Op-Ed: Supreme Court Now in the Clear to Reconsider Same-Sex Marriage
With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ended the recognition of a constitutional right to abortion and returned the matter to the states, where it has always belonged. With this, it is reasonable to reconsider the Obergefell decision, which legalized homosexual “marriage” throughout the land.
In Obergefell v. Hodges — decided on June 26, 2015, by a split 5-4 margin — the justices determined that same-sex couples have a fundamental right to marry based on the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Here, as in Roe v. Wade, unelected lawyers in black robes, functioning as a supreme legislature, acting against our nation’s history, culture and traditions, imposed upon the states — and more than 300 million people — a mandate to overhaul the most fundamental institution in society. What was at issue here was not due process or equal protection, but the definition of an institution that in 5,000 years of human history has always required sexual complementarity.
The decision undermined all notions of federalism, states’ rights, the constitutional order and basic democratic practice. The nature of marriage is not mentioned in the Constitution. Determining its definition is not a power of the federal government. It is to be left to the states and the people. This was not government by law or democratic process but by judicial decree.
No body of unelected lawyers, not even the Supreme Court of the United States, should have the power to decide for a nation the nature and definition of an institution so crucial to that society.
In Loving v. Virginia (1967), the court properly decided that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional, thus allowing interracial marriage. In that decision, there was no attempt to redefine marriage. It simply removed an unconstitutional impediment to interracial marriage, a violation of the 14th Amendment; it did not alter the nature of marriage nor the requirement for sexual complementarity.
Gay marriage is not a right but a distortion of a sacred institution. Gay marriage is irrational, an oxymoron. Gays cannot marry because they are sexually the same. Whether they love one another and plan to spend the rest of their lives together does not matter. Marriage cannot be twisted, bent or folded to suit personal preferences. A proper understanding of marriage falls outside the realm of “rights,” for it is a descriptive term, a matter of logic, natural law and biology.
Marriage, by definition, is between opposite sexes. Sexual complementarity has always been a requirement of marriage, and the reasons are not difficult to fathom. They are rooted in biology, and we are, in the end, biological creatures.
All of our organ systems — digestive, cardiovascular, pulmonary and so on — are complete within each of us, save one: our reproductive system. This one system requires a mate of the opposite sex to be complete. Marriage is consummated by the union of reproductive organs. That this must be is self-evident. Members of the same sex cannot perform the marital act. They cannot marry.
The traditional family is the domestic unit upon which society depends; without it society cannot function and will eventually collapse. New life cannot issue from the “union” of individuals of the same sex; it is for this reason that traditional marriage is sanctified and given special legal and moral status.
To recognize gay marriage (and all other “alternative lifestyles” that follow) blurs the significance of traditional marriage, desanctifies and weakens it, and renders it just another choice. Already a battered institution, marriage should be bolstered and upheld, privileged and elevated. While gay people enjoy the right to free speech, due process and equal treatment before the law, there is no “right” to transform fundamental institutions to suit elite tastes or enhance gay self-esteem. Society must tolerate gay people but is not obligated to endorse their activities or goals.
Leftists, of course, support gay marriage. They see society as an oppressive, “heteronormative” patriarchy and seek to tear it down. Traditional families, furthermore, are autonomous islands that generally perform well enough without government assistance; as such, they thwart the leftist agenda. Liberalism thrives on social failure. It feeds on broken families and dysfunction. The collapse of the family has been a long-standing project.
With the left and its media appendage, it is always about narratives, long-term goals and the seizing of power. Beneath the smiling patina of the charming news host or glib politician, the façade of tolerance and broadmindedness, leftists pursue their radical agenda with grim intensity, censoriousness and, when necessary, violence.
Indeed, the homosexual agenda (along with its counterpart “feminism” and, more recently, transgenderism) is but another arrow in its quiver by which to undermine society, to uproot its time-honored institutions and, in particular, to chip away at that great bulwark against collectivism, the traditional family.
Obergefell was also an assault not just on Christianity but on all faiths, our culture and on American civilization, which is based on the Judeo-Christian tradition. It was an attack on common sense, federalism, the separation of powers and the constitutional order.
We live in a post-constitutional age, under attack by the progressive (regressive) left, which seeks to flip our culture on its head and undermine the two great impediments to centralized government, the traditional family and the church. These are the twin pillars of civil society that stand between the individual and the central government.
Obergefell was another salvo of the sexual revolution and its war on the family and Christianity. Abortion, radical feminism, gay marriage and now transgenderism are all of a piece.
But five leftist judges cannot redefine marriage. It remains a union between a man and a woman, an organic institution based on nature and biology that precedes the political order. Its purpose is to civilize the mating process and to provide the best environment for children to grow in. It is about creating new life. It is not about validating the adult relationship of your choice or satisfying elite opinion.
We must defend traditional marriage. It is time to overturn Obergefell.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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