My name is Arthur Schaper, and I am the Field Director for MassResistance, the international pro0family group that makes the difference.
On behalf of our activists throughout the beautiful State of
Idaho, I want to express my gratitude to State Rep. Heather Scott and her colleagues for hearing this common-sense, straightforward Resolution Against Obergefell v. Hodges.
For too long, the United States Supreme Court has made
decisions and imposed rulings that it did not have the right, authority, or
even the power to implement.
First of all, two of the justices who weighed in on this
decision had officiated so-called same-sex “weddings.” They were not impartial
triers of fact or law, and they should have recused themselves.
Second, United States v. Windsor, a previous Supreme
Court ruling, clearly established that legislation regarding marriage is not
one of the enumerated powers in Article One, Section Eight of the United States
Constitution. Obergefell never addressed that issue properly.
Third, The Tenth Amendment is germane to this discussion,
and the Supreme Court should have respected the Constitution and respected the
power to define and enforce marriage contracts to the several states and the
people.
Fourth, our constitutional republic is based on common law,
and for centuries, marriage has been recognized as the union of one man and one
woman. The Supreme Court had neither the right nor the reason to undermine the
fundamental tenets of Anglo-American jurisprudence when they issued their poor
decision.
Other problems with Obergefell include its disturbing
precedent that liberty and human dignity are gifts only bestowed by the state.
Nothing could be further in conflict with our Constitutional norms or our
Founding principles. The rights of men come from God, not the government, as
declared in the Declaration of Independence. They are not gifts that must
depend on the government or the state to be distributed. Such a flawed legal
theory will only invite more government tyranny at the expense of the rights of
the states and the American people.
Some will argue that revisiting and overturning Obergefell
v Hodges would also mean preventing interracial couples from marrying.
Nothing could be further from the truth. People are born of diverse ethnic or
racial backgrounds. However, there is no evidence that individuals are born
homosexual, and therefore such acts are behaviors, not identities. They are not
civil rights.
Furthermore, in the ten years since Obergefell was imposed
on the United States, an abundance of research has come forward indicating that
children do indeed need their mother and their father. One of the poor reasons one
of the justices gave to support redefining marriage was that he didn’t want
children not to have their parents. But Marriage as an institution is not just
about the husband and the wife, but about the rearing of children and the basic
cultural underpinnings which make civilization possible. Children need
mothering and fathering, not just mere parenting.
The State of Idaho should be commended for taking this bold
stance, and I urge the House State Affairs Committee to support this
Resolution.
