New movement seeks to mobilize churches in push to overturn landmark gay marriage ruling
Quick Summary
- Greater Than campaign launches to overturn Supreme Court's 2015 same-sex marriage ruling.
- Coalition includes Christian conservative organizations like Focus on the Family and The Colson Center.
- Goal is to challenge the Obergefell v. Hodges decision protecting same-sex marriage under the 14th Amendment.
A coalition of Christian conservative organizations and leaders has joined a new campaign seeking to mobilize churches to push for the overturning of the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
Known as the Greater Than campaign, the effort is spearheaded by the advocacy group Them Before Us and includes among its supporters Focus on the Family, Live Action, the Colson Center, Word on Fire, the American Family Association and Citizens for Renewing America.
The ultimate goal is to get the Supreme Court to overturn the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which held that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects same-sex marriage.
Greater Than describes itself as a "coalition of parents, students, researchers, think tanks, influencers, and citizens who are willing to state the self-evident but costly truth: children need, deserve, and have a right to their mother and father."
Individuals expressing their support for the campaign include pro-life activist Lila Rose, The Blaze talk show host Steve Deace, Princeton University Professor Robert P. George, and author and speaker Heidi St. John.
“When marriage was redefined in 2015, parenthood was too. Once husbands and wives became optional, mothers and fathers became replaceable,” states the campaign’s website.
“But for a child, their mother and father are never optional; they are essential. Children need both a mother and a father to provide stability, guidance, and the unique love only a man and woman can give. No adult desire or ideology can change that.”
Katy Faust, founder and president of Them Before Us, told The Christian Post in an interview Thursday that her group was inspired to launch the campaign last year as the country neared the 10-year anniversary of the decision.
"It dawned on us: has anybody really, really put together an effort to overturn this?" Faust recalled. "I kept thinking, another organization that has more legal chops than we do was ultimately going to do it. But it dawned on us leading up to the 10-year anniversary that no, this is probably something that we need to do."
"We can pull in a lot of other wonderful, faithful, grounded, virtuous, clear-eyed organizations into the mix, because there's a lot of people that have been steadfast before Obergefell and ... I think are ready to really make an effort to take it down."
The campaign has three components, Faust said. The first is "a judicial strategy" that she believes "has the possibility and I would say likelihood of success."
The second component is an effort at "changing public opinion," with Faust saying "Americans need to understand the threat that gay marriage poses to children and that natural marriage is directly connected to children protection."
The third component involves mobilizing churches, which Faust hopes to transform into "a child-centered fighting force." The campaign plans to develop "materials that both Protestants and Catholics can use to understand why natural marriage is God's plan A for child protection," Faust said.
Released on June 26, 2015, the 5-4 Obergefell decision struck down state-level constitutional bans on same-sex marriage, with Justice Anthony Kennedy authoring the majority opinion.
"The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity," wrote Kennedy.
"The petitioners in these cases seek to find that liberty by marrying someone of the same sex and having their marriages deemed lawful on the same terms and conditions as marriages between persons of the opposite sex."
In 2022, the Obergefell ruling was federally codified when a Democratic-controlled United States Congress passed bipartisan-supported legislation, which then-President Joe Biden signed into law.
Recently, social conservatives have tried to advance legal challenges in the hopes that the more right-leaning modern-day Supreme Court will overturn the 2015 decision.
Last November, however, the high court denied without comment a petition filed by former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis to reconsider the 2015 ruling.
Faust told CP that she was "actually glad they didn't take up the case," as she believed that Davis "was the wrong victim and she was asking the wrong questions."
"Children have lost their mother or father. They are being commodified. Parental rights themselves are being weakened because of gay marriage," Faust said.
"The real question before the court is not 'does gay marriage provide some kind of inconvenience for Christian adults?' The question before the court needs to be 'do children need, benefit from, deserve and have a right to their own mother and father?'"
