Washington, D.C. — June 26, 2015. The Supreme Court announced a grave decision regarding marriage this morning. The Court determined that a fresh, enlightened reading of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution did away with the millennia-old understanding of marriage as a union between one man and one woman – and abolished every single person’s right to debate that issue with it.
Center for Religious Expression Chief Counsel Nate Kellum released the following statement in response to today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling on marriage:
“This is truly an unprecedented and disappointing decision by the Supreme Court,” said Nate Kellum, Chief Counsel for the Center for Religious Expression. “It does not just say that same-sex marriage is allowable; it rejects anyone’s right to disagree. The Court’s decision robs the American people of their right to self-govern in favor of judicial tyranny.”
Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion describes marriage as a vehicle for individuals to “express and define their identity.” With States no longer free to legislate the contours of marriage, this new conception of “liberty” paves the way for polygamy and other forms of group marriage by individuals who wish to express their identity through marriage.
In their dissents, four separate justices point out just how unprincipled and baseless the majority opinion is. Ultimately, the Court jettisoned a vast body of precedent supporting the rights of citizens to decide the marriage issue; the Court (more particularly, 5 sitting justices) articulated what they thought was best and imposed their preference on the rest of us.
“This decision sets the stage for a significant threat to religious expression,” Kellum continued, in addressing ramifications of the ruling. “Now that same-sex marriage activists have required States to recognize their form of marriage, the next objective is to make everyone approve of it. We must answer this threat. This newly-developed marriage liberty does not trump expressly protected freedoms set out in the First Amendment concerning the free exercise religion and free speech.”
Center for Religious Expression is a servant-oriented, non-profit 501(c)(3) Christian legal organization dedicated to the glory of God and the religious freedom of His people. For more information, visit http://www.crelaw.org.
