The Attorney General of the United States acting against both law and
Supreme Court precedent by authorizing federal recognition of same-sex
marriages in Utah, charges the chairman of the US bishops’ committee on
marriage.
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco observed that Utah’s
law defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, but Attorney
General Eric Holder “is ignoring Utah law an imposing a contrary federal
definition of marriage in that state.”
The Utah law is under legal challenge, but the existing state law remains in force, the archbishop noted.
Last year, in the Windsor
case, the US Supreme Court overruled a federal definition of marriage.
Nevertheless in that decision, Archbishop Cordileone pointed out, the
court “made clear that the federal government is to respect a state's
definition of marriage.”