Gay marriage will be ‘law of the land,’ says Hatch

Senator Orrin Hatch says legal gay marriage is almost certain to become a reality throughout the United States. “Let’s face it, anybody who does not believe that gay marriage is going to be the law of the land just hasn’t been observing what’s going on,” the Utah Republican said May 28 on KSL Radio’s Doug Wright Show.

“There is a question whether [the courts] should be able to tell the states what they can or cannot do with something as important as marriage, but the trend right now in the courts is to permit gay marriage, and anybody who doesn’t admit that just isn’t living in the real world.”

Hatch’s Senate website shows him supporting a constitutional amendment to declare marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman. However, in his radio interview, the seven-term Republican complimented two U.S. jurists based in Utah whose decisions favored same-gender couples’ rights in his state. Hatch described them as excellent judges attempting to follow the law.

They are Robert Shelby, whose December 20 ruling overturned Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage, and Dale Kimball, who declared that Utah must recognize and uphold all legal rights of the 1,000-plus same-sex couples who wed in the state before a January 6 stay. —Salt Lake Tribune