SAN FRANCISCO — Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund submitted a supplemental brief with the California Supreme Court Friday in a set of significant consolidated marriage cases before the court. The brief argues that a primary reason the court should not redefine marriage is that the constitutional rights and obligations extended by law to people who marry do not apply to same-sex relationships.
“The right to get married, the right to try to have children together, and the right to raise the children you have together are all rights associated with the right to marry. Those rights are irrelevant with regard to same-sex couples,” said ADF Senior Counsel Glen Lavy. “The U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized marriage as a fundamental right mandated by federal law, and that’s something with which no state can interfere.”
The brief explains that all of the “rights” that same-sex couples possess under California law have been granted by statute. None of them are based in the state or federal Constitution.
California’s highest court is currently reviewing six consolidated marriage cases that have made their way through the state court system during the past three years. Voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 22 in 2000 to protect marriage as the union between one man and one woman.
“The fact that marriage is a union between one man and one woman in California is undisputed; whether you create a counterfeit is a purely political question and not a legal one for the courts to decide,” said Lavy.
A copy of the brief submitted to the California Supreme Court in the case
Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund v. City and County of San Francisco can be read at
www.telladf.org/UserDocs/Prop22SupplementalBrief.pdf.
A fact sheet on the case is available at
www.telladf.org/UserDocs/Prop22FactSheet.pdf.
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