If supporters of traditional marriage ever wonder why the issue gets little traction in the GOP, they need look no further than the amicus brief submitted by many political and policy leaders in the upcoming gay marriage case before the Supreme Court.
Former head of the Republican Party Ken Mehlman organized the brief that has been signed by no less than twenty-six senior Romney staffers, at least forty senior policy staffers for George Bush père et fils, also six Huntsman staffers, two former Scott Walker staffers, one sitting Governor (Massachusetts) and two sitting U.S. Senators (Collins of Maine, and Kirk of Illinois). Three former Reagan-era personnel also signed, including former Massachusetts Governor William Weld and Reagan Chief of Staff Kenneth Duberstein.
The signers describe themselves as conservatives of various stripes and tell the Supreme Court that Court-imposed gay marriage is an aspect of their belief in “limited government.” They insist those with same-sex attraction constitute a “separate class” in America and that “there is no legitimate, fact-based reason for denying same-sex couples the same recognition in law that is available to opposite-sex couples.”
The signers also contend that gay marriage “need not pose any threat to religious freedom,” though their brief ignores the very recent cases where florists, photographers and farmers are being targeted for not agreeing to celebrate same-sex marriage.
Signers say they believe in judicial restraint and that courts should “generally defer to legislatures and the electorate on matters of social policy” and that “the courts should not rush to invoke the Constitution to remove issues from the normal democratic process.” They write, however, that “legislatures and popular majorities can on occasion pose significant threats to individual freedom” and in those cases the courts should intervene.
The brief asserts that it is when “discriminatory laws” are passed based on “unexamined and unwarranted assumptions rather than facts and evidence…that the courts’ intervention is most needed.” The signers hold that children do not need both a mother and a father. What is important, they say, is not the “sex of their parents” but “stability”. They “do not believe there is a legitimate, fact-based justification for excluding same-sex couples from civil marriage. Over the past two decades, the arguments presented by proponents of such initiatives have been discredited by social science…” The signers dismiss the voluminous evidence from social science, even from liberals, that children do best when raised by their biological mother and father, something that two of the same sex can never provide.
The signers are asking the Supreme Court to overturn the wishes of the citizens in 32 states who have voted, sometimes overwhelming, including in the liberal states of California, to enshrine man-woman marriage in their state constitutions. Only four states’ citizens voted in favor of gay marriage, and only eight state legislatures have voted that way. Almost all the state laws have been overturned by courts and will get a final airing out before the Supreme Court in April. The Supreme Court could impose gay marriage on all 50 states, or it could allow the 32 laws in favor of traditional marriage to stand. This brief, along with an earlier one submitted by 300 corporations, makes it clear where elites stand on this issue.
It is interesting that the judge in the Proposition 8 Case in California lamented the relative powerlessness of homosexuals, particularly since this group, which constitutes less than 3 percent of the population, has the support of the President of the United States, along with the Pentagon, all major newspapers, more than 300 major corporations and the political establishment even among Republicans.
Social conservatives who work on marriage have been here before. When Roe v. Wade was handed down in 1973, the New York Times said the issue was then “settled.” Social conservatives pledge that the marriage issue will remain as unsettled as the abortion issue.
However, John Eastman, professor at Chapman Law School and chairman of the National Organization of Marriage, tells Breitbart News there are not many options if the Supreme Court goes the other way. It would would take an overturning of the decision or an amendment to the Constitution, both very difficult undertakings.
Eastman said, “It is unlikely Congress would undertake something like that, so it would have to come from a Constitutional convention” a proposition hotly debated in conservative circles and one that is opposed even by social conservative stalwarts such as Phyllis Schlafly.