Groups who oppose gay marriage hand delivered more than 18,000 petition signatures to Utah Governor Gary Herbert’s office Friday. The aim of the petition is to thank the Governor and Attorney General Sean Reyes for defending Utah’s law banning same-sex marriage.
Former Utah Republican Governor Jon Huntsman restated his support for gay marriage this week, calling it inevitable. And even Republican Utah Senator Orrin Hatch has said, that eventually the law will recognize same sex marriage.
But Bill Duncan, Director of Sutherland Institute’s Center for Family and Society argues advocates of traditional marriage like himself shouldn’t lay down.
“This message that there is an inevitability that you know, if you support marriage you ought to just be quiet and start to wrap up that support, you won’t be allowed to say it publicly, that’s really a kind of fundamentally un-American way of seeing the world,” Duncan says.
Two federal courts have ruled Utah’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Now both the state and the three gay couples challenging Utah’s law are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to settle the dispute once and for all.
Laura Bunker is president of United Families International. She says Utah’s law banning same-sex marriage promotes a societal ideal that children should be raised by a mother and father.
“We are writing history,” Bunker says. “History doesn’t write itself. We can be a part of it. We can have a say in it. And we don’t know how it will turn out. But what we do know is that even though there are many different kinds of families today and many children being raised without a mother or a father for many different reasons today, laws and policies should promote the ideal.”
Thursday was the last day for parties on either side of the issue to file friend of the court briefs with the Supreme Court. Should the court take up the case, the briefs will be read and considered.
