US states strike out ‘one-man one-woman marriage’

Marriage is no longer to be defined as exclusively between one man and one woman, three US States have decided.

In November, voters in California, Colorado and Hawaii backed proposals to remove references to traditional marriage from their state constitutions.

Although the US Supreme Court legalised same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015, some states still correctly define marriage as the ‘union between one man and one woman’ in their governing documents.

Constitutional changes

Legislators in California proposed that the Constitution be amended to recognise the “fundamental right to marry, regardless of sex and race”, and to remove language “stating that marriage is only between a man and a woman”.

Amendment J in Colorado repealed the constitutional definition of marriage that declared: “Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state.”

And in Hawaii, Question 1 on the ballot asked: “Shall the state constitution be amended to repeal the legislature’s authority to reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples?”

Over sixty per cent of voters in California and Colorado struck out the long-held traditional definition of marriage. In Hawaii, 51 per cent of voters supported the change, and 40 per cent opposed it.

Truth rejected

Commenting on the outcomes in the respective states, California Family Council President Jonathan Keller pointed out: “If you abolish the definition of marriage and say that marriage can mean anything, then marriage actually means nothing.”

While Brittany Vessely, Executive Director of the Colorado Catholic Conference, observed: “Marriage is based on the truth that men and women are complementary, the biological fact that reproduction depends on a man and a woman, and the social science that supports the reality that children need both a mother and a father to flourish.

If you say that marriage can mean anything, then marriage actually means nothing

“This amendment rejects the truth of what marriage is.”

Social upheaval

Speaking in August, Christian leader Dr Albert Mohler noted that year on year, “there are more same-sex couples declared wrongly but legally right now in the United States to be legally married” and more children “associated with those relationships”.

He continued: “You have more policies on the campus, more policies in corporations. You have more changes to statutory language. You have redefinitions of insurance policies and all the rest”.

This, he argued, “means that this moral revolution is now being supported not only by a shift in moral sentiment and moral judgment, it is also now being buttressed by an incalculable number of policy changes, of language changes, of contract changes, of adjustments to this and adjustments to that.

“Because after all, if you’re adjusting marriage, you’re going to have to adjust just about everything else.”