Christian Attorney: If Homosexual 'Marriage' Made Legal, Expect DOMA Challenges
by Chad Groening and Jody Brown
November 20, 2003
(AgapePress) - A pro-family attorney says Tuesday's decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court to approve homosexual "marriage" will undoubtedly result in a flood of court cases from homosexuals in other states.
In a ruling that has been roundly blasted by pro-family groups across America, four of the seven judges on the highest court in the Bay State decided it was unconstitutional for the state to limit marriage to persons of the opposite sex. Perhaps to avoid being labeled as an "activist judiciary," the court gave the Massachusetts legislature 180 days to take "appropriate" action in light of the 4-3 decision.
Steve Crampton, chief counsel for the American Family Association's Center for Law & Policy, says he is very concerned about the high court's decision. He explains that a law in Massachusetts that allows same-sex marriages could affect every other state in the country.
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Steve Crampton |
"Each state must give full faith and credit to the acts and decrees of any other state -- unless it has a strong and well-articulated public policy against the particular conduct that is at issue," the attorney explains. "In this particular case, we have a lot of states -- I think it was 37 at last count -- that have adopted their own Defense of Marriage Acts [DOMAs]."He predicts that once a homosexual marriage law is enacted in Massachusetts, those states that prohibit same-sex unions under a DOMA will find it being challenged by homosexuals.
"The whole purpose behind a DOMA is to set out the public policy of your particular state -- and those things have not been challenged yet," Crampton says.
"So what we're going to have is yet another crisis in the federal courts when the same-sex couples file suit in, say, Mississippi to challenge the refusal of the Mississippi government to recognize their marriage that has been certified and blessed, if you will, in the State of Massachusetts."
The result, the attorney says, will be the decision being put back into the hands of what he calls a "runaway judiciary" that will then dictate to states' citizens what is right and wrong, and what they must do as free citizens of the nation. Crampton believes a Federal Marriage Amendment protecting marriage as the union of one man and one woman is the only way to head off judicial-mandated homosexual marriage.
'Constitutional Firewall' Needed
Well-known evangelist Dr. D. James Kennedy agrees with Crampton on the necessity for a Federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In fact, he says lawmakers in Massachusetts and those at the federal level need to act now to erect what he calls "a constitutional firewall against judicially imposed counterfeit marriage."
In a printed statement, Kennedy says regardless of what four members of the Massachusetts Supreme Court say, the "intimate coupling" of two men or two women is not marriage. "It is a pale and misshapen counterfeit that will only serve to empty marriage of its meaning and destroy the institution that is the keystone in the arch of civilization," the Florida-based Presbyterian minister says.
On top of that, he says, marriage is God's idea -- not one that can be massaged to accommodate different gender permutations. He points out an Old Testament verse that makes that clear: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." (Genesis 2:24)
Kennedy adds that "further variations on the theme" will certainly follow the legitimization of same-sex marriage. "If homosexuals win the right to 'marry,' expect further similarly argued claims challenging legal barriers to polygamy, bestiality, and child marriage," he says.
