Opponents react to SCOTUS decision on same-sex marriage

The Supreme Court ruled Friday that the U.S. Constitution provides same-sex couples the right to marry, elating many Americans but setting off a firestorm of angry and disappointed public comments on conservative media outlets.

The Court’s 5-4 decision ruled that the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law means states cannot ban same-sex marriages — making such unions legal in all 50 states.

Conservative state officials and right-wing organizations immediately joined a furious chorus of opposition, taking a defiant tone and equating the court’s action with “tyranny.”

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican who is running for president in 2016, said the decision paves the way for an “all-out assault” on the religious freedom of Christians who disagree with same-sex marriage.

Another Republican presidential candidate, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, used language that invoked the Revolutionary War.

“I will not acquiesce to an imperial court any more than our Founders acquiesced to an imperial British monarch. We must resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat,” Huckabee said in a news release.

“This irrational, unconstitutional rejection of the expressed will of the people in over 30 states will prove to be one of the court’s most disastrous decisions … The Supreme Court can no more repeal the laws of nature and nature’s God on marriage than it can the law of gravity,” Huckabee said.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, also a Republican, issued a statement vowing to defend the religious rights of his constituents who don’t agree with the decision.

“No Texan is required by the Supreme Court’s decision to act contrary to his or her religious beliefs regarding marriage,” Abbott said according to the Texas Tribune. 

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton went further, the Texas Tribune said, telling county clerks on Thursday not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples until they receive further instructions from him.

“It is not acceptable that people of faith be exposed to such abuse,” Paxton said.

Family Research Council (FRC), a conservative lobbying organization, echoed the officials in a statement that read, “No court can overturn natural law.”

“Nature and Nature’s God, hailed by the signers of our Declaration of Independence as the very source of law, cannot be usurped by the edict of a court, even the United States Supreme Court,” FRC President Tony Perkins said in a statement.

Many opponents of the ruling decried what they viewed as the disenfranchisement of 50 million voters who oppose same-sex marriage. They compared it to former divisive rulings by the nation’s top court.

“It is a lawless ruling that contravenes the decisions of over 50 million voters and their elected representatives,” Brian S. Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, said in a statement. “It is a decision that is reminiscent of other illegitimate Court rulings such as Dred Scott and Roe v. Wade and will further plunge the Supreme Court into disrepute.”

But the most vitriolic comments appeared online on conservative media outlets, where same-sex marriage opponents likened the Supreme Court justices to “jihadists.”

“Rainbow jihadists of SCOTUS blow up twin towers of truth and righteousness,” was the title of a post on the American Family Association (AMA) website by Brian Fischer, former spokesman of the AMA — a nonprofit organization that promotes fundamentalist Christian values.

“On July 26, 2015, I saw Satan dancing with delight. For this is the day the music died in the United States of America,” Fischer said.

“The homosexual lobby, the Gay Gestapo, has drawn an equivalency between support for natural marriage and racism. To oppose sexual deviancy is, in their twisted, contorted and devious thinking, no different than supporting slavery and segregation,” Fischer added.

With wire services