Another state falls
- Nov 6, 2008
On October 10, Connecticut became the third state in the country to legalize homosexual marriage by judicial fiat when the state’s Supreme Court ruled by a razor-thin 4-3 vote that same-sex couples have the same constitutional right to marry as heterosexual couples.
Interestingly, the highest courts in California and Massachusetts also recently legalized homosexual marriage by judicial fiat by one-vote margins in those two states. It would seem that even many activist judges have misgivings about so openly thwarting the will of the people from their lofty benches.
In the 85-page majority opinion issued by the Connecticut Supreme Court, Justice Richard N. Palmer cited racial and gender discrimination laws that have been struck down in recent years as validation for the court’s split decision. “Like these once prevalent views, our conventional understanding of marriage must yield to a more contemporary appreciation of the rights entitled to constitutional protection,” Palmer wrote.
Dissenting Justice Peter T. Zarella disagreed. “The ancient definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman has its basis in biology, not bigotry. If the state no longer has an interest in the regulation of procreation, then that is a decision for the legislature or the people of the state and not this court,” he wrote.
“This decision demonstrates—as did the recent decision from the California Supreme Court—the dire need for states to enact constitutional amendments to protect marriage from ongoing judicial attack,” said Brian Raum of the Alliance Defense Fund, which filed a friend of the court brief for the Family Research Council opposing same-sex marriage.
No matter. “For 28 years we have been engaged,” Connecticut resident Garret Stack told the New York Times, standing beside his partner John Anderson. “We can now register at Home Depot and prepare for marriage.”
So goes life—and morality—in modern America. Massachusetts, California, and Connecticut are not the only states fighting this battle on multiple fronts. While the State of New York does not legally allow same-sex marriages, Governor David Paterson has issued an executive decree ordering state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.
The State of Iowa’s high court will soon take up the issue. Close to a dozen states have laws allowing “civil unions” between same-sex couples. Citizens in many states have either introduced or passed constitutional amendments defining marriage as the union between one man and one woman. With an 86% majority, Mississippi voters passed Amendment 1 in November 2004 that states:
Marriage may take place and may be valid under the laws of this state only between a man and a woman. A marriage in another state or foreign jurisdiction between persons of the same gender, regardless of when the marriage took place, may not be recognized in this state and is void and unenforceable under the laws of this state.
However we heterosexuals may have messed up marriage as one of our flawed human endeavors, the ideal has been set forth from the earliest days and the earliest pages of the Bible: marriage is intended to be between one man and one woman for life. Although pro-homosexual apologists have even tried to water down the Bible’s authority on the issue (arguing that David and Jonathan were homosexual lovers, for example), it is clear what God intended for marriage and it hasn’t changed.
Sadly, too many of our marriages within the church end in immorality and divorce. We should continue to strive for the ideal God has set before us and when we get our own act together, perhaps the world will understand that our deeds match our words when it comes to marriage.
Until that day, we’ll have an uphill battle to convince the world we practice what we preach.
This article is reprinted from the October 16, 2008, issue of The Baptist Record, the newspaper of the Mississippi Baptist Convention.
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