by Quint Qualls, Spring Hill Home Page
After a group of local residents and ministers filed a lawsuit in January seeking a declaration that Tennessee marriage statutes were invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on same-sex marriage, a Williamson County chancellor has dismissed the case due to the plaintiffs’ lack of legal standing.
“There is a proper time and place for the plaintiffs to seek redress for their grievances,” wrote Chancellor Joseph A. Woodruff in his order on the suit. “That time is not today; it is Election Day. That place is not here; it is the ballot box.”
The lawsuit named several residents and ministers of Williamson County as plaintiffs. Elaine Anderson, Williamson County Clerk, was named as defendant in the case alongside Attorney General Herbert Slatery.
The suit sought a permanent injunction imposing a blanket prohibition against Anderson from issuing marriage licenses. The plaintiffs argued that the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges also made Tennessee’s marriage laws invalid. According to the plaintiffs’ complaint, the Supreme Court said that state laws are invalid “to the extent they exclude same-sex couples from civil marriage on the same terms and conditions as opposite-sex couples.”
Although he acknowledged the same-sex marriage decision represented an overreach that resulted from the Supreme Court deviating into the realm of social policy, Woodruff ultimately ordered the case dismissed for failure to state a claim and a lack of legal standing.
In his order to dismiss the case, Woodruff argued that the question brought forth by the plaintiffs was one more appropriately answered by the legislature.
Woodruff added that the ministers named in the case did not have standing to challenge issuance of marriage licenses because it does not infringe upon any of their legally protected interests.
“The alleged potential for criminal and civil penalties against Minister Plaintiffs is not sufficient to establish standing because there is no real threat of such sanctions,” Woodruff wrote.
He said the ministers’ interests are “merely theoretical” and that their claims are “contingent on future events that may never occur, rendering them unripe.”
Despite the dismissal, Woodruff acknowledged that there are other remedies available to the plaintiffs.
“For example, the citizenry could elect a president who would appoint federal judges who hold a judicial philosophy compatible with sound judicial principles or elect senators that will withhold consent to the appointment of federal judges who do not adequately recognize those principles.”
