UTAH: State Files Appeal Brief Calling Gay Marriage "A Judicial Wrecking Ball"

Shortly before the midnight deadline on Friday, the state of Utah filed an appeal brief with the Tenth Circuit Court which calls same-sex marriage a "judicial wrecking ball."

To allow the "difficult policy choice" about marriage rights to be made by "judicial fiat" would not be akin to the "narrow" decision that ended bans on interracial marriage, but instead would unleash "an unprincipled judicial wrecking ball hurtling toward an even more important arena of traditional state authority," the state said. That wrecking ball would impose "novel" and "corrosive" principles about marriage and parenting and would undermine state sovereignty, according to the 120-page reply brief the state submitted to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals just minutes before its midnight deadline Friday. The state gets the last shot at responding to arguments made by the plaintiffs who challenged Utah’s ban because it brought the appeal. The court has set oral arguments in the case for April 10 in Denver.

The brief also claims that straight people will no longer see the need to get married if gay people can. And anyway, the brief further states, gay people already have the right to get married to a person of the opposite sex, they just choose not to.  Read the full brief.