Rick's touched on this, but I want to examine their statements in more detail.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court vacated a temporary stay of a district court decision legalizing same-sex marriage in Kansas that had been granted by Justice Sotomayor. The temporary stay had been granted pending consideration of a longer stay. This was interesting as it came after the Sixth Circuit's ruling uphold marriage bans. The circuit split raised the possibility that the Court would keep the ruling stayed, but in a 7-2 decision, it didn't. Justices Scalia and Thomas would have granted the stay.
Keeping in line with the never-ending right-wing belief that injustice is when we don't get our way, NOM is apoplectic. Their two latest blog posts demonstrate a new level of absurdity, even for them.
One of them opens as follows:
A federal judge has ruled erroneously that Kansas's marriage amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman — passed by a great majority of Kansan voters only a handful of years ago — is somehow a violation of the U.S. Constitution!
"Somehow" a violation, Brian? Funnily enough, just two hours and thirty-two minutes before you asked how it could violate the constitution, you provided the answer:
Kansas voters overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment in 2005 confirming the state's historic understanding of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The amendment passed with 70% voter support. However, a federal judge in Utah ruled that Utah's marriage amendment was unconstitutional, and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling. The US Supreme Court subsequently refused to hear Utah's appeal of that ruling. Since Kansas is also in the 10th Circuit, federal District Judge Daniel Crabtree recently issued an injunction against the state enforcing its marriage amendment.
He was following a little thing called precedent, Brian. It's what the entire legal system depends on.
But what's even more mind-boggling is what they think the appropriate reaction is. They believe the appropriate response is to commit a crime, the crime of contempt of court.
This is from the first of their two blog posts:
The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) today sharply condemned the United States Supreme Court for refusing to grant a stay of a federal judge's order imposing same-sex marriage in Kansas, and called on Governor Sam Brownback to order local clerks to refuse to issue marriage licenses that violate Kansas law defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
[...]
Therefore, we call on Governor Sam Brownback to reject the idea that Kansas must abandon marriage because out of control federal judges say so.
And from their second:
Please click here right away to send Governor Brownback an email urging him and Attorney General Schmidt to continue to defend and uphold Kansas's marriage amendment despite a federal judge's activist overreach striking down the law.
The Governor and other state officers throughout Kansas, such as county clerks, should continue to stand by the definition of marriage passed through the fair democratic process by an overwhelming majority of Kansans just a few years ago, rather than giving in to the whim of an activist judge dictating law from the bench.
Please click here right away to draw a line in the sand —— to take immediate action to strike back and defend marriage against the judicial tyranny sweeping across our nation.
That's right. They are calling on the state to ignore court orders and the U.S. Constitution, which, in Kansas, requires same-sex marriage. They are calling for disregard of the law. They are calling for lawlessness, even though whenever our side disregards the law, they lose it. When a clerk in Pennsylvania issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples in violation of Pennsylvania's then-standing ban on marriage last year,
they reacted like this:
The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) condemned the actions of officials in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania in allowing homosexual couples to obtain marriage licenses in violation of state law that defines marriage solely as the union of one man and one woman, and demanded that state courts put an end to it.
[...]
This illegal action by Montgomery County officials is an insult to voters, legislators and the rule of law. We demand that state judges put an immediate end to this lawlessness.
[...]
These county officials are brazenly flaunting the law; substituting their personal views for those of the people as expressed through their elected representatives in state government. Their actions go beyond marriage and implicates the integrity of the rule of law. This cannot be allowed to stand.
A month later, when a clerk in New Mexico issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples in violation of New Mexico's implicit marriage ban,
they reacted like this:
Same-sex 'marriage' activists in New Mexico are not content to wait for the courts. Now they have found a county clerk willing to defy the Governor and Attorney General by issuing illegal 'marriage' licenses to same-sex couples.
[...]
This latest action goes beyond the pending lawsuits in New Mexico and moves into the realm of lawlessness and anarchy. County Clerks are not free to make up law on their own; it is there job to uphold the law and serve the people who elected them.
But now that it suits them, they're all for disregarding the law. (A side note, here. I personally disapprove of issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in violation of in-force marriage bans. The intent is truly noble, but it sets up a situation of moral absolutism, where we decide that our beliefs trump the law because they are correct. This could open the door to other laws being disregarded just because someone doesn't like them, including clerks who refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in violation of laws legalizing same-sex marriage.)
But their stupidity doesn't end there. Here's some of their other commentary on this ruling:
These lower court decisions are illegitimate. They violate the overarching constitutional principle that powers not specifically granted to the federal government are reserved to the states.
NOM, courts have the ability, indeed the responsibility, to enforce constitutional rights, such as marriage, even if the state chooses not to. And "illegitimate" means not authorized or recognized by law. A court decision is the enforcement of the law. They, by definition, cannot be illegitimate.
Finally: Last month, a state judge in Kansas ordered the Johnson County clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. This decision was stayed by the Kansas Supreme Court to ensure statewide consistency on marriage. NOM's interpretation of the decision was as follows:
The Kansas Supreme Court has previously issued an order blocking a lower state court judge from directing local clerks to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in violation of state law. Local clerks who issue marriage licenses are considered judicial officers under Kansas Law.
In blocking the issuance of marriage licenses that violate Kansas law, the Kansas Supreme Court has implicitly concluded that their marriage amendment does not violate the federal constitution, and rightly so.
No NOM, that's not how court decisions work. Unless they explicitly declare a law unconstitutional, they have not done so. You can't read into a court decision what's not there, even if you want to. Going by that logic, all marriage bans should stop being enforced right now because of the Windsor decision, which certainly suggested that marriage bans violate the Constitution. Justice Scalia has said exactly that.
By the way, if stays on pro-marriage decisions are a conclusion that marriage bans are constitutional, then surely denying such a stay is a conclusion that they are unconstitutional, right? Well, that's not what you said when the Supreme Court denied your request for a stay of marriage in Oregon back in June. You said this:
It's important to recognize that the Supreme Court has not decided the merits of the underlying issue.
They haven't realized that a principle should guide how you act consistently. It is not to be manipulated in situations where you want to act differently.
But I wouldn't expect anything more from them.