FIRST AMENDMENT DEFENSE
ACT:
In the wake of Friday’s 5-4 decision by the Supreme
Court in
the marriage case, Obergefell v. Hodges,
many of the millions of Americans who voted to define marriage as an
exclusively male-female institution in their state constitutions will be
wondering: What does this mean for me?
Congress must move swiftly to pass the First Amendment Defense
Act.
If five judges on the Supreme Court have pronounced, in a
breathtaking presumption of power, that all 50 states must redefine
marriage, what does that mean for the countless institutions within our civil
society—churches and synagogues,
charities and adoption agencies, counseling services and religiously affiliated
schools—that are made up of American citizens who believe marriage is the
union of one man and one woman?
Will federal government agencies follow the heavy-handed
approach taken by the present majority of Supreme Court justices—say, by
revoking the non-profit, tax-exempt status of faith-based schools that continue
to operate on the basis of their religious beliefs about marriage?
Nowhere in the majority’s 28-page opinion will you find a
reliable answer to these questions. In his dissent notes, Chief Justice John Roberts explains why.
“Federal courts are blunt
instruments when it comes to creating rights,” Roberts writes, because “they
do not have the flexibility of legislatures to address concerns of parties not
before the court or to anticipate problems that may arise from the exercise of
a new right.”
It’s true that Justice
Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, acknowledges—as if in
passing—that “The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons
are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so
fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths,” including their
conviction that marriage is the union
between one man and one woman.
But this may prove to be little consolation for those who have
conscientious objections to the redefinition of marriage. For the remainder of Kennedy’s opinion, like much of today’s
jurisprudence, is based on the pretension that the role of judges is not merely
to resolve cases and controversies in the law, but to apply their own “reasoned judgment” to define for each
successive generation the “nature of injustice”
and define the “meaning of
liberty”.
That’s why I recently introduced a bill, with Rep. Raul
Labrador, R-Idaho, in the House, called the First Amendment Defense Act that would prevent any
agency from denying a federal tax exemption, grant, contract, accreditation,
license, or certification to an individual or institution for acting on their
religious belief that marriage is a union between one man and one woman.
In light of the Supreme Court decision, Congress must move
swiftly to pass the First Amendment Defense Act and clarify in federal law what
five justices left ambiguous in their legal opinion: that the right to form
and to follow one’s religious beliefs is the bedrock of human dignity and
liberty that must be forcefully defended from government interference.
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Reporting By: Kanwal Abidi (063 News- Press Agency)
