Amicus Brief for 54 International and Comparative Law Experts from 27 Countries and the Marriage and Family Law Research Project

Abstract

This amicus brief was authored primarily by Elizabeth A. Clark, from the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University Law School, with assistance from me and some others. The brief makes two main points. First, the vast majority of the nations in the world do not allow same-sex couples to marry. Gay and lesbian couples are permitted to marry in only seventeen (17) nations today (that is, in less than 9% of the 193 sovereign nations). By contrast, more than 45 nations have provisions in their constitutions that appears to forbid or disallow same-sex marriage. Moreover, as the movement to legalize same-sex marriage is more than fifteen (15) years old, the rate of change amounts to about one nation legalizing same-sex marriage every year since the first nation (The Netherlands) passed legislation to allow same-sex couples to marry. That glacially slow movement to legalize same-sex marriage does not represent anything like a significant trend, let alone a major shift, in marriage policies in the world. Second, in sixteen of the seventeen nations that have legalized same-sex marriage, that change in marriage policy was adopted through normal democratic processes - primarily by the legislative process. In only one nation, Brazil, did the judiciary mandate the legalization of same-sex marriage. Thus, by reference to global standards (which overwhelmingly forbid same-sex marriage) and to the method of changing the meaning and definition of marriage in other nations (which overwhelmingly has been by democratic legislative process) the claim that the Supreme Court of the United States should mandate the legalization of same-sex marriage in the USA is erroneous and unconvincing.