Supreme Court Associate Justices Elena Kagan and Ruth Ginsburg can be described as personal supporters of “same-sex marriage,” having publicly performed ceremonies even while the case was before their court.
But what do they think of their arguments in support of the landmark marriage ruling being used to argue for legalizing polygamy?
And how about the three other justices who sided with them, Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy and Sonia Sotomayor?
They may be confronted with the polygamy issue if a campaign to encourage state officials involved in the original marriage case to ask for a rehearing is successful.
It’s a little-known and seldom-used policy that when the Supreme Court issues a ruling, the losing side has 25 days to submit a request for a rehearing. The opinion was released June 26, so the deadline is approaching soon.
A rehearing requires five justices, so at least one of the justices who voted to legalize same-sex marriage would have to acknowledge there are questions that need to be addressed.
Janet Porter, whose Faith to Action organization is urging state officials to act, told WND there are several legitimate concerns that should be raised.
“We’ve got to try,” she said.
Her group has created a video with a number of warnings about the consequences of enforcing same-sex marriage across the nation.
Pastor Bill Johnson of Redding, California, contends legalizing same-sex marriage brings the nation into partnership “with darkness.”
Activist Brian Camenker of Mass Resistance contends it gives the state “the ability to force the acceptance of homosexuality everywhere” in violation of a person’s faith, despite constitutional protections.
Pastor Scott Lively of Abiding Truth Ministries said what’s next will be “an assault on the church like we’ve never seen before.”
And Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life said, “To silence any aspect of the Gospel truth is ultimately to silence the Gospel.”
Porter explained to WND that she would like to see a flood of citizens contact Ohio officials to respectfully request they seek a rehearing. Ohio is one of the states where a voter-approve definition of marriage was overturned by the Supreme Court.
She said Attorney General Mike DeWine was being asked to submit the request.
On her website, she explains: “Filing a motion for rehearing [in] Obergefell v. Hodges could turn a 5-4 ruling into a 4-3 ruling to uphold real marriage. … Five people should not be able to take away the votes of 50 million Americans. The motion for rehearing could literally protect the voters in nearly 40 states, our state constitutions, the institution of marriage and our freedom of speech and religion.”
“Call the numbers … and simply ask: Are you going to file a motion for rehearing [in] the marriage ruling since Justices Ginsburg and Kagan violated federal law by not recusing themselves? … If the answer is ‘I will pass that along,’ or ‘I don’t know,’ ask to speak to a supervisor. Time is short, and we need an answer.”
Porter said “gay” activists argue they now have a “right” to force Christians to provide services that may violate their faith.
The essential argument in cases already under way, she said, is: Can someone exercising a newly create “right” force someone else to violate their own established constitutional right?
“Whatever case we can make, we’re going to make,” Porter told WND.
Recusal
Porter cited the fact that Kagan and Ginsburg both refused a motion by the Foundation for Moral Law and others to recuse from the case. The motion argued federal law requires judges to leave a case in which their impartiality “may reasonably be questioned.”
WND reported Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore said Ginsburg could be impeached for her public advocacy of “gay” rights as the court considered a case to redefine marriage in federal law.
Ginsburg has performed same-sex ceremonies and made supportive public statements. Kagan also has performed same-sex ceremonies and promoted “gay” rights at Harvard’s law school while she was at its helm.
A brief from the Foundation for Moral Law explained: “Four weeks after this court granted certiorari in these cases, Justice Ginsburg was asked whether parts of the country might not accept same-sex marriage being constitutionalized. She answered: ‘I think it’s doubtful that it wouldn’t be accepted. The change in people’s attitudes on that issue has been enormous. … It would not take a large adjustment.’”
Ginsburg’s interview was with Bloomberg News on Feb. 12.
See Ginsburg’s comments:
Joining in the call for Kagan and Ginsburg to be removed from the case were hundreds of members of the Rabbinical Alliance of America.
Polygamy
Warnings arose in 2008 that if same-sex marriage would be adopted, the same arguments would be used to support demands for polygamy.
In a dissenting opinion in the Supreme Court’s marriage ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts said the arguments “would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage.”
Only days later, in Yellowstone County, Montana, Nathan Collier asked country official for a license to marry Christine, even though he remains married to and committed to Victoria.
He said, “We’re just asking for tolerance.”
Collier said he was inspired by Roberts’ dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges.
In fact, plural marriages are far more common around the globe today and historically. Only a handful of nations recognize same-sex marriage, but billions of Muslims live in societies that accept multiple wives.
Another warning came from California Supreme Court Justice Marvin Baxter, who said in a 2008 dissent to his court’s legalization of same-sex marriage that “bans on incestuous and polygamous marriages are ancient and deeprooted, and, as the majority suggests, they are supported by strong considerations of social policy.”
“Our society abhors such relationships, and the notion that our laws could not forever prohibit them seems preposterous,” Baxter said. “Yet here, the majority overturns, in abrupt fashion, an initiative statute confirming the equally deeprooted assumption that marriage is a union of partners of the opposite sex. The majority does so by relying on its own assessment of contemporary community values, and by inserting in our Constitution an expanded definition of the right to marry that contravenes express statutory law.
“Who can say that, in 10, 15 or 20 years, an activist court might not rely on the majority’s analysis to conclude, on the basis of a perceived evolution in community values, that the laws prohibiting polygamous and incestuous marriages were no longer constitutionally justified?” Baxter wrote.
And commentator Cal Thomas reasoned that “if equal protection covers gays, lesbians, transgenders and the rest, what about the polygamists?”
“Some of their groups have already said that after same-sex marriage is approved, they want polygamy,” he asked in an interview with Fox News.
Others will join in as well, he said.
“And even further out, the adult-child marriages, people, men especially, who want to marry young boys or young girls, as occurs in some Muslim countries, by the way, they want their rights, too.
“Who’s going to say ‘no’ and based on what?” he wondered.
Shredding
Porter said the same-sex marriage ruling also is already being used to shred other constitutional rights, including speech and religion. She cited Oregon’s decision to fine the owners of a bakery $ 135,000 for not baking a same-sex wedding cake and then ordering the owners to keep quiet about the case.
“It’s appalling,” Porter said.
She also said the decision abrogated the votes of residents of dozens of states who had formally adopted a one-man-one-woman definition of marriage.
And she pointed out the complications of annulment statutes in several states, which allow marriages to be never recognized if the unions are not “consummated.”
Porter said that just because it seems impossible for such a court to reverse itself, it’s not.
“In the 2000 presidential election, between George W. Bush and Al Gore, I lived in a place called Broward County, Florida. When they declared the state of Florida – and the election – for Al Gore, I, like so many others got down on my knees and asked for something that had never been done before. I asked for God to change the outcome.
“You know what happened; He answered that ‘ridiculous’ prayer. And if God can change the outcome of a presidential election, He can change the outcome of a Supreme Court ruling.”
WND » Faith
Polygamy express: Supremes could face issue
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