ABOUT THE WRITER
David Fowler, a Chattanooga native, is president of the Family Action Council of Tennessee.
For Tennesseans, the decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8 are perhaps best understood in terms of what they did not do.
Neither decision held that natural marriage – the union of one man and one woman – is unconstitutional; or, put another way, neither decision ruled that there is a constitutional right to homosexual marriage.
The Supreme Court’s decisions preserve, not undermine, the definition of marriage that over 81 percent of Tennessee voters enshrined in our state constitution. Marriage, in Tennessee, is still the union of one man and one woman. Any marriage performed in another state that is contrary to that definition is invalid.
It’s also noteworthy that the best arguments that could be made in support of homosexual marriage were made and not accepted by the court. Let there be no confusion here. Our Supreme Court is more than capable and willing to find ways to reach results that a majority of the court wants to reach.