From "Experts: Credit Romney for homosexual marriage" by Bob Unruh, posted 7/14/07 at WorldNetDaily.com
While former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney claims he did everything possible to throttle homosexual marriage in his state – his campaign now saying he took "every conceivable step within the law to defend traditional marriage" – several constitutional experts say that just isn't so.
"What Romney did [was] he exercised illegal legislative authority," Herb Titus said of the governor's actions after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court released its opinion in the Goodridge case in 2003. "He was bound by what? There was no order. There wasn't even any order to the Department of Public Health to do anything."
Titus, a Harvard law graduate, was founding dean of Pat Robertson's Regent University Law School. He also worked with former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, now a WND columnist, to draft the Constitution Restoration Act, which sought to take out of federal court jurisdiction cases that involved public officials that acknowledged God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government.
He's written "God, Man and Law: The Biblical Principles," and contributed to "Judicial Tyranny: The New Kings of America?" and has been admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and a multitude of state and federal court jurisdictions.
Romney's aides have told WND that after four of the seven court members reinterpreted the definition of marriage, he believed he had no choice but to direct clerks and others to change state marriage forms and begin registering same-sex couples.
Some opponents contend that with those actions, Romney did no more or less than create the first homosexual marriages recognized in the nation.
"All the Supreme Judicial Court did was pronounce their judgment, declared their opinion," he told WND. "Gov. Romney is like too many other governors in America. If a court says something, they jump," said Titus, who also is a former candidate for vice-president on the Constitution Party ticket.
Others raising questions about the issue included Chris Stovall, senior general counsel the Alliance Defense Fund; Scott FitzGibbon, a professor of law at Boston College; attorney Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum; and Hadley Arkes, a professor of jurisprudence at Amherst, who wrote about the situation in National Review shortly after the implementation of the law.
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