WHO: ADF Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence
WHAT: Press conference on effort to intervene in defense of marriage in Minnesota
WHEN: Thursday, June 3, at 11 a.m. CDT
WHERE: State Office Building, 100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Room 181, St. Paul
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence will join members of the Minnesota Family Council in a press conference Thursday at the Minnesota State Capitol to announce their intention to submit a request to intervene to defend marriage against a legal attack filed in state court.
“We should be strengthening marriage, not undermining it,” said Lorence. “Once again, activists are trying to use the courts to force something on the people that they have repeatedly rejected. Judges and politicians should never impose a system that intentionally deprives children of a mom and dad. Which parent doesn’t matter: a mom or a dad?”
ADF attorneys representing the Minnesota Family Council will file a notice of intervention in the lawsuit Benson v. Alverson. Several same-sex couples filed the lawsuit in the 4th Judicial District Court after Hennepin County turned down their request for marriage licenses.
Minnesota law states, “Lawful marriage may be contracted only between persons of the opposite sex….” The lawsuit claims that the law, which the legislature enacted in 1997, violates various articles of the state constitution.
“No provision of the Minnesota Constitution gives individuals the right to redefine marriage and force that definition on everyone else,” Lorence explained. “The same-sex couples who have brought this lawsuit are brazenly asking the courts to misuse the state constitution to throw out Minnesota’s legal definition of marriage as one man and one woman, the only definition of marriage Minnesota law has ever had.”
The Minnesota Family Council was the primary supporter in achieving enactment of the challenged marriage law.
- Pronunciation guide: Lorence (Lohr-ence)
ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.