This is a little mind-boggling:
LANSING — Attorneys representing Gov. Rick Snyder and the state of Michigan in a case alleging the state’s ban on same-sex joint adoptions violates the U.S. Constitution have argued the state’s constitutional amendment defining marriage is necessary to “regulate sexual relationships” to encourage population growth.
The statement was made as part of a brief opposing a motion by April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse asking a federal judge to grant a judgment in their favor.
DeBoer and Rowse, a Hazel Park couple who challenged the state’s same-sex marriage ban as part of their challenge to state adoption laws, contend that the ban violates the federal guarantee of due process in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In the brief, attorneys from Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette’s office say that Michigan and other states which define marriage as being “one man, one woman” have done so “to regulate sexual relationships between men and women so that the unique procreative capacity of such relationships benefits rather than harms society.”
The brief also says that prior to a 2004 Massachusetts court decision enforcing a right to same-sex marriage in that state, “it was commonly understood that the institution of marriage owed its very existence to society’s vital interest in responsible procreation and childrearing.”
So much for “smaller government, more freedom.” Not only do conservatives want to get into your bedroom, they’re writing regulations on what to do when you get there.
Brings a whole new meaning to “bedtime reading.”
I’m assuming the State of Michigan will immediately challenge the marital status of couples who marry despite being over the age of procreation or of couples that choose not to abide by what Michigan deems the interests of the state by deciding to forgo the baby thing and undertake the many thousands of dollars such an endeavor includes. I await the next shoe to drop with wry amusement.
Bill Schuette has always been a famous jerk in our neck of the northern woods. (He’s from Petoskey, your former home town.)