REBECCA, dissenting

In October 2014, the majority of the Supreme Court of the United States of America ruled to allow same-sex marriage, quoting Cicero, “The first bond of society is marriage; next, children; and then the family.” They argued that, “Under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, no State shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law...these liberties extend to certain personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy, including intimate choices that define personal identity and beliefs.” Effectively changing the meaning of marriage to protect the rights of the individual before the needs of the children. Justice Thomas, dissenting, states, “This understanding of marriage, which focuses almost entirely on the happiness of persons who choose to marry, is shared by many people today, but it is not the traditional one. For millennia, marriage was inextricably linked to the one thing that only an opposite-sex couple can do: procreate.” (p. 99)

With this new individualistic view of marriage, families breaking apart daily, and many married people choosing not to have children, it is understandable why people now view marriage as a right of the individual, not a means of creating and nurturing children.

I believe God has a plan for each of us.  That plan is to come to earth and gain a physical body and have experiences that will help us learn and grow and one day make it possible for us to return to His presence. (Proclamation) “By divine design, both a man and a woman are essential for bringing children into the mortality and providing the best setting for rearing and nurturing children.” (Families in the Church. Handbook 2) In his dissent, Justice Roberts states, “It (marriage) arose in the nature of things to meet a vital need: ensuring that children are conceived by a mother and father committed to raising them in the stable conditions of a lifelong relationship.” (p.44)

In full disclosure, I am positive that many times my husband and I fall short in the raising of our children, and that some same-sex couples do a much better job, but is there enough evidence to abandon what society has defined as the family “for millennia?” Justice Thomas (p. 99) educates us as to why the majority of States have upheld the traditional definition of marriage, “...States formalize and promote marriage, unlike other fulfilling human relationships, in order to encourage potentially procreative conduct to take place within a lasting unit that has long been thought to provide the best atmosphere for raising children.”

So I ask again, “What about the children?” Justice Alito, dissenting, states, “At present, no one—including social scientists, philosophers, and historians—can predict with any certainty what the long-term ramifications of widespread acceptance of same-sex marriage will be. And judges are certainly not equipped to make such an assessment. The Members of this Court have the authority and the responsibility to interpret and apply the Constitution. Thus, if the Constitution contained a provision guaranteeing the right to marry a person of the same sex, it would be our duty to enforce that right. But the Constitution simply does not speak to the issue of same-sex marriage.” (p. 101)

For the above mentioned belief that the family: father, mother, children, is an eternal unit, created and defined by God, and for my concern for the children, I must respectfully decent.

Supreme Court of the United States (June 26, 2015). Obergefell v. Hodges.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf