Defend Marriage: Newsletter

Dear Defender of Marriage;

Sharon Slater, President Federal District Court Judge Joseph Bataillon’s May 12th ruling claiming that Nebraska’s state constitutional marriage amendment violates the U.S. Constitution poses a serious threat to marriage in this county!

Now is the time to use the “constitutional option” to save marriage. If we do not get organized immediately and work together to pass a federal marriage amendment, the destruction of marriage in our country is only one Supreme Court decision away.

One of the best ways to help is to gather as many signatures as possible on the United States Petition to Defend Marriage. This petition will be presented to the Congress and will help counteract the thousands of petition signatures being gathered to oppose a federal marriage amendment.

Please forward this on to as many others as possible and urge them to sign.

Problems Raised by the Nebraska Decision.

It is not just that Judge Bataillon’s decision is illogical and his legal analysis is wrong, though both of these characterizations are accurate. (See below for a brief summary of the devastating criticism of his decision already leveled by legal scholars)

Nor is it that this decision was unexpected. Judge Bataillon, a Clinton appointee, is considered by many to be the archetype of a liberal activist judge. His decision simply shows that he has completely bought into the arguments of the homosexual activists and their allies on this issue, no matter that they are legally or democratically flawed.

Rather, what is most significant is the fact that this is the first time a federal judge has overturned a state effort to defend marriage. All previous judicial rulings finding a constitutional basis for same-sex marriage have been by state judges interpreting state constitutions to overturn state laws.

Because this is a federal court ruling, it has enormous implications for all of us.

First, unless it is overturned on appeal, the issue of same sex marriage is now on track for a Supreme Court decision. While Bataillon’s ruling does not specifically find a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage, if his interpretation of legal precedents and of several provisions of the Constitution are upheld it would impose same sex marriage on the whole country. Such a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court would instantly wipe out all state constitutional marriage amendments and all state marriage laws.

This, of course, is the goal of the anti-marriage homosexual activists and their allies. And, lest anyone put too much faith in the Supreme Court acting responsibly here, remember how a majority of those justices literally invented a constitutional “right” to engage in sodomy when the court overturned the Texas anti-sodomy law in Lawrence v Texas two years ago.

The second point is directly related. This ruling is even more compelling evidence of the need for a federal marriage amendment. Marriage has traditionally been a state issue. But United Families and others have been warning for several years that the increasingly outrageous decisions of activist federal judges who are legislating from the bench are leading to a judicially imposed federal definition of marriage that will legalize same-sex marriage, overriding all state prerogatives on this issue. This decision shows how that would happen.

It is clear that the only question yet to be answered is whether marriage will be defined by a few unelected and unaccountable federal judges or by the American people, who overwhelmingly oppose same sex marriage. The only certain way this majority of Americans can stop these activist judges is by passing a federal constitutional amendment to define marriage.

Which leads to the final lesson to be drawn from Bataillon’s decision. Judges like him should never be appointed to the federal judiciary in the first place. To protect the whole range of conservative and family values--indeed, to protect our democratic system of government itself--we must stop such individuals from being appointed to these lifetime positions. We must do everything we can to see that only men and women who respect the Constitution, understand the separation of powers, and practice judicial restraint are appointed to the federal bench at any level.

This is especially true for the Supreme Court justices. It appears that there will be a vacancy on the court very soon and filling it with a good nominee who meets these qualifications will no doubt touch off a major fight. It is a fight we must win and we will keep you informed as it develops.

Today, May 17th, is the first anniversary of the legalization of same sex marriages in Massachusetts. In this past year we have seen a rash of illegal same-sex “marriages” in other states and several other state court decisions that could lead to legalization in those states. But we have also seen the majority beginning to fight back. Fourteen states have passed state marriage amendments in the past year.

Please mark this first anniversary of Massachusetts same-sex marriages by redoubling your efforts to help us defend marriage by:

Signing the United States Petition to Defend Marriage if you have not already done so. This petition will be sent to Congress before the next vote on a federal marriage amendment.
Forwarding this alert on to others to awaken them to the increasing danger to marriage and urging them to also sign the petition.
Making the most generous contribution you can to support our efforts. Those out to destroy marriage in this country--and with it the prospects that we can pass on a healthy and hopeful future to our children--are extremely well-funded, well-organized and relentless. Even if the Bataillon decision is reversed, they will keep filing similar suits in their efforts to find activist judges who will impose same-sex marriage on us. Information on how you can securely contribute on line or by mail is provided below.

We have much to accomplish before next May 17th if we are going to defend marriage.

Please join with us in redoubling your efforts!

Sincerely,

Sharon Slater
President, United Families International

We Urgently Need Your Contribution to Help Defend Marriage!

Those out to destroy marriage in this country are putting millions of dollars behind their efforts. Just today, May 17th, the American Civil Liberties Union announced a new, lavishly-funded national campaign to try to convince a majority of Americans to accept same-sex marriage.

We need your financial help to fight these kinds of efforts. We must print and distribute materials to educate the public and refute the distortions and misrepresentations spread by those who are attacking marriage. We must work with the media and lobby Congress for a federal amendment as well as provide all the support we can to pass more state marriage amendments. All of this costs money and we have to look to people like you to help us.

Please consider making a contribution of at least $25 if you can, but any amount you can afford will be helpful. If enough people contribute at least a little, together it makes a huge difference.

You can easily and securely make a contribution online or print out a form to mail in a contribution.

Your contribution will be made to United Families International (UFI), a 501 (c )(3) organization, so it is tax deductible to the extent permitted by law. Defend Marriage is a project of UFI.

If you would like to designate your contribution to go entirely to our Defend Marriage Project you can easily do so by making a contribution that ends with 4 cents, i.e. $25.04, $173.04, $1,000,000.04, and so on. That will automatically flag it to be applied entirely to Defend Marriage.

Thank you for your support!

Brief Critique of the Bataillon Decision

Federal Judge Joseph Bataillon makes several major points in his ruling that Nebraska’s state marriage amendment is unconstitutional. All of them have been easily refuted by a number of legal scholars.

His major points in striking down the amendment are:

It violates homosexuals’ First Amendment rights to advocate and associate to legalize same sex-marriage. This conclusion is ridiculous on its face. Homosexuals still have the same rights to try to amend the state constitution to permit same-sex marriage or to lobby to change any other laws they disagree with. The Nebraska amendment certainly does not prohibit them from trying, which is what the First Amendment protects.
It infringes on not just homosexuals right to “intimate association” but those of a broader group including roommates and foster parents. This is an extraordinarily tortured reading of the language of the amendment which is commonly understood to have a sexual activity implication. It states “The uniting of two persons of the same sex in a civil union, domestic partnership or other similar same-sex relationship shall not be valid or recognized in Nebraska.”
It violates the Equal Protection Clause. Bataillon takes an extraordinarily broad interpretation of some previously decided cases to find that there is no rational reason for limiting marriage to a man and a woman because there is no compelling state interest in doing so. There is ample evidence that there is a compelling societal interest in preserving marriage and therefore a compelling governmental interest. This also is not a decision for a judge to make. Beyond that, the precedents themselves do not support this conclusion.
It is an unconstitutional “Bill of Attainder.” Perhaps more than any other part of his ruling, this point proves to many legal scholars that Bataillon was not named to the federal bench on the basis of his legal scholarship. A bill of attainder is a law that is designed to punish an individual or group without a trial. An amendment to define marriage is clearly not a bill of attainder aimed at homosexuals.

Additional Resources

An excellent, fairly short and devastating analysis of Bataillon’s decision by law professor Eugene Volokh is posted here. It is very readable for the non-lawyer.
An excellent overview of the significance of this decision in the overall fight to defend marriage is provided by Stanley Kurtz in the National Review Online here.

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United Families International PO Box 2630 Gilbert, AZ 85299-2630
Phone: (480) 632-5450 • FAX: (480) 892-4417