Brian Brown is calling on Republican
leaders in the Senate to do “whatever it takes” to confirm Neil
Gorsuch, President Donald Trump's pick for the Supreme Court.
Brown, who heads two groups opposed to
LGBT rights, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and the
International Organization for the Family, said in an email sent
Monday that confirming Gorsuch is the first step in NOM's plan to
reverse the high court's groundbreaking 2015 finding in Obergefell
that gay and lesbian couples have a constitutional right to marry.
“As you know, the path to reversing
the illegitimate, anti-constitutional ruling of the Supreme Court
redefining marriage begins with the confirmation of Judge Gorsuch,”
Brown wrote. “Once he becomes a justice, we will likely be only
one vote shy of reversing this horrible decision.”
NOM is prompting a petition that urges
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to support a change in the
Senate rules that would require a simple majority to confirm Supreme
Court justices – the so-called nuclear option.
During his Senate confirmation hearing,
Gorsuch said that Obergefell was settled law, though he did
not reveal his personal views on marriage equality.
“Is absolutely settled law. There's
ongoing litigation about its impact and its application right now,
and I cannot share my personal views without suggesting mistakenly
...” Gorsuch said before being interrupted.
Christian conservatives, however, are
convinced that Gorsuch would vote to overturn Obergefell and
Roe, the 1973 landmark decision on the issue of abortion.
“Judge Gorsuch’s record shows that
he is committed to stopping judicial activism and interpreting cases
on the basis of what the constitution actually says rather than on
the basis of an ideological bias or of a desire to legislate from the
bench,” Brown
wrote. “Such judicial activism has been evident in many
decisions of the last several decades, including notably the fateful
Roe v. Wade decision on abortion in 1973 and the much more
recent Obergefell decision that sought to supplant a radical
redefinition of marriage for what marriage intrinsically is: the
union of one man and one woman. Like Justice Scalia whom he will
replace, Judge Gorsuch surely sees the errors of these decisions and,
if given the opportunity, will rule to overturn them and put our
country back on the right track of respecting life and marriage.”