Brian Brown, president of the National
Organization for Marriage (NOM), on Wednesday condemned federal court
decisions striking down gay marriage bans in Utah and Indiana.
An
appeals court upheld a lower court's order striking down Utah's ban,
while a federal judge declared Indiana's
law to be unconstitutional, which lad to a rush to the altar in
Indiana.
Less than a week after NOM held a rally
and march to the steps of the Supreme Court to call on justices to
uphold state bans, Utah's challenge moved within striking distance of
the justices' chambers as Utah declared it would appeal the ruling to
the nation's highest court.
(Related: Utah
says gay marriage case headed to Supreme Court.)
Brown called the Tenth Circuit Court of
Appeals' ruling “not surprising given that this Circuit refused to
even order a stay of the district court decision when it came down
during the Christmas holidays” and praised the court's dissenter in
the case.
“While we strongly disagree with the
two judges in the majority, we are encouraged by the strong defense
of marriage articulated by Justice Paul Kelly in his dissent, and
especially his defense of the sovereign right of the people of Utah
to decide this issue for themselves,” Brown said in a blog post.
“This principled recognition by a federal judge considering the
marriage issue underscores that the people of a state are entitled to
respect and deference in their desire to promote marriage as the
union of one man and one woman. Indeed, the US Supreme Court decided
in the Windsor case that the federal government must respect
the right of states to define marriage. The majority in the Utah
case engage in sophistry to attempt to argue their way around the
Supreme Court's ruling that it is up to the states to define
marriage. As Justice Kelly noted in his dissent, 'If the States are
the laboratories of democracy, requiring every state to recognize
same-gender unions – contrary to the views of its electorate and
representatives – turns the notion of a limited national government
on its head.'”
Brown described the ruling in Indiana
as “judicial activism.”
“The elected representatives of the
people of Indiana have decided, for good and proper reasons, to
define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. It is
judicial activism for a single judge to substitute his own views on
marriage for the considered opinion of the people's representatives.
This is just the latest example of activism from the federal bench,
but we fully expect this decision to eventually be reversed when the
US Supreme Court upholds the right of states to define marriage as a
man and a woman. We call on Governor Mike Pence to immediately
appeal this decision and to seek a stay of the ruling. In the
meantime, it is also imperative that the state legislature move
forward a state constitutional amendment preserving marriage so that
the people always remain in control of the definition of marriage in
Indiana.”