Massachusetts Family Institute | Media Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Lena Wakim | [email protected] | 781.569.0400
Supreme Court’s Marriage Decision Undermines Rights of Millions of Americans
BOSTON (June 26, 2015) – Today’s U.S. Supreme Court decision imposes a redefinition of marriage on the entire country, and in so doing has overstepped the bounds of the Constitution. While this development will be met with celebration in some quarters, it also creates a profound threat to the rights of millions of Americans.
Andrew Beckwith, President of Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI), comments, “Tragically, the court has elevated the sexual preferences of adults over the needs of children, the constitutions of a majority of the states, and the religious freedom of all.”
The Court’s decision effectively nullifies the democratically enacted laws upholding marriage in 31 different states and ignores the votes of 50 million Americans. Voters in Massachusetts experienced a similar injustice a decade ago, when the state Supreme Judicial Court imposed same-sex marriage on the Commonwealth, the first state in the country to do so. Supporters of natural marriage were then denied even the opportunity to vote on a state constitutional amendment by the state legislature in 2007.
“With the Court’s decision today,” noted MFI President Emeritus Kris Mineau, “we see the completion of a nationwide erosion of the people’s right to decide for themselves what marriage is.”
This accelerating assault on the institution of marriage and the family by judicial fiat is alarming to many legal and political advocates.
“The freedom to democratically address society’s most fundamental institution is central to ordered liberty. The Court has taken that freedom from the people,” warned the Family Research Council in Washington, DC.
Today’s decision is also projected to increase cultural hostility and intolerance toward people of faith. Legal experts expect the ruling will be used in “discrimination” lawsuits to silence and intimidate those who decline to participate in or affirm same-sex weddings due to their personal convictions.
“The artificial ‘right’ to same-sex marriage is fundamentally at odds with the constitutional right to religious liberty,” observes Beckwith. “In the decade since marriage was redefined here in MA, we’ve seen local Christian adoption agencies, private schools, foster families and government employees threatened and harassed because of their religious belief in natural marriage.”
However, the full weight of the redefinition of marriage will take generations to measure. Studies show that within the next 30 years same-sex marriage could lead to a dramatic increase in children living in homes without both a mother and a father. As the latest census and social science data in MFI’s recent report on fatherlessness conclude, growing up without both a mother and a father results in significant social and economic deficits and robs children of a gender-balanced home.
“The Court has issued a disastrous ruling on same-sex marriage, but they cannot overrule the truth about natural marriage,” concluded Beckwith. “Like Roe v. Wade— rather than bring resolution to a contentious issue, the Supreme Court has insured that this controversy will not go away.”
Established in 1991, MFI is a non-partisan public policy organization dedicated to strengthening families in Massachusetts.
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