‘No fundamental rights are burdened’ by Nevada amendment defending marriage, judge rules
LAS VEGAS, December 3, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Nevada judge has ruled that “no fundamental rights are burdened” by Nevada’s constitutional amendment restricting marriage to one man and one woman – a ruling that has led liberals and homosexual activists to ridicule his Mormon faith.
Eight homosexual couples sought to overturn the marriage protection measure, which was passed by two-thirds of Nevada voters just 10 years ago. The plaintiffs, who could not marry in the state or have their “marriages” recognize by the state, claimed they bore “the stigma of exclusion and of being branded by the government as inferior.”
Judge Robert Jones.
District Judge Robert C. Jones responded with a ruling the Family Research Council has called “a 41-page masterpiece.”
Maintaining marriage “a legitimate state interest, he ruled, and “the exclusion of same-sex couples from the institution of civil marriage is rationally related to furthering that interest.” Marriage, with its immemorial protection and encouragement of child-rearing, should not be devalued, he said.
Judge Jones said the law violates no rights, makes no legal distinction between those of varying sexual orientations, does not abridge the right of privacy, and is not needed to assist a powerless minority – because the Homosexual Lobby “has great political power.”
“Homosexual persons may marry in Nevada, but like heterosexual persons, they may not marry members of the same sex,” he ruled. “In this sense, the State of Nevada has drawn no distinction at all.”
Homosexuals, he ruled, “may establish legally cognizable families under Nevada’s domestic partnership laws.”
Since marriage has existed as an exclusively heterosexual union for millennia before the court ruling, the civil unions policy “cannot reasonably be said to reflect anti-homosexual animosity under these circumstances, but only benevolence.” He wrote those who saw “the expansion of rights” as motivated by “malevolence” suffered from “circular” reasoning.
“Finally, the right to privacy is not implicated here,” he stated, “as Plaintiffs desire not to be left alone, but, on the contrary, desire to obtain public recognition of their relationships.”
“In summary, no fundamental rights are burdened by Nevada’s marriage-domestic partnership regime,” he wrote.
Ironically, homosexual victories for “marriage equality” also helped defeat the case, proving court action is unnecessary. In addition to victories in five states, Jones noted that President Obama supports redefining marriage. “Now that three states have actually voted for same-sex ‘marriage,’ liberals can no longer claim the court as their only avenue to ‘equal protection,’” the Family Research Council noted.
If anything, popular culture is “flooded with editorial, commercial, and artistic messages urging the acceptance of homosexuals. Anti-homosexual messages are rare in the national informational and entertainment media, except that anti-homosexual characters are occasionally used as foils for pro-homosexual viewpoints in entertainment media.”
Jones also sounded a cautionary note about judicial activism, stating that no judicial decree passed “involuntarily” can serve as “a genuine reflection of the State’s viewpoint, which is, of course, simply the collection of the viewpoints of its citizens.”
Opponents of the ruling have accused Judge Jones, who is a Mormon, of hypocrisy in defending marriage.
“That is just laughable,” wrote a blogger on All Things Democrat. “His own church was founded in polygamy.”
A representative of the homosexual legal group Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund has promised to appeal the case, Sevcik v. Sandoval , to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Supreme Court was expected to hear one or more cases related to the definition of marriage definition. However, justices refrained from naming any such cases last Friday or this morning. They will address the court’s docket again next Friday.
