WND EXCLUSIVE
SAME-SEX 'MARRIAGE' MANDATE CHALLENGED IN ANOTHER STATE
Legal team that battled federal judiciary in Alabama files another round of cases
Bob Unruh
The influence of the Alabama state Supreme Court’s ruling that same-sex marriage can’t be imposed by a federal judge’s decision is spreading, with a case in Florida arguing officials are bound to follow the state constitution’s protection of traditional matrimony.
As WND reported, the Alabama Supreme Court ordered March 3 a halt to issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, arguing a federal judge can’t overrule the state’s marriage laws.
Playing a key role in that battle between state and federal black robes was Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel, which is making the same arguments in Florida courts.
He told WND on Friday that the situations are similar. Both states protected traditional marriage in their constitution and laws. In both instances, there was a divergent opinion from a single federal judge, and in both it was expected that those not party to the case would simply roll over and start accommodating same-sex marriage.
Staver hopes the judiciary in Florida will follow the Alabama state Supreme Court’s lead.
He’s filed a series of briefs in Florida’s courts on behalf of Florida Family Action in Osceola, Orange and Manatee counties, where district clerks have been “ignoring the rule of law and providing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.”
Staver argues the clerks are not allowed to follow the federal ruling, since they are bound to state law.
“The clerks’ present policy of issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples violates the public ministerial duty not to issue such licenses under the Florida Constitution and statutes,” Liberty Counsel argued in court. “The clerk has no discretion to violate the Constitution of Florida, the laws of Florida, and the clearly expressed will of the people of Florida.”
The briefs state: “Florida’s marriage laws could not be more clear: The clerk has a duty not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. It is equally clear that neither the Brenner Injunction nor any other authority compels or authorizes the clerk to disregard Florida’s marriage laws. The Florida public and the rule of law are being injured by the clerk’s open disregard of her public duties.”
The federal district judge’s decision focused on the clerk of court in Washington County and two men.
“We are in a constitutional crisis in America. Government officials from county clerks to the president of the United States are ignoring the rule of law and arrogantly creating their own laws,” Staver said. “Legislators make laws, not judges, not presidents. Americans fought the Revolutionary War to win the right of a representative form of governance. We cannot give it up now amidst this battle over same-sex marriage.”
The court filings regarding the actions of officials in three counties said: “Although the [federal] injunction encompasses two consolidated cases involving 22 plaintiffs, only the Washington clerk was ordered to issue a marriage license, and only to two men who were plaintiffs in the case. The preliminary injunction against the secretary of Management Services and the surgeon general concerns the other 20 plaintiffs and involves only the legal recognition of the marriages of same-sex couples that occurred outside Florida.”
The briefs argue that only the parties in the case are subject to the order, and it’s unconstitutional for those outside the case to violate state law.
A consequence of the legal advance of same-sex marriage, as WND has found in its Big List of Christian Coercion, is that some Christian business owners have faced legal punishment for choosing not to promote or celebrate same-sex ceremonies with their talents and assets.
Staver told WND the Florida and Alabama cases have no significant differences.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges on April 28. The case centers not only on whether states can craft their own definitions of marriage but whether they must recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other states.
Religious rights advocates already have warned of massive civil disobedience if that happens.
Two of the Supreme Court justices, Elena Kagan and Ruth Ginsburg, already have publicly endorsed same-sex marriage by performing ceremonies.
Staver said if the high court does impose same-sex marriage, people should treat the decision like the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, which affirmed slavery.
Staver also told WND there is an open door to go back to states where “gay marriage” already has been enacted and push back if those orders went beyond the judge’s scope of authority, or state officials not subject to such orders violated state law to do the federal judge’s bidding.
WND reported extensively on the Alabama case, including when Family Research Council senior fellow Peter Sprigg said the developments ought to convince the Supreme Court to tread lightly when it considers whether states have the right to define marriage only as the union of one man and one woman.
“I would hope that that lesson would be one more thing that would chasten the Supreme Court a bit and make them reluctant to overturn not just the laws but the constitutions of a majority of U.S. states on the issue of marriage,” said Sprigg, a defender of traditional marriage.
“I think what is happening in Alabama shows that the federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, should not necessarily operate on the expectation that everyone on the state level will simply roll over and play dead because a federal court expresses its opinion on this issue,” Sprigg said.
“There are limits to how much the courts can impose their will simply by virtue of their prestige and so forth when they’re clearly going beyond anything found in the text of the Constitution,” he said.
Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with Peter Sprigg:
Sprigg not only contends the Constitution is on the side of traditional marriage advocates. He said legal precedent is as well, despite the flurry of lower-court rulings in favor of same-sex marriage.
There already have been warnings of civil disobedience if the high court adopts same-sex marriage.
Staver argued in an article published at Stream.org a primer on civil disobedience is appropriate because of the direction many see the Supreme Court heading.
“Merely because a legislature or a judge passes a law or issues an opinion does not make a law just,” Staver wrote.
In the Bible, Staver said there are multiple references to God’s people violating a government law to pursue God’s will, such as when Moses’ parents hid him from authorities.
And there’s ample reason to believe the U.S. Supreme Court would adopt an egregiously wrong position, he said, pointing to the Scott case.
Inside the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike the federal Defense of Marriage Act are the seeds of what many believe will be the collapse of the same-sex marriage agenda.
The Alabama Supreme Court, in its decision rejecting a federal court mandate for its state, cited the decision.
The court noted: “An open question exists as to whether Windsor’s ‘equal dignity’ notion works in the same direction toward state laws concerning marriage as it did toward DOMA. The Windsor court stated that ‘the history of DOMA’s enactment and its own text demonstrate that interference with the equal dignity of same-sex marriages, a dignity conferred by the states in the exercise of their sovereign power, was more than an incidental effect of the federal statute.”
The Alabama court wrote: “In Windsor, New York’s law allowed same-sex couples to obtain marriage licenses. Thus, the ‘dignity’ was conferred by the state’s own choice, a choice that was ‘without doubt a proper exercise of its sovereign authority within our federal system, all in the way that the Framers of the Constitution intended.’”
But it then raised a question: Why, if New York could make that choice, would Alabama be deprived of exactly the same choice?
“The problem with DOMA was that it interfered with New York’s ‘sovereign’ choice,” the Alabama court said. “Alabama ‘used its historic and essential authority to define the marital relations’ and made a different ‘sovereign’ choice than New York. If New York was free to make that choice, it would seem inconsistent to say that Alabama is not free to make its own choice, especially given that ‘the recognition of civil marriages is central to state domestic relations law applicable to its residents and citizens.’”
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/04/same-sex-marriage-mandate-challenged-in-another-state/#rkkqHdl4BUsA5YCj.99My comments: The godless, Secular Humanists want to FORCE BY LAW all American to CONFORM to their godless RELIGION.
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