Letter
Letter from Archbishop Cordileone to Congress on the Marriage Protection Amendment (2014)
Letter from Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, Chairman, USCCB Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage to U.S. House of Representative Tim Huelskamp in support of his resolution, H.J. Res. 51, the Marriage Protection Amendment, February 19, 2014.
"Recently, a number of federal courts have ruled against the constitutionality of state marriage laws that honor the reality of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Just last week, a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled Virginia’s marriage amendment unconstitutional. Similarly, in January, a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma ruled that Oklahoma’s marriage amendment is unconstitutional. Both of these decisions are part of a trend that began last December when a judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah declared Utah’s marriage amendment unconstitutional. Also last week, a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky said that Kentucky must recognize out-of-state same-sex “marriages.” This decision is similar to one last December by a federal judge in Ohio regarding the recognition of out-of-state same-sex “marriages.” It is my hope that these fundamentally flawed decisions will be overturned on appeal. Given the litigation pending in federal courts around the country, more bad decisions using the U.S. Constitution to strike down state marriage laws may be on the horizon.
An amendment to the U.S. Constitution is the only remedy in law against this judicial activism that may ultimately end with federal judges declaring that the U.S. Constitution requires states, and consequently the federal government, to redefine marriage."