Marriage Victory

Over the past few months proponents of traditional marriage have continually received bad news as Court after Court overturned State's bans on homosexual marriage, but today the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the voter-approved bans of four States: Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee.  The homosexual marriage proponents are sure to appeal these cases to the Supreme Court, which declined a hearing on similar cases early last month.  Because of this ruling, which contradicts all of the recent rulings, the Supreme Court will likely accept one of the cases from one of the four states. 

Only Michigan's and Kentucky's cases deal directly with the legality of marriage, the other two cases deal with the "rights" of homosexual couples. 

Freedom's Defenders applauds of the 6th Circuit's decision to uphold the Constitutionality of these laws.  As we have pointed out these cases have nothing to do with people's rights, but rather with the an attempt to redefine the meaning of the word marriage.  Indeed the Supreme Court said it best in their 1885 case, Murphy vs. Ramsey; "For certainly no legislation can be supposed more wholesome and necessary in the founding of a free, self-governing commonwealth, fit to take rank as one of the coordinate states of the Union, than that which seeks to establish it on the basis of the idea of the family, as consisting in and springing from the union for life of one man and one woman in the holy estate of matrimony; the sure foundation of all that is stable and noble in our civilization; the best guarantee of that reverent morality which is the source of all beneficent progress in social and political improvement." 

 The 6th Circuit's opinion explored Constitutional Theory as well as Government involvement in morality. The Court decided that it is only logical to use to obvious meaning in the text of the Constitution rather than and inferred meaning: "From the founding of the Republic to 2003, every State defined marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman, meaning that the Fourteenth Amendment permits, though it does not require, States to define marriage in that way."

The Court also notes the slippery slope and inconsistency of the homosexual proponent's argument; "If it is constitutionally irrational to stand by the man-woman definition of marriage, it must be constitutionally irrational to stand by the monogamous definition of marriage. Plaintiffs have no answer to the point. What they might say they cannot: They might say that tradition or
community mores provide a rational basis for States to stand by the monogamy definition of
marriage, but they cannot say that because that is exactly what they claim is illegitimate about
the States’ male-female definition of marriage."

Ultimately the Court reasoned such decisions, since these laws are not directly discriminating against anyone, must be left to the people. The Court did not come to a conclusion on the morality of redefining marriage.

To read the 6th Circuit's full opinion click here. 
Read Governor Snyder of Michigan's statement here.