ADF to New Jersey Supreme Court: Protection of children key in marriage license battle
Seven same-sex couples sue demanding marriage licenses, ADF files friend-of-the-court brief to defend marriage as one man and one womanTRENTON, N.J. - Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund filed a friend-of-the-court brief today at the New Jersey Supreme Court in the case of Lewis v. Harris, in which seven same-sex couples who were denied marriage licenses filed a lawsuit claiming the denials violated their rights of privacy and equal protection under the New Jersey Constitution.
"Same-sex 'marriage' has become an extremely divisive and emotional issue because we're focused on the wrong things," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Chris Stovall. "Legally, marriage is not about two people being in love and it's not about getting benefits. For the state, marriage is about protecting children by ensuring that as often as possible they are raised by their mother and father. Because same-sex couples cannot procreate, there exists no interest for the state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples."
Stovall explained that there exists a misperception that protecting marriage as a union between one man and one woman is winning only in the legislature and not in the courts. He pointed to the majority of cases in the appellate courts in the past few years where judges ruled in favor of protecting marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
"Except for the Goodridge opinion in Massachusetts, every American appellate court that has evaluated laws protecting marriage as one man and one woman in the last 10 years has found those laws to be legitimate, appropriate, and constitutional," said Stovall.
"When others say that many courts have ruled otherwise, they are referring to the trial courts, where some activist judges have embedded their own personal views into their decisions," Stovall added. "This is not the case at the appellate level, such as the excellent appellate decision we are asking the New Jersey Supreme Court to affirm in this case, Lewis v. Harris."
Examples of appellate courts ruling in favor of marriage as one man and one woman in the past few years are Standhardt v. Superior Court in Arizona (2003), Morrison v. Sadler in Indiana (2005), the New Jersey appellate ruling in Lewis v. Harris (2005), and the Hernandez v. Robles decision in New York (2005). A copy of ADF's friend-of-the-court brief filed today in Lewis v. Harris can be read at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/LvHFRCAmicus.pdf.
ADF is a legal alliance defending America's first liberty--religious freedom--through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.
