Sen. Mike Lee of Utah joined Phyllis Schlafly on her “Eagle Forum Live” radio program last month, where he took a call from a listener who asked if he agreed “that the original Constitution didn’t give the Supreme Court the power to rule anything about marriage” and that even Justice John Marshall, who established the principle of judicial review, “never said that the court could change the definition of marriage.”
“Where did the Supreme Court get the power to change the definition of marriage?” the caller asked. “And all the justices, all nine of them, even though they disagree, they all seem to think that they have the power to make that decision.”
“They don’t have that power, the Constitution didn’t give it to them,” Lee responded.
“There are a few who appear to take the position that something in the Constitution, something in the 14th Amendment in particular, gives them this power,” he said. “I strongly, strongly disagree with that viewpoint. I don’t think it does, and I think they are mistaken in that conclusion. And it think it’s wrong, I think it’s disruptive of the constitutional order for them to take a debatable matter and take it beyond debate, to take a state matter and take it to the federal government, not just to Congress, but to the Supreme Court, to a group of nine lawyers dressed in black robes who are not elected, but who are appointed for life. And I think that’s a big problem.”
In an interview with WorldNetDaily posted on its YouTube channel last week, Lee had a similar warning, saying that if a bill he has introduced allowing religious groups to discriminate against gay people doesn’t pass, a Supreme Court decision in favor of marriage equality could cause churches and religious organizations to shut down because of the government “retaliating against religious individuals or institutions.”
“I fear that what could happen is that the government could start discriminating against religious individuals and religious institutions that have a religious belief about the definition of marriage,” he said. “I don’t want that to happen. I hesitate to imagine what an America that would have that as part of its legal system would look like.”
