WND

By Bob Unruh

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday stunningly affirmed the rights of voters in four states – Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee – to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, throwing a boulder into the millpond of complacent assumptions by homosexual-rights advocates that same-sex marriage is a given across the United States.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently has refused to take on any same-sex marriage cases, allowing the movement to expand into about 30 states.

But Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, which has fought on behalf of traditional marriage, said that now may change.

“With a divide in the appeals court rulings, the Supreme Court will likely take up the issue,” he said.

Previous rulings from the high court on the issue have found that the institution is necessarily defined as the union of one man and one woman. In 1942, it said marriage is “fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race.” In 1888 it ruled, “An institution in the maintenance of which in its purity the public is deeply interested, for it is the foundation of the family and of society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress.”

Staver said marriage “is not merely a creation of any one civilization or its statutes, but is an institution older than the Constitution and, indeed, older than any laws of any nation.”

“Marriage is a natural bond that society or religion can only ‘solemnize,’” he said.

The 6th Circuit agreed in a 2-1 decision, concluding no federal judges should be making such a decision….

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