Family Advocates Acclaim Marriage Ruling in Indiana
by Allie Martin
January 25, 2005
(AgapePress) - An Indiana appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit by three homosexual "couples" seeking the right to marry. Marriage traditionalists are applauding the ruling.
In its decision, the court ruled that Indiana's Defense of Marriage Act was constitutional. The court also ruled that the legislature acted properly when it created public policy which preserves marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman. According to one Indiana family advocate, the court acted as it should have -- as a court.
Ryan McCann, director of public policy for the Indiana Family Institute (IFI), says while the court's opinion was not perfect, its work is commendable. "Judge Barnes [who wrote the lead opinion] rightly finds that defining marriage as between a man and a woman does not violate the Indiana Constitution," McCann says, "and that the proper venue for the plaintiffs to institute same-sex marriage is the General Assembly -- not the court system."
"Finally," says McCann, "a judge who understands the role of the judiciary!"
In addition, the IFI's director of communication and public policy says the court recognized the inaccurate grounds upon which the plaintiffs made their argument. "What we can easily miss, but the Indiana Court of Appeals did not, is that these activists start from a faulty premise," McCann says.
"The State of Indiana does not recognize marriage in order to promote absolute individual rights," he continues. "Rather, the state recognizes marriage [as stated in Morrison v. Sadler] 'in order to encourage male-female couples to procreate withing the legitimacy and stability of a state-sanctioned relationship and to discourage unplanned, out-of-wedlock births resulting from "casual" intercourse.'"
McCann is not alone in his thinking. Steve Crampton, chief counsel for the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy, says the court's decision shows there are sound reasons for a state refusing to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
"We have something of a national debate beginning on Social Security," Crampton notes. "The issue of marriage is where 'social security' begins -- if we can't protect marriage, there's no such thing as social security in America."
But Crampton says eventually a court will side with homosexual activists.
"The reality is [that] they just keep firing from the other side, and all they need to do is win one or two and, really, the marriage edifice on which all of society is based collapses almost over night," the attorney says. "It is absurd that we have to sit around sort of wringing our hands waiting to see whether some court is going to take the activist challenge and destroy marriage for all of us."
That is why Crampton believes a federal marriage amendment is the only way to ensure the protection of traditional marriage from the attacks of homosexual activists.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
