By Bob Allen
In an Oct. 7 editorial, a Baptist state newspaper editor blasted a ruling by a Kansas City judge that marriages of Missouri gay couples performed legally in other states or countries must be honored in their home state.
Don Hinkle, editor of The Pathway, news journal of the Missouri Baptist Convention, denounced an Oct. 3 decision by Jackson County Circuit Judge J. Dale Youngs as an “arrogant and outrageous” ruling that “makes a mockery” of a voter-approved amendment to the Missouri Constitution recognizing marriage as only between a man and a woman.
Hinkle, who also functions as leader of the statewide Southern Baptist Convention affiliate’s public-policy team, said the Missouri Baptist Convention’s Christian Life Commission and other pro-family groups “are weighing legal options in an effort to protect the interests of Missouri voters and defend the state constitution.”
The ruling, the first by any judge affirming same-sex marriage in Missouri, said denying same-sex couples benefits available to others is a violation of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which says that a state cannot “deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Laws making it illegal to issue a marriage license to same-sex couples and recognizing out-of-state marriages of only opposite-sex couples, Judge Youngs said, discriminate solely on the basis of sexual orientation and “are not rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest.”
Hinkle, a graduate of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., countered in his editorial that the Bible, which he said forbids same-sex marriage, “is not irrational.”
“Marriage policy should be worked out by the people, preferably guided by the Word of God,” opined Hinkle, editor of the publication launched in 2002 after leaders of the state convention sued the historic Missouri Baptist newspaper Word and Way and four other entities for moving to self-perpetuating boards of trustees.
Judge Youngs saw it differently, saying Missouri’s laws restricting same-sex marriage “are wholly irrational, do not rest upon any reasonable basis and are purely arbitrary.”
“All they do is treat one segment of the population — gay men and lesbians — differently than their counterparts, for no logical reason,” the judge said in his decision.
Attorney General Chris Koster said Oct. 6 he will not appeal the ruling. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the ruling affects more than 5,400 Missouri couples who were married in places where same-sex marriages are legally recognized, including neighboring states Illinois and Iowa.
“The Missouri General Assembly ought to consider action against the attorney general for not doing his job and defending the Missouri Constitution,” Hinkle counseled his readers. “In the meantime, call Koster’s office and urge him to do his job and appeal Youngs’ decision.”
In January representatives of the Missouri Baptist Convention’s Christian Life Commission filed a lawsuit challenging an executive order by Gov. Jay Nixon allowing same-sex couples legally married elsewhere to file joint tax returns.
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