Sherif Girgis, Robby George and I respond to yesterday's Supreme Court decisions on marriage. Yesterday was a busy day.

The Supreme Court, You and Me,

 and the Future of Marriage

by Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson and Robert P. George  

 

What happened yesterday at the courthouse matters, 

and we must keep up our witness to the truth about marriage,

 by word and deed, until it is safely beyond judicial overreach.

 

Here's the least reported fact about yesterday's rulings on marriage: the Supreme Court refused to give Ted Olson and David Boies, the lawyers suing to overturn Prop 8, what they wanted. The Court refused to redefine marriage for the entire nation. The Court refused to "discover" a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. Citizens and their elected representatives remain free to discuss, debate, and vote about marriage policy in all fifty states. Citizens and their elected representatives still have the right to define marriage in civil law as the union of one man and one woman.

 

And we should continue doing so. Already, in the wake of yesterday's ruling, Governor Mike Pence of Indiana has called on his state to pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Marriage matters for children, for civil society, and for limited government. Marriage is the institution that unites a man and a woman as husband and wife to be father and mother to any children that their union produces. And that's why the government is in the marriage business. Not because it cares about adult romance, but because it cares about the rights of children.

 

If you believe, as we do, in the importance to children and to society of the marriage-based family, then of course you were hoping for different results in yesterday's marriage cases. But you probably also put your trust in the institutions of civil society--in that vast arena between man and state which is the real stage for human development. And in that case, you never expected a court of law to do our work for us, to rescue a marriage culture that has been wounded for decades by cohabitation, out-of-wedlock child-bearing, and misguided policies like no-fault divorce. Your only question at 10:00 AM yesterday was whether the Supreme Court would leave us the political and cultural space to rebuild that culture, or get in the way.

 

The answer was that the Court would leave us some space--for now. Five justices in United States v. Windsor have seen fit to put the republic on notice. While coy on state marriage laws, they have held that we the people--through overwhelming majorities in Congress and a Democratic President--somehow violated the Constitution in enacting the Defense of Marriage Act.

............

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/06/10455/

Here are some links to various media hits. 

My written responses:

 

Heritage: http://blog.heritage.org/2013/ 06/26/supreme-courts-mixed- decision-on-marriage/
New York Times:  http://projects.nytimes.com/ live-dashboard/2013-06-26- supreme-court-gay-marriage# sha=eabb5a1b4
CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/26/ opinion/anderson-gay-marriage
National Review (reprint of Heritage): http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/26/ opinion/anderson-gay-marriage

 

My video responses:

 

FOX News:  https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=oyu7bwHyTTM
New York Times video:  http://www.nytimes.com/video/ 2013/06/26/us/politics/ 100000002304144/a- conservative-reacts-to-courts- rulings.html
The Blaze: http://www.theblaze.com/ stories/2013/06/26/the-real- news-panel-breaks-down- supreme-court-rulings-on-same- sex-marriage/
Heritage: http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=liG7yDzXk2Y&feature=youtu.be