Contact: J.P. Duffy, Maria Donovan, 866-FRC-NEWS
WASHINGTON, May 27 /Standard Newswire/ -- Family Research Council President Tony Perkins today criticized a lawsuit which claims that same-sex "marriage" is a right guaranteed by the U. S. Constitution. The suit, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
"It is outrageous that the right of the people of California to govern themselves, which was just upheld yesterday by the California Supreme Court, is now being challenged again at the federal level," said FRC President Tony Perkins. "This demonstrates an insistent contempt for the will of a free people who are fully capable of governing themselves without any judicial dictate."
"The claim that defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment is absurd on its face. The members of Congress who wrote that Amendment in 1866, and the state legislators who ratified it, could not possibly have envisioned or intended such an application, nor can anything in the Amendment be construed to imply such a 'right.'
"Every individual has an equal right to marry in this country, but no one has an unlimited right to marry 'the person of their choice.' No one can marry a child, a close blood relative, or a person who is already married, and in the vast majority of states, no one can 'marry' a person of the same sex."
"Ironically, the very first sentence of the complaint filed by two homosexual couples contains the explanation of why marriage is, by definition, the union of a man and a woman. Quoting Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 case that established a right to interracial marriage, it says that 'marriage is one of the basic civil rights of man, fundamental to our very existence and survival. But marriage can only be called 'fundamental to our very existence and survival' because of its role in encouraging and protecting the only type of relationship which can result in the natural reproduction of the human race - namely, a male-female union.
"The 36 year-old Roe v. Wade decision did not resolve the abortion debate. Similarly, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturns 29 state marriage amendments and denies the American people the right to be heard will do nothing to bring resolution.
"It is time for homosexual activists to stop asking judges to redefine our most fundamental social institution. This lawsuit illustrates yet again why we need a Marriage Protection Amendment to the U.S. Constitution - to provide a uniform definition of marriage as the union of a man and woman, and to stop this endless litigation once and for all."