Judges across the U.S., with a few notable exceptions, have adopted the idea that men and women are interchangeable in marriage, and love is the only basis for such a relationship.
The victories for the homosexual-rights movement now have spawned a new issue, same-sex divorce, which opponents say is another tool to establish same-sex marriage in states that currently don’t recognize it.
In one case, two men who married in Iowa, where same-sex marriage is recognized, now live in Missouri, where their legal union isn’t recognized, and are trying to get a divorce.
The case now is before the Missouri Supreme Court, which will decide whether or not the two, identified in court filings as M.S. and D.S., can obtain a divorce to chase their dreams without the encumbrance of marriage.
The men, married two years ago, separated after only nine months, reported St. Louis Today.
Attorneys for the men insist their case is not about advancing the same-sex marriage movement but simply about a court’s “authority to say ‘Dissolution of Marriage granted.'”
However, Brian S. Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, said such divorce cases are a routine maneuver by activists seeking to change marriage laws.
He told WND the entire time the debate of marriage has been going on, “the other side has been working behind the scenes to level challenges to overturn state laws.”
“One method is to file for divorce in states that don’t recognize same-sex marriage.”
In some cases judges have overruled the will of voters who defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman
“It is true that judges have … decided they’re going to force their superior moral values on the rest of the country,” he said. But “in the rush of doing so, they have not thought about the complications.”
Brown noted that humanity for millennia, up until about 15 or 20 years ago, considered marriage to be the union of one man and one woman.
But once that definition is abandoned, where are the limits? he asked.
If love the basis for the relationship, he said, why not allow “three, four, five, six, entire communities” to marry?
Brown said arguments already are being made in court for polygamy and polyamory.
The collateral damage in America could be significant, he said.
“If judges, including circuit court judges, around the country can create out of thin air a right to same-sex marriage, then what’s to stop them from totally undermining the First Amendment and not protect churches and organizations who know the truth [about marriage] and want to live that out?”
He said Americans should have gotten a clear view of late of how far courts are willing to go. He pointed to the Supreme Court’s refusing to intervene in a case of a wedding photographer fined by the state for refusing to memorialize with her artistic talent a same-sex wedding.
“The First Amendment also is at stake in this fight,” he said.
For years the “other side” has said, “Yeah, we believe in religious liberty,” he noted.
“Now, they’re saying, yeah, of course we’re going to coerce you” to recognize or support same-sex marriage.
“That’s really at the root of all this false notion of marriage,” he said.
In Missouri, Marc Solomon of Freedom to Marry told St. Louis Today: “The idea that you can get married to someone and then can’t get divorced is just ridiculous. Same-sex couples need clarity in the law.”
A divorce petition filed by M.S. was denied by a family court judge who pointed out that both respondents are male.
But a law firm working on behalf of the homosexuals insisted the case was limited to a divorce decree not a push for same-sex marriage in the state.
The report noted the same argument was made in Wyoming several years ago, where a divorce eventually was allowed.
Drey Cooley, a lawyer for M.S., told the state’s high court that one resolution is to simply strike the state ban on same-sex marriages, but another is to allow the divorce.
Camilla Taylor of Lambda Legal told St. Louis Today divorce “is one of the rights of marriage.”
Other court filings have pointed out that traditional marriage, which predates virtually all governments, is a compelling state interest, because it benefits children.
“The preeminent social purpose of marriage – and the overriding reason why government recognizes marriage – is to connect children to both of their biological parents,” argued a brief submitted by the Alliance Defending Freedom to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of supporters of a Florida law defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
“By joining a man and a woman in a committed relationship, society forges a link between sex, procreation, and childrearing,” the brief explains. “And by socially connecting these three closely related activities, marriage encourages a man and a woman in a sexual relationship to remain together and jointly care for the children they produce.”
The brief says “the man-woman-marriage laws challenged here satisfy constitutional review because they substantially further the state’s compelling interest in connecting children to both of their biological parents.”
The U.S. Supreme Court decided only recently not to rule on whether same-sex marriage will be imposed across America. The court left standing mid-level court rulings that states could not ban same-sex marriage.
Since then, however, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that voters in at least four states – Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee – are allowed to define married as being between one man and one woman.
The ADF brief in the Florida case says the state “best serves children when it adopts laws and policies that promote the biological home.”
“Man-woman-marriage laws do just that,” the brief explains, citing a raft of issues for children, including “roadblocks to identity development,” an innate desire to hunt down and learn about biological parents, and “deeply rooted frustration, depression, anxiety and sadness.”
There have been previous warnings about the bconsequences of the advance of homosexual marriage, including from a California Supreme Court justice.
Justice Marvin Baxter wrote a dissent when his court created same-sex marriage that overturning “deeprooted” assumptions opens a pandora’s box.
“Who can say that, in 10, 15 or 20 years, an activist court might not rely on the majority’s analysis to conclude, on the basis of a perceived evolution in community values, that the laws prohibiting polygamous and incestuous marriages were no longer constitutionally justified?”
WND also reported that when the U.S. Supreme Court said the federal government must give benefits to same-sex married partners, advocates for polygamy viewed it as a huge leap forward for their own recognition.
“We polyamorists are grateful to our brothers and sisters for blazing the marriage equality trail,” Anita Wagner Illig told U.S. News and World Report.
“I would absolutely want to seek multipartner marriage — it would eliminate a common challenge polyamorists face when two are legally married and others in their group relationships aren’t part of that marriage,” she said.
Illig, head of the group Practical Polyamory, argued it’s a matter of equality – the concept cited by the U.S. court in its decision.
Polyamorists in Canada, which is ahead of the United States by several years in expanding the definition of marriage, also have been demanding formal recognition.
Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association Director Zoe Duff said she wants to see “households where our spouses are equal under the law, and moving forward in terms of pensions, and inheritances and property division.”
