Today, the Family Research Council filed an amicus, or “friend of the court,” brief in the case of Robicheaux v. Caldwell, an appeal of a marriage definition case arising out of Louisiana. On September 3rd, Judge Martin Feldman of the Eastern District of Louisiana issued a decision upholding the constitutionality of Louisiana’s male-female definition of marriage. Subsequently, the plaintiffs, seven same-sex couples, appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (“Fifth Circuit”) in New Orleans. It was with the Fifth Circuit that FRC filed its amicus brief today. Paul Linton, a constitutional appellate lawyer from Illinois, wrote the brief. Mr. Linton has worked with FRC previously in numerous marriage-definition cases.
The FRC amicus brief focuses on two main arguments. First, the brief demonstrates that Louisiana’s marriage definition does not contravene the fundamental right to marry that is protected by the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution. After the Supreme Court’s Windsor decision a number of federal courts have attempted to claim that there is a fundamental right to same-sex marriage. As an institution, same-sex marriage is younger than Google and Facebook. It cannot satisfy the requirement the Court laid down in Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997), that such rights must be firmly rooted in “the Nation’s history, legal traditions, and practices.”
Second, the brief makes clear that Louisiana’s marriage definition does not discriminate on the basis of sex or gender because males and females cannot marry members of the same sex. On the contrary, every male and every female may marry. The requirement, however, is that one’s marriage partner be a member of the opposite sex. There is no “facial” discrimination in Louisiana’s marriage definition that targets either males or females for worse treatment than member of the opposite sex.
Male-female marriage is the bedrock of social life and civilization. It is the institution by which the complementary sexual attractions of males and females are yoked together in an enduring, supportive relationship that has the potential to produce children. Same-sex unions can reproduce neither the relational nor the procreative capacity. As such, the union of one man and one woman for life in marriage is rationally related to these dual purposes.
