Why Marriage Matters: Alabama Mother Attempts To Deny Her Dead Son's Husband His Estate

Issues like this are why legally-recognized gay marriage is so important. Alabama man David Fancher was killed in an auto accident in 2011 and left his estate to his husband, Paul Hard. He and Hard were married in Massachusetts just three months earlier after having been a couple for over six years. However, Alabama’s Sanctity of Marriage Amendment denies the validity of their marriage, so Hard is suing the state decrying the amendment as unconstitutional, and thus entitling Hard as Fancher's legal husband to half of his estate.

Enter David Fancher's mother Pat Fancher, who has been granted the right to intervene in the case and does not want her son’s name used to advance the cause of same-sex marriage:

I am a devout Christian and I am deeply disturbed that the death of my son David is being used by Dr. Paul Hard to advance the cause of same-sex marriage. I did not agree with all of the decisions that my son made, but I loved him very much and we always had a good relationship. It is wrong for David’s death to be used in this manner.

As such, she has enlisted the aid of the Foundation for Moral Law, who have filed an amicus brief to try and overturn the Tenth Circuit's strike down of Utah's ban on same-sex marriage:

The Foundation has an interest in this case because it believes that this nation’s laws should reflect the moral basis upon which the nation was founded, and that the ancient roots of the common law, the pronouncements of the legal philosophers from whom this nation’s Founders derived their view of law, the views of the Founders themselves, and the views of the American people as a whole from the beginning of American history at least until very recently, have held that homosexual conduct is immoral and should not be sanctioned by giving it the official state sanction of marriage.

The Foundation for Moral Law counselor who filed the brief is John Eidsmoe, a wingnut who tried to get the U.S. military to provide "ex-gay" therapy to gay soldiers who would otherwise rape kids. Unsurprisingly, he follows the American Taliban mentality of promoting rule by biblical law.