Eugene Delgaudio: "Moderates Being Ignored As The Supreme Court Threatens To Legalize Same-Sex Marriage -- Over Their Weak Objections"

March 30, 2013

There has been a great deal said in our legal briefs and in the news media about the Proposition 8 (Hollingsworth vs. Perry) case from California. Let us now have a look at the logic in the other case related to the Defense of Marriage Act: United States vs. Windsor.

Objections from the moderate wing of the evangelical Chrisitan movement are raised by Richard Land on Christian Post: (note: Public Advocate attornies have argued against both cases with friend of the court briefs).

"(Last week) the U.S. Supreme Court (heard) arguments on two cases involving same-sex marriage issues which will have far reaching repercussions for both the Supreme Court and American society.

Whereas the Proposition 8 case deals with the issue of whether the people of California's amendment to their state constitution defining marriage as being only between one man and one woman violates the U.S. Constitution, in United States v. Windsor the Supreme Court is seeking to adjudicate Section Three of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

This bill passed Congress with an overwhelming bipartisan majority in 1996 and defines marriage as only between a man and a woman concerning eligibility or applicability of more than 1,000 federal laws, benefits, and programs that apply to marriage. The most well-known section of DOMA, which allows states not to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states, is not under challenge in the Court in this case.

Why did the Supreme Court agree to hear these two cases? What will their decisions be?

Will the Court risk provoking the wrath of a sizable percentage of the public by seeking to take the marriage issue away from the people of the various states and seek to impose its definition of marriage on all fifty states?

Will the Court further use the occasion to mandate that federal benefits accorded to heterosexual marriage must now all be applied to same-sex marriages performed in the states that legalize it?

I believe they will, at the same time, take the opportunity of the United States v. Windsor case to decide that when a state has recognized same-sex marriage as legal within that state, such marriages deserve to be treated the same as heterosexual marriage under federal law for the purposes of applicability of federal marriage benefits.

I believe this is precisely why they took the United States v. Windsor case at the same time they decided to take up Hollingsworth v. Perry."