Utah Like Texas Did is Taking Gay Marriage to the Supreme Court
As I seat on my desk observing by the window besides it the shadows of the trees that have lost all their leaves due to the season but still stand in a heroic way looking up to the heavens. Gay marriage in Utah is on my mind and I want to write if in deed the case is going to the United States Supreme Court. As I do some research I find the voice of a lawyer writing about the case. Now I need to find any data I don’t know and Im sure I can’t even quote him because Im assuming he is against it, he is a Utah lawyer after all. Instead I find the voice of an experienced lawyer who also is following gay marriage cases in a fair way and how they connect to the Constitution.
The name of this lawyer is Rick L. Knuth and he writes an op-ed on Salt Lake Tribune. The case is going to the Supreme Court just like it did starting with Texas with the results the Gay community was hopping and praying for. I remember how happy I was when ‘that’ couple was arrested in Texas because it was assumed they were having homosexual sex in their own home (enjoying too much and making the usual sounds). Only in Texas or the Soviet Union, I mean Russia! These extreme cases of injustice and homophobia only illustrates to those with the wrong information or those neutrals of why gay marriage is important even to someone who does not believe in gay marriage or any type of marriage. It’s a case of justice for all. You don’t have to do it but if you allow some to do it then all should have the same right if they want to use it or not but If you come against it you are depriving those who dearly wants it! We all have rights we might not even use, some not even aware of them. Just because there is freedom of the press does not mean you have to be a reporter, or be part of a militia or carry a gun.
Mr. Knuth explains the Utah case:
I have practiced law in Salt Lake City for almost 33 years. I think I can write with some authority about the Dec. 20 decision by Federal District Judge Robert J. Shelby, enjoining the State of Utah from enforcing its constitutional and statutory bans on same-sex marriage ("Robert J. Shelby: The man who made same-sex marriage legal in Utah," Tribune, Dec. 23).
The ruling was but a short and inevitable extension of the United State Supreme Court’s decisions in Loving (striking Virginia’s ban on miscegenation), Lawrence (Texas arrested two same-sex citizens for having private, consensual sex), and last summer’s Windsor case (which invalidated the Defense of Marriage Act), Constitutional rights are not voted on, no matter how large and determined is the majority who wish to deny their fellow citizens the enjoyment of some protected right.
I could also point out that courts, unlike elected officials, must decide the case and controversy that comes before them. A governor and a legislature can postpone, delay or ignore an issue, can appoint a committee or outside panel of experts to study it and report later — sometimes very later.
A court, however, has to make a decision in the moment. The parties are there, and they are entitled to a ruling. A judge cannot say "No thanks, folks, come back later when the public will be better disposed to me giving you what you are entitled to,"
And whereas the executive and legislative branches can indulge the luxury of looking at issues in a detached, generalized and philosophical way, judges must look the litigants in the eye, as individuals with a dispute that demands resolution.
It is beyond dispute that the three sets of same-sex couples who looked Judge Shelby in the eye have relationships that are loving, faithful, and bound by ties of caring and mutual support, representing the best qualities traditional marriage has to offer. These people have built those relationships themselves, sometimes over decades and with scant support from the larger community. They want only the same legal protections afforded to heterosexual couples.
But I did not first encounter same-sex relationships in the law office or the courtroom, but in church. In my church it is said that the purpose of marriage is not to make us happy, but to make us holy. Through my church I have seen same sex affection build relationships that can only be called holy, and that stand in stark contrast to the many sinful ways that human sexuality can be expressed.
This is why my church has, for many years, blessed the covenanted unions of same-sex partners and why we perform marriages for same-sex couples where it is legal to do so. In so doing, we promise to support them in their lives together.
For Utahns who are lamenting the legality of same-sex marriage, please take a deep breath. Neither the Constitution nor the scriptures have changed.
Intro: Adam Gonzalez
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