Goodridge decision, and has witnessed the impact of the redefinition of marriage in the Commonwealth.  “We have already seen the consequences here at the state level, and we can only expect them to now spread nationwide.  After nearly a decade of judicially mandated same-sex ‘marriage’ in Massachusetts, homosexual activists are working to silence those who refuse to accept homosexuality as a healthy, normative lifestyle.”  As an example of this concern, Mineau points out House Bill 154, currently working its way through the MA Legislature, that would ban parents from receiving sexual orientation counseling for children who have unwanted same-sex attractions.  “This is a disturbing assault on parental rights, and further evidence of the homosexual lobby’s desire to penalize and demean the pro-family community and worse, demean the traditional roles of mother and father that children need and want.”  MFI also broke the story in February of this year of the MA Department of Education’s controversial transgender bathroom policy, which threatens the privacy and safety of all public school students, and seeks to completely eliminate gender distinctions. “Same-sex ‘marriage’ makes gender insignificant in relationships, and the same forces that fought to redefine marriage in this way are now promoting gender’s fluid nature by normalizing transgenderism, cross-dressing and gender bending in MA schools.”

Andrew Beckwith, general counsel and Executive Vice President for MFI, understands the legal fall-out from the Court’s decision will be significant.  “The Court’s rulings, in effect, allow a handful of states to force a redefinition of marriage, through the federal government, onto the entire country.  The loss of DOMA means that marriage is now defined as whatever emotional bond a state says it is.”  In addition to undermining the fundamental societal institution of marriage, Beckwith also sees the Court’s decision as creating a new set of injustices.  “As has been argued in multiple friend of the court briefs in the marriage cases, the redefinition of marriage through judicial fiat has proven to be a direct and demonstrated threat to religious freedom and marginalizes those who affirm marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”

Nevertheless, Massachusetts Family Institute reaffirmed today that it will continue to promote the timeless truths that it takes a mother and a father to create a child and, therefore, every child has the fundamental right to be raised by a mother and a father.  MFI President Mineau stated, “Marriage exists to bring a man and a woman together as husband and wife to be father and mother to any children their union produces.  It’s rooted in the reality that children need a mother and a father.  That’s why 38 states, with good reason, affirm marriage as the union of a man and a woman.  This redefinition of marriage denies, as a matter of policy, the ideal that a child needs a mom and a dad by placing the desires of adults over the needs of children.”