The Christian conservative Thomas More
Law Center is urging the Supreme Court to uphold Proposition 8,
California's 2008 voter-approved gay marriage ban.
The high court will hear a case in
March challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8.
Thomas More argues in an amicus
brief filed last week that overturning the ban would lead to
“ideological totalitarianism” and hand gay activists “a legal
weapon with which to beat down ideological opponents.”
“To enshrine one side of a deeply
divisive issue in constitutionally untouchable concrete is to fashion
a legal weapon with which to beat down ideological opponents, at the
cost of intellectual liberty,” the
organization wrote. “For this Court to say that it is
irrational or illegitimate for a government to recognize, and act
upon, the distinction between the potentially procreative marital
act, and every other sexual act, would be for this Court implicitly
to declare as irrational, benighted, or bigoted, all those
individuals who adhere to the traditional view of marriage.”
“Opponents of the legal redefinition
of marriage already face the prospect of significant retaliation.
Equating such persons, as a matter of constitutional law, with racist
rednecks or backwards fools, serves as a legal license to continue or
increase the legal and social marginalization of such persons. The
price is the loss of liberty for those individuals who can no longer
obtain gainful employment in their fields … and the loss of
intellectual diversity for larger society … This Court should not
foster the imposition of what would be, in effect, an ideological
totalitarianism, i.e., a regime in which the unquestioning acceptance
of the same-sex marriage movement represents the only permissible
point of view.” (Citations omitted.)
(Related: Mormons
to Supreme Court: Banning gay marriage essential to society.)