Maggie Gallagher, founder of the
National Organization for Marriage (NOM), has claimed that Supreme
Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has proclaimed a “fatwa” against
gay marriage foes.
Kennedy wrote the majority opinion that
struck down a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as
unconstitutional. Without the provision, the federal government must
recognize the legal marriages of gay and lesbian couples.
“Are last week's rulings on marriage
as monumental, with the staying power, of Roe v. Wade?”
National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez asked.
“What you are really asking is: Will
we concede the legitimacy of Kennedy's fatwa against us, or will we
respond with a sustained opposition – legal, political, cultural,
and of the moral imagination?” Gallagher
answered. “Will they succeed in persuading us to accept the
second-class status Kennedy lays out for us? Not me, what about
you?”
In a separate radio interview on
Monday, Gallagher claimed that the Supreme Court had declared “war”
on “at least half of the American people.”
“This is a head-on declaration of war
against at least half of the American people who think that marriage
is between a husband and a wife,” she
told Lars Larson.
Gallagher also claimed that the court
majority could not say how DOMA violated the U.S. Constitution.
The court said that DOMA is “contrary
to some provision in our Constitution which we can't name but it's so
bad that we're just gonna say you can't do that,” Gallagher stated.
However, Kennedy's opinion states that
“DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of
persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment.”