NJ Court Upholds Traditional Marriage
Today in Lewis v. Harris, a New Jersey Appeals Court upheld a lower court decision that refused to find the right to same-sex marriage in the New Jersey Constitution. This moment of judicial sanity is applaudable. The opinion is sound and straight-forward, solidly grounded in the law and history of our Nation. Judge Skillman rejected the radical rationale of Goodridge and acquiesced to the voice of the legislature–not that the tiny but loud minority voice of the ACLU and LAMBDA. Here are some key points of the majority decision:
A constitution is not simply an empty receptacle into which judges may pour their own conceptions of evolving social mores. (Page 11)
Plaintiffs’ claim that a right to marriage between members of the same sex maybe found in . . . the New Jersey Constitution has no foundation in its text, this Nation’s history and traditions or contemporary standards of liberty and justice. (Page 18)
[T]he historical and prevailing contemporary conception of marriage as solely a union between a single man and a single woman is based partly on society’s view that this institution plays an essential role in propogating the species and child rearing. (Page 20, Footnote 4)
The significant difference between [traditional marriage and same-sex marriage] is that the State’s argument [traditional marriage] is grounded on historical tradition and our nation’s religious and social values, while plaintiffs’ argument is based on nothing more than their own normative claim that society should give unions between same-sex couples the same form of recognition as marriages between members of the opposite sex. (Page 23) (my emphases)
Also, the New Jersey Court captures the disingenuousness of same-sex marriage advocates claim that altering marriage by permitting gays and lesbians to marry does not adulerate or mar the traditional definition of marriage. In their argument before the New Jersey Court, the ACLU and their allies define marriage as a “compelling and definitive expression of love and commitment that can occur between two adults.” (Page 19). Not only is marriage no longer a union, but a transformative concoction containing adjectives of feeling (love and commitment) while deemphasizing the unique bond between one man and one woman. Clearly, the ACLU, LAMBDA, and others cannot argue that allowing same-sex couples to marry does not change the definition of marriage. Rather, their definition of marriage and that of the state of Massachusetts is a “significant alter[ation].” (Page 32).
Hopefully, the New Jersey Supreme Court will uphold this decision after the inevitable appeal. As for now, traditional marriage advocates can relish the savor of sweet constitional sanity. Man, that tastes good.