A federal court Wednesday upheld Hawaii’s definition of marriage as one man and one woman, rejecting a lawsuit to tear down both the definition as well as Hawaii’s constitutional amendment giving the legislature the power to maintain it.
Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys defended the law and the amendment on behalf of Hawaii Family Forum, which the court allowed to intervene in the case in April.
“This ruling affirms that protecting and strengthening marriage as the union of one man and one woman is legitimate, reasonable, and good for society,” said Legal Counsel Dale Schowengerdt. “The people of Hawaii adopted a constitutional amendment to uphold marriage, and the court rightly concluded that the democratic process shouldn’t be short-circuited by judicial decree.”
The three individuals who filed the suit asked the court to declare the state’s constitutional amendment on marriage and the state’s law defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman unconstitutional. The lawsuit also assailed Hawaii’s “civil unions” law, which became effective Jan 1, saying that equal rights would only be fulfilled by redefining marriage itself.
But in its order, the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii concluded, “Throughout history and societies, marriage has been connected with procreation and childrearing…. It follows that it is not beyond rational speculation to conclude that fundamentally altering the definition of marriage to include same-sex unions might result in undermining the societal understanding of the link between marriage, procreation, and family structure.”
“In this situation,” the court continued, “to suddenly constitutionalize the issue of same-sex marriage ‘would short-circuit’ the legislative actions that have been taking place in Hawaii…. Accordingly, because Hawaii’s marriage laws are rationally related to legitimate government interests, they do not violate the federal Constitution.”
[Democrat] Gov. Neil Abercrombie stated both publicly and in the lawsuit that he would not defend the state’s marriage law. His attacks on the law’s constitutionality prompted Hawaii Family Forum to ask the court to allow it to intervene in defense of marriage in the state.
See, that’s interesting. Hawaii legalized same-sex civil unions, but that wasn’t enough. Even with legalized same-sex unions, the gay activists pushed for gay marriage. An even their constitutional amendment wasn’t safe – imagine if they had a different judge who went the other way.
The traditional definition of marriage was affirmed by North Carolina voters on Tuesday. The count was 61-39.
North Carolina approved a constitutional amendment Tuesday defining marriage solely as a union between a man and a woman, becoming the latest state to effectively slam the door shut on same-sex marriages.
With most of the precincts reporting Tuesday, unofficial returns showed the amendment passing with about 61 percent of the vote to 39 percent against. North Carolina is the 30th state to adopt such a ban on gay marriage.
Tami Fitzgerald, who heads the pro-amendment group Vote FOR Marriage NC, said she believes the initiative awoke a silent majority of more active voters in the future.
“I think it sends a message to the rest of the country that marriage is between one man and one woman,” Fitzgerald said at a celebration Tuesday night. “The whole point is simply that you don’t rewrite the nature of God’s design based on the demands of a group of adults.”
In the final days before the vote, members of President Barack Obama’s cabinet expressed support for gay marriage and former President Bill Clinton recorded phone messages urging voters to oppose the amendment.
Notice that there is nothing in the amendment about banning anything:
Sec. 6. Marriage.
Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State. This section does not prohibit a private party from entering into contracts with another private party; nor does this section prohibit courts from adjudicating the rights of private parties pursuant to such contracts.
That’s something you hear in the leftist media, but this bill is no more a ban on gay marriage as it is a ban on polygamy. It simply affirms that the state will only recognize traditional marriages as valid. People can do whatever they want and live however they want. What they can’t do is force other people to call relationships that do not affirm the right of a child to have a mother and father “marriage”.
To understand why people oppose same-sex marriage, you can read my post from yesterday, in which I lay out 3 non-religious reasons to oppose gay marriage. In addition, my friend Melissa has another reason to support traditional marriage that Christians in particular will find compelling.
Upon entering politics, Perry has maintained a record of defending religious expression in the public sphere.
He supported and signed a Texas bill in 2007, the “Religious Viewpoint Anti-Discrimination Act,” clarifying that students and school employees alike had the right to express religious views in public, and that religious groups had the same right of access to public facilities as secular groups.
[…]But one thing that distinguishes Perry from the typical right-wing politician is his unabashedly public prayer life: the governor has called on Texans to pray and even fast in response to state crises or disasters.When wildfires were raging during a drought in Texas this spring, Perry released an official proclamation over the Easter weekend asking people of all faiths to pray for rain for three days, and to pray for firemen and other officials in danger.
And:
Perry is increasingly famous for championing the 10th Amendment of the US Constitution, by which states are granted whatever powers are not explicitly reserved to the federal government.
Despite a conservative record on marriage – Perry supported Texas’s 2005 amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman – his 10th Amendment loyalties led to some confusion among pro-family advocates when he indicated that New York’s decision to legalize same-sex “marriage” in June was “their business, and that’s fine with me.”
Perry later clarified that he was not defending same-sex “marriage,” but the principle allowing states to decide without intrusion by the federal government. He added that he supported a federal marriage amendment, which would mean an agreement by 3/4 of the states, to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman nationwide.
The Texas governor also defended Texas’s sodomy law, which the US Supreme Court struck down in 2002 in Lawrence v. Texas
I still think Bachmann is better, but Perry has socially conservative accomplishments. In my opinion, this makes him better than Romney, who has nothing to show that he is a social conservative, and much to show that he is a social liberal.
Here’s more about Perry in a second post from Life News.
Excerpt:
As governor, Rick Perry signed Texas’s informed consent law, the Woman’s Right to Know Act in 2003, and legislation giving unborn children at any point in gestation separate victim status in a crime (the Prenatal Protection Act 2003). He also signed a parental consent law in 2005, and made Texas the 10th U.S. state to fund abortion alternatives beginning in 2005.
Perry also signed into law a 2005 measure banning abortion after 26 weeks gestation. The law allows exceptions in the cases where the mother faces substantial risk of death, “imminent, severe, irreversible brain damage or paralysis,” or if her unborn child has “severe, irreversible brain impairment.”
During the most recent legislative session, Perry declared a new sonogram bill an “emergency” priority, allowing the legislature to swiftly enact the law that requires abortionists to provide women an ultrasound of their unborn child and an opportunity to hear the fetal heartbeat before making a decision on abortion.
[…]Perry adheres to a strong 10th amendment, or states rights philosophy, especially on abortion. The 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution iterates that either the states or the people retain governmental powers not explicitly given to the federal government in the Constitution.
Perry has made the case that the states would be in a better position to defend the unborn than the federal government, which has been a prime donor to the abortion industry at home, through subsidizing Planned Parenthood, or funding abortion groups overseas.
The U.S. Supreme Court curtailed the power of the states to restrict or regulate abortion with the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, making abortion a constitutional right, and therefore a federal issue. This has prevented states from passing pro-life laws that would greatly restrict or ban abortion.
Perry, however, has said that while he believes abortion is a matter for the states, he would support a Human Life Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Such an amendment would be consistent with his states-based approach, because it would require the common consent of three-quarters of the States and supermajorities in both chambers of Congress.
There’s more in those two articles.
Again, he’s more moderate than I would like, but also more electable. He sounds like he would strike a middle ground between my views and Mitt Romney’s views. He’ll have more broad appeal with Democrats and independents. He’s not conservative enough for me on social issues, but he’s conservative enough to move the ball forward on social issues from where things stand today. I still prefer Michele Bachmann to anyone else by far, but a Perry/Bachmann or Perry/Pawlenty ticket makes sense to me, if it comes to that, with the remaining Minnesota candidate running for the Senate seat in 2012 against that miserable Amy Klobuchar.
I notice that the Club for Growth has a white paper on Michele Bachmann’s record views, but none for Rick Perry, yet. Bachmann gets an excellent review from Club for Growth, naturally. And she’s tied for first place on social issues with Rick Santorum, in my opinion.
WINTERY KNIGHT 