IssuesMaking Marriage Something It's Not

Defending Laws Affirming Marriage

Marriage has always been the best way for children to receive the unique benefits that only a mother and father can provide.

This is why the mission of Alliance Defending Freedom includes promoting legal policies and cultivating a culture that affirms marriage as the lifelong union of a man and a woman.

Federal DOMA Case

In Windsor v. United States, decided in June 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress does not have the right to maintain a national definition of marriage.

Consequences for Armed Forces

Striking down DOMA, particularly when combined with the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, brought about significant changes in our military. And chaplains are among the first to feel the brunt of these changes. They will be confronted with a difficult moral choice: serve God or disobey their faith. If they don’t compromise their religious beliefs on marriage, chaplains could face discipline or diminished careers.

Because of the high percentage of theologically conservative and biblically oriented chaplains within each military branch, the conflict is cause for great concern.

 

State Marriage Cases
States should have the freedom to affirm marriage as the union of a man and a woman. State laws affirming this understanding of marriage allow individual states to preserve marriage as we've always known it while preventing one state from forcing its redefinition on another.

Imposing a Same-Sex Marriage Mandate

After the Windsor case, same-sex-marriage advocates filed more than 70 lawsuits challenging states' marriage laws in an attempt to bring the issue to the Supreme Court. One of those cases eventually reached the high court, and on June 26, 2015, the court held that the Constitution requires states to redefine marriage to include same-sex relationships.

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What We're Doing About It

Alliance Defending Freedom remains committed to promoting in law and culture the truth that marriage is the lifelong union of a man and a woman. Why? Because the truth about marriage ensures that more children will know and be raised by both their mother and their father—something that every kid deserves—and because a proper view of marriage helps to pull the economically disadvantaged out of poverty, giving hope to the marginalized and downtrodden.
 
Austin Nimocks' testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee
Comments from the U.S Supreme Court in United States v. Windsor, Hollingsworth v. Perry, and Obergefell v. Hodges

"[T]his Court is not a legislature. Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us. Under the Constitution, judges have power to say what the law is, not what it should be. The people who ratified the Constitution authorized courts to exercise ‘neither force nor will but merely judgment.’ The Federalist No. 78, p. 465."

-Chief Justice John Roberts, dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges

"Today’s decision . . . will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy. In the course of its opinion, the majority compares traditional marriage laws to laws that denied equal treatment for African-Americans and women. The implications of this analogy will be exploited by those who are determined to stamp out every vestige of dissent."

-Justice Samuel Alito, dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges

"As far as I can tell, political figures are falling over themselves to endorse your side of the case."

-Chief Justice John Roberts to Roberta Kaplan, attorney opposing DOMA

"We have five years of information to weigh against 2,000 years of history, or more… [T]he problem with the case is that you're really asking…for us to go into uncharted waters…"

-Justice Anthony Kennedy

"I'm not sure that it's right to view this as excluding a particular group. When the institution of marriage developed historically, people didn't get around and say let's have this institution, but let's keep out homosexuals. The institution developed to serve purposes that, by their nature, didn’t include homosexual couples."

-Chief Justice John Roberts

"Traditional marriage has been around for thousands of years. Same-sex marriage is very new… [Y]ou want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution which is newer than cell phones or the Internet?"

-Justice Samuel Alito

The Alliance

  • Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty exists to ensure that chaplains can defend and provide for the freedom of religion and conscience that the Constitution guarantees all chaplains and those whom they serve.

Learn more about The Alliance, those who partner with Alliance Defending Freedom to protect religious freedom, on our Alliance page.

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