US: Anti-gay group releases equal marriage win statement despite no decision by Supreme Court
A US anti-gay group got a little ahead of itself on Tuesday, and released a success statement, which commended the US Supreme Court for ruling against same-sex couples in two key cases, despite the court not having released an opinion.
Joseph Backholm the president of the Family Policy Institute of Washington, released three statements, covering all bases on the high court rulings on equal marriage, reports Salon.com
The statements were divided into “win-win”, “partial win”, and “lose-lose”, covering all possible outcomes, but were accidentally released all at once, despite the fact that the Supreme Court failed to issue an opinion on Tuesday.
The “win-win” statement read: “I applaud the United States Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the constitutionality of the. They were correct to rule that the U.S. Constitution does not include a “right” of same-sex couples to have their relationships officially affirmed as “marriages.” We agree that the public’s interest in promoting responsible procreation provides a rational basis for defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The Court did the right thing by permitting the debate over the definition of marriage to continue through the democratic process.”
The “partial win”, statement read: “Those who want to redefine marriage suffered an important defeat today. The Supreme Court refused to declare a constitutional right to same-sex “marriage,” and rejected their request to impose a redefinition of marriage on all fifty states. This decision means that this important debate will continue state by state across the country.”
And the “lose-lose” scenario statement said: “Today the Supreme Court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Prop 8 and declared a constitutional right to marry someone of the same gender. anyone you want…maybe.
“Joseph Backholm, executive director of the Family Policy Institute of Washington, said, ‘The Court reached this decision only by ignoring reality—that male-female unions are uniquely important, because only they can result in natural reproduction; and that such unions are uniquely valuable, in that only they can bind a child to both the parents who created it and bind those parents to each other.’
“In addition to its departure from scientific reality, the Court’s decision was a shocking abuse of its power—the ultimate in judicial activism, making law from the bench rather than interpreting the law and the Constitution as written.”
The lose-lose stament went on to describe the court’s striking down of DOMA and Prop 8 as a “shocking assault on our system of federalism”, and saying that those opposed to equal marriage would continue to fight against it.
The US Supreme Court is to rule on Wednesday in the cases of California’s Prop 8, which bans equal marriage across the state, and the Defense of Marriage Act, which prevents same-sex married couples from thousands of benefits afforded to opposite-sex couples.
