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11/12/2014
This wacky idea that marriage court cases are themselves out-of-line
On Monday's edition of Catholic radio's The Drew Mariani Show, National Organization For Marriage president coupled his concession that the Supreme Court might rule against his movement with the idea that the courts never should have been involved in the first place. Here's a short clip:
[Drew Mariani, 11/10/14]
First off, let me say that marriage cases could've happened no matter the circumstances. As long as there is an institution called marriage, citizens with their own human will, and a judiciary that allows for challenges to the policies of our nation, there is the potential for a court case. Obviously. And this is precisely why several court cases (Baker v. Nelson, Hawaii in the '90s) predated the 21st century marriage wars.
But let me remind Brian that all of the modern court cases are in direct challenge to marriage bans. These are marriage bans that NOM and its founders championed, of course. They fought hard to dupe legislatures into passing such laws and then proceeded to assemble staunch and often cruel ballot campaigns that duped citizens into voting for such bans. Which, to be fair, is their right, as far as it goes. But once they go through that process of passing laws, they have to deal with the repercussions. And in the United States of America, court challenges to unfavorable laws is, in fact, a thing. Thankfully!!
The NOM crowd loves to act like the innocent in this whole fight; that is not news. But they need to remember that their nationwide push to piece together a patchwork of state bans was a very real catalyst for the modern marriage movement. Once they started passing these bans, and particularly once they got cocky about it, people starting looking a little more closely at what these bans do, how they harm certain American taxpayers, and why voting on the civil rights of a minority population is probably not the best idea we've ever had. Once this conversation got going, it was only a matter of time before lightbulbs started coming on above people's heads. Some of these newly enlightened people simply vowed to change the culture in any way they could so that America would become a nation that supports equality (which it now is). But others took their newfound determination and realized that here in America we have a system for keeping the constitutionality of laws in check. We call that safeguarding system the judiciary.
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