Oregon AG Won’t Defend State Marriage Amendment

Marriage, ,

Oregon’s attorney general announced this week her office will not defend the state’s marriage amendment in court.

Like Arkansas, Oregon’s voters approved a state marriage amendment in 2004 defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. That amendment has come under attack by gay activists and is now the subject of a lawsuit. Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum wrote yesterday,

“State Defendants will not defend the Oregon ban on same-sex marriage in this litigation. Rather, they will take the position in their summary judgment briefing that the ban cannot withstand a federal constitutional challenge under any standard of review. In the meantime, as the State Defendants are legally obligated to enforce the Oregon Constitution’s ban on same-sex marriage, they will continue to do so unless and until this Court grants the relief sought by the plaintiffs.”

Rosenblum is the latest in a string of state officials around the country who have shirked their responsibility to defend marriage laws voters in their states have passed.

If you read the quote carefully, you see Rosenblum notes that her office will continue to enforce the ban on same-sex marriage, because they are obligated to do so as long as it is in the state’s constitution. The irony is defending state laws in court is a fundamental obligation of every attorney general in America. Rosenblum admits her office is required to enforce the law; she should also acknowledge her office is required to defend the law. She can’t cherry-pick which obligations she follows and which she ignores.

No attorney general has the power to declare a law unconstitutional. That power rests solely with the Judicial Branch. We have three separate, co-equal branches of government specifically to prevent this kind of lawlessness, where state officials unilaterally decide a democratically-enacted law is worthless.

A Democratic attorney general doesn’t get to decide a state ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional any more than a Republican attorney general gets to decide a new tax or minimum-wage increase is unconstitutional. Their job is to defend the law in court. Some liberals are hailing Rosenblum’s decision right now; they should consider how they will feel sometime down the road, when a conservative attorney general follows this precedent by ignoring a law liberals support.

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Same-Sex Marriage Increases Potential Conflicts with Religious Freedom

Religious Freedom, , ,

Justice Scalia in his dissenting opinion on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 DOMA ruling.

Heritage Foundation has published a research piece examining the potential for conflict between religious liberty and same-sex “marriage.”

We have written about examples of this conflict before–specifically when it comes to bakers, florists, and photographers forced by courts to participate in same-sex weddings or face severe penalties. In fact, this loss of religious liberty was called by one judge, “the price of citizenship.”

Heritage Foundation writes,

“Legal recognition of same-sex marriage will increase the potential for conflicts with religious freedom. The recent Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Windsor intensifies these concerns by characterizing traditional marriage policy as a form of irrational prejudice.”

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Should the Government Force You to Bake Cake?

Religious Freedom, ,

Should gay people be able to force Christian business owners to violate their religious beliefs? Liberal judges seem to think so.

We’ve heard stories about photographers, bakers, or Christian camp operators being forced by judges to accommodate gay weddings. Never mind the fact that these individuals have clear religious convictions about marriage and homosexuality. Some have found themselves in court, where judges fined them and told them they had to do business with same-sex couples in spite of their religious beliefs.

What person, gay or straight, would want their wedding photographed by a person being forced to take their picture? I can only imagine the quality of the photos. Would you want to eat a wedding cake that a judge had forced someone to bake for you? Of course not.

The goal is not pictures or cake. The real goal is to use the courts to impose a social and political agenda on people who oppose that agenda—people who oppose it not because of arbitrary bias, but because of a sincerely-held religious belief.

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