Religious Organizations to SCOTUS: Ignore Science

From Think Progress:

A group of religious organizations, including the Mormon Church, Southern Baptist Convention, and National Association of Evangelicals, have submitted amicus briefs to the Supreme Court arguing it should uphold both the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8. The briefs, written by Mormon Church lawyer Von Keetch, make similar points to other anti-gay briefs about the inferiority of same-sex couples, but notably tries to brush aside the research that suggests otherwise (HT: Kathleen Perrin):

DOMA BRIEF: Whether the Nation retains the traditional definition of marriage or redefines marriage to include same-sex couples is a social issue with potentially wide-ranging consequences. By their nature, such policy questions cannot be definitively answered by science, professional opinion, or legal reasoning alone. Although we are certainly persuaded by scholarly opinion supporting traditional marriage, the truth is that social science scholars, for instance, disagree about the effects of gay parenting on children. Whatever the ultimate conclusions may be, “nothing in the Constitution requires [government] to accept as truth the most advanced and sophisticated [scientific] opinion.”

PROP 8 BRIEF: Admittedly, there is an active debate within the social sciences over whether some of these common sense judgments are empirically sound. But “nothing in the Constitution requires California to accept as truth the most advanced and sophisticated [scientific] opinion.” Lawmakers – including the people of California – are entitled to “act on various unprovable assumptions,” including those that in “the sum of [their] experience” lead them to conclude that traditional marriage and the family structure it supports deserve distinctive legal protection.