Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. appeared to suggest that the court should reconsider the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision that made same-sex marriage a constitutional right because it threatens the religious liberty of Americans who believe “marriage is a sacred institution between one man and one woman.”
The justices made the argument in an opinion issued Monday in which the court refused to hear an appeal from former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis who is being sued for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples because of her sincerely held Christian beliefs. Davis, who is a devout Pentecostal Christian, was briefly jailed for her actions.
“This petition implicates important questions about the scope of our decision in Obergefell, but it does not cleanly present them. For that reason, I concur in the denial of certiorari,” Thomas wrote in a statement on the case joined by Alito.
Despite denying Davis’ appeal, Thomas argued it “provides a stark reminder of the consequences of Obergefell. By choosing to privilege a novel constitutional right over the religious liberty interests explicitly protected in the First Amendment, and by doing so undemocratically, the Court has created a problem that only it can fix.”
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in the Obergefell v. Hodges case in June 2015 that state-level same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional, and concluded that the 14th Amendment requires states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016, Thomas and Alito, were the four dissenters.
On Monday, Thomas noted that they had predicted that the decision would threaten religious liberty in 2015 and Americans who support traditional marriage as part of their religious belief are now being unfairly treated as “bigots….”
The above comes from an Oct. 6 story on The Christian Post.
No law should be overturned by the Supreme Court because it might violate someones religious beliefs. That is what the first amendment means.
YFC the day is soon arriving where you will have decide whether you align yourself with the Church of Jesus Christ or the Anti-Christ government ,,, it is time for you to decide whether you identify as a Catholic or a homosexual the two are not reconcilable
Just wondering YFC if you support gay marriage. Biden officiated at one, that’s not Catholic.
The Constitution provides no citizen of any gender or orientation a constitutional right to marriage. The Constitution is “silent” on the issue of marriage. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The people and the states have Constitutional rights. We have all the rights not delegated to the federal government. One of those countless rights is to permit us to determine whom, if anyone, ought to be given the right to marry and therefore accrue whatever benefits and burdens such license shall carry. The Supreme Court cannot create a Constitutional right to marriage without first violating the rights of the people under the 10th Amendment. Therefore the people spoke and they rejected same-gender confusion. Religious liberty is a first amendment right by the way. This unconstitutional law should be overturned.
A description of marriage was not put into the Constitution because it was simply unthinkable at that time that it would be between two men or two woman. Some men lived with other men, and some women lived with other women, often widows with widows, or brother with brother, single men with single men, etc. and could they leave their property to whomever they chose, but marriage was unheard of between the two. Incest and sodomy were forbidden by law in the Thirteen Colonies as laws were based on Biblical principles.
Correction to fourth line: and they could leave their property to whomever they chose.
Knock knock YFC, do you support gay marriage like Biden does?
Tyler, hi. Years ago on this website YFC said that he was married to a man. I don’t know why he is not answering you. Maybe they broke up and it is a sore subject.
YFC, what say you?
What about the rights of those who believe otherwise? A civil official must obey the secular law. If they believe this violates their religious beliefs, then they need to resign.
So you cannot work for the government without giving up your civil rights?
Like it or not, she had an obligation to fulfill the duties of her position. She could have delegated this particular marriage to someone in the office who had no objection to doing so.
This is a classic case of religious freedom for me but not for thee.
Part of the problem that Justice Thomas is addressing is the Court’s overreach in a matter that should have been left to the states. As he noted, “by doing so undemocratically, the Court has created a problem that only it can fix.” Only five people ruled that all 50 states and U.S. territories must provide for same-sex so-called “marriage.” Should the philosophical beliefs of RBG and four cohorts be imposed upon millions?
Why not let each state determine that?
Of course, that’s a secular solution since in thousands of years of human history and natural law marriage has never been considered possible between two persons of the same sex. Once we start redefining marriage…
Maybe our sister Amy Barrett can help restore some reason and judicial restraint to the high court.
“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighbourhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”
Discrimination has gotten a “bum rap”. Laws discriminate all the time. A woman cannot legally have two husbands at the same time, and visa versa. One must discriminate between what is good and what is just plain evil. Everyone discriminates. If they say they do not, they just are not telling the truth. I discriminate. I will never accept a “marriage” between two biological men, or two biological women. It is just plain evil as marriage was meant to protect children who also have rights — the right to a mother and a father.
I have 2 issues related to this
. California, like many states, had a referendum whereby the same-sex marriage was rejected by the people
Yet the supreme court judge majority legislated from the bench and took democracy from the people
. I have been to the County Clerks office for Marriage license and for Title issues.
I never met the County Clerk. I’ve only seen the admin staff, Yet the County clerk’s stamp was on all the documents.
Don’t the admins always process the documents ?
The County Clerk can’t be managing the County business and seeing to every document that gets processed
So, i never understood why Kim Davis was on trial. This seemed like activists went after her to make it a national issue.
Californians twice defined marriage as one man and one woman, via Proposition 8 and Proposition 22. When sexual libertines cannot get their way through democratic means, they resort to the courts, as they did in imposing abortion-on-demand across the nation via Roe. Wade.
Father, your parishioners are graced by your insights on the issues of the day. Thank you, on their behalf.
Neither legislatures nor mere majoritarian referenda can take away Constitutional rights. That’s why we have state and federal Supreme Courts.
Unless of course Anon the Majority is controlled by the Left….there is no right to so called gay marriage.