Bryan Fischer
Mitt Romney, the godfather of gay marriage
By Bryan Fischer
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
The press has been in a reminiscent and celebratory mood this past week, as America reached the 10th anniversary of homosexual marriage.
What is little discussed is that the first same-sex wedding license was issued only because Republican governor Mitt Romney broke the law. And he not only broke the law, he ordered every city and county clerk to break the law, too, or get fired.
It is no exaggeration to say that America has same-sex marriage because of Mitt Romney.
As the media has endlessly reminded us this past week, the first domino to fall in the crusade to give marital recognition to non-normative sexual unions fell in Massachusetts, and it fell because then-governor Romney pushed it over.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) declared that Massachusetts' marriage law was unconstitutional on November 18, 2003, in its ruling in the infamous Goodridge case.
But the Court also explicitly declared that the original law, which prohibits recognition of same-sex unions, was left intact by their ruling. "Here, no one argues that striking down the marriage laws is an appropriate form of relief."
The SJC acknowledged that the original law banned homosexual marriages. And the court also acknowledged that the court itself had no authority to write new law. That, they expressly declared, was because the doctrine of the separation of powers exclusively reserves the enacting of legislation to the legislative branch of Massachusetts' state government.
And so the court ordered the legislature to address the issue, giving lawmakers 180 days to "take such action as it may deem appropriate" to remedy the problem and write a law permitting same-sex marriage.
The legislature, despite several abortive attempts, did precisely nothing.
One-hundred and eighty days came, and 180 days went, and the legislature was unable to drum up a new law of any kind. Thus, at the end of 180 days, same-sex marriage was as illegal in Massachusetts as it was at the beginning.
But Gov. Romney, who campaigned on a pledge to be more pro-gay than Teddy Kennedy, and received the endorsement of the pro-gay Log Cabin Club, refused to be deterred by a little thing like obeying the law and fulfilling his oath of office.
Acting on his own, and with no legal, statutory or constitutional authority, he ordered clerks to begin issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples on May 17, 2004, in contravention of Massachusetts state law and under threat of termination.
On April 26, 2004, Romney's chief legal counsel, Daniel Winslow, made it clear to justices of the peace their choices were to resign, be fired, be fined, or be sued if they were unwilling to solemnize sodomy-based "marriages."
Town clerks and justices of the peace meekly complied, and became lawbreakers themselves in the process. Massachusetts' state marriage law is quite explicit: "Whoever, not being duly authorized by the laws of the commonwealth undertakes to join persons in marriage therein shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both." (Emphasis mine.)
Re-read that carefully. Town clerks must be "authorized by the laws of the commonwealth" to issue marriage licenses. They are not allowed to do so under the authorization of the Supreme Judicial Court or the governor. The "laws of the commonwealth" to this day do not authorize the granting of same-sex marriage licenses.
Massachusetts state marriage law has never been changed. Same-sex marriage is still illegal in the Bay State. You could look it up.
So the bottom line here is that Gov. Romney broke state law and ordered his town clerks to do the same.
After Gov. Romney "legalized" same-sex marriage by fiat in a burst of executive branch activism, Connecticut's Supreme Court followed suit in 2008 and Iowa's Supreme Court in 2009. Same-sex marriage was not legalized through the legislative process anywhere in the United States until Vermont's legislature overrode a gubernatorial veto in April of 2009.
And to this day, while voters in 31 states went to the polls and voted to elevate protection for natural marriage to their state constitutions, just 4.5% of the American population lives in states where voters have gone to the polls and pulled the lever for marriage based on the infamous crime against nature.
Now federal courts are a runaway train, disenfranchising voters willy-nillly by imposing their own twisted version of marriage on states in which voters expressly rejected the legalization of sexually abnormal unions.
For time and eternity, Mitt Romney will go down in history as the man who abused the power of his office to give the United States homosexual matrimony.
Along the way, Romney provided the template for Obama's utterly disastrous socialized health care plan, which is shredding the greatest health care system in history.
Thus Mitt Romney is the godfather of both same-sex marriage and ObamaCare.
For advancing both the cause of sexual deviancy and socialism, he was rewarded by being chosen by the GOP to be their standard-bearer in 2012.
And Republicans wonder why they continue to lose presidential elections.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
May 19, 2014
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
The press has been in a reminiscent and celebratory mood this past week, as America reached the 10th anniversary of homosexual marriage.
What is little discussed is that the first same-sex wedding license was issued only because Republican governor Mitt Romney broke the law. And he not only broke the law, he ordered every city and county clerk to break the law, too, or get fired.
It is no exaggeration to say that America has same-sex marriage because of Mitt Romney.
As the media has endlessly reminded us this past week, the first domino to fall in the crusade to give marital recognition to non-normative sexual unions fell in Massachusetts, and it fell because then-governor Romney pushed it over.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) declared that Massachusetts' marriage law was unconstitutional on November 18, 2003, in its ruling in the infamous Goodridge case.
But the Court also explicitly declared that the original law, which prohibits recognition of same-sex unions, was left intact by their ruling. "Here, no one argues that striking down the marriage laws is an appropriate form of relief."
The SJC acknowledged that the original law banned homosexual marriages. And the court also acknowledged that the court itself had no authority to write new law. That, they expressly declared, was because the doctrine of the separation of powers exclusively reserves the enacting of legislation to the legislative branch of Massachusetts' state government.
And so the court ordered the legislature to address the issue, giving lawmakers 180 days to "take such action as it may deem appropriate" to remedy the problem and write a law permitting same-sex marriage.
The legislature, despite several abortive attempts, did precisely nothing.
One-hundred and eighty days came, and 180 days went, and the legislature was unable to drum up a new law of any kind. Thus, at the end of 180 days, same-sex marriage was as illegal in Massachusetts as it was at the beginning.
But Gov. Romney, who campaigned on a pledge to be more pro-gay than Teddy Kennedy, and received the endorsement of the pro-gay Log Cabin Club, refused to be deterred by a little thing like obeying the law and fulfilling his oath of office.
Acting on his own, and with no legal, statutory or constitutional authority, he ordered clerks to begin issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples on May 17, 2004, in contravention of Massachusetts state law and under threat of termination.
On April 26, 2004, Romney's chief legal counsel, Daniel Winslow, made it clear to justices of the peace their choices were to resign, be fired, be fined, or be sued if they were unwilling to solemnize sodomy-based "marriages."
Town clerks and justices of the peace meekly complied, and became lawbreakers themselves in the process. Massachusetts' state marriage law is quite explicit: "Whoever, not being duly authorized by the laws of the commonwealth undertakes to join persons in marriage therein shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both." (Emphasis mine.)
Re-read that carefully. Town clerks must be "authorized by the laws of the commonwealth" to issue marriage licenses. They are not allowed to do so under the authorization of the Supreme Judicial Court or the governor. The "laws of the commonwealth" to this day do not authorize the granting of same-sex marriage licenses.
Massachusetts state marriage law has never been changed. Same-sex marriage is still illegal in the Bay State. You could look it up.
So the bottom line here is that Gov. Romney broke state law and ordered his town clerks to do the same.
After Gov. Romney "legalized" same-sex marriage by fiat in a burst of executive branch activism, Connecticut's Supreme Court followed suit in 2008 and Iowa's Supreme Court in 2009. Same-sex marriage was not legalized through the legislative process anywhere in the United States until Vermont's legislature overrode a gubernatorial veto in April of 2009.
And to this day, while voters in 31 states went to the polls and voted to elevate protection for natural marriage to their state constitutions, just 4.5% of the American population lives in states where voters have gone to the polls and pulled the lever for marriage based on the infamous crime against nature.
Now federal courts are a runaway train, disenfranchising voters willy-nillly by imposing their own twisted version of marriage on states in which voters expressly rejected the legalization of sexually abnormal unions.
For time and eternity, Mitt Romney will go down in history as the man who abused the power of his office to give the United States homosexual matrimony.
Along the way, Romney provided the template for Obama's utterly disastrous socialized health care plan, which is shredding the greatest health care system in history.
Thus Mitt Romney is the godfather of both same-sex marriage and ObamaCare.
For advancing both the cause of sexual deviancy and socialism, he was rewarded by being chosen by the GOP to be their standard-bearer in 2012.
And Republicans wonder why they continue to lose presidential elections.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
