Moose v. MacDonald involved a challenge to Virginia’s “crimes against nature” statute. A federal district judge found that the statute violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that this law had been invalidated by the Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas. The state of Virginia sought Supreme Court review.
United States v. Edith Schlain Windsor
(defending the federal Defense of Marriage Act)
The Windsor case involved the federal Defense of Marriage Act — a federal law defining marriage as between one man and one woman for purposes of federal law. The case also addressed the standing of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group — representing the House of Representatives — to defend that statute in federal court after the Obama administration refused to do so.
Dennis Hollingsworth v. Kristin Perry
(defending California’s Proposition 8 constitutional definition of marriage)
This case involves a challenge to California Proposition 8, a state constitutional amendment which defined “marriage” as between one man and one woman and was approved by a majority of voters in California. California’s government (led first by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and then by Governor Jerry Brown) refused to defend the amendment enacted directly by the people of California, and so the proponents of the amendment stepped in to defend it.
Personhood Oklahoma v. Brittany Mays Barber
(defending proposed amendment to the Oklahoma constitution that life begins at conception)
A ballot initiative was proposed in Oklahoma to amend the state constitution to define “person” as “any human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being to natural death.” The proposal was challenged in state court, and the Supreme Court of Oklahoma blocked the proposed initiative from going forward to the voters on the ballot. In doing so, the state supreme court misused the Supreme Court’s decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey to deprive the people of Oklahoma of a power reserved them by the Tenth Amendment. The proponents of the initiative filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court.
Family & Life
The U.S. Constitution was designed to protect the rights of U.S. citizens, but activist federal judges have misused the Constitution to effect social changes that they believe would be good for the country. The Supreme Court has distorted the rights guaranteed to us by the Fourteenth Amendment both to authorize the murder of unborn children and, more recently, to compel recognition of unnatural sexual coupling as if it was morally comparable to Biblically defined marriage.
CLDEF has actively worked to defend against this distortion of the Constitution to fight against the onslaught on the sanctity of life and traditional marriage.
In a recent article, we discussed what is probably Justice Clarence Thomas’ best dissent ever. Justice Thomas discusses the flawed nature of much of modern constitutional law. CLDEF’s briefs have brought this same message to the U.S. Supreme Court in dozens of briefs filed over the last 15 years.
Below are some of the Family & Life matters in which CLDEF has been involved.
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