The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association on Saturday organized a meeting in Highland, Utah to call for an uprising and to express their opposition to same-sex marriage in Utah, Fox 13 Now Salt Lake City reported.

“The people of Utah have rights, too, not just the homosexuals. The homosexuals are shoving their agenda down our throats,” Former Graham County, Ariz., Sheriff Richard Mack said at the meeting.

A federal judge in December struck down Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage, and courts subsequently denied the state’s request for a temporary stay, which would keep counties from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples while the state appeals the ruling.

By the third stay denial, most counties in Utah were issuing licenses to all couples.

Mack said that Gov. Gary Herbert (R) failed the people of Utah.

“State sovereignty supercedes what this judge did,” Mack said. “The Governor needs to get some courage and grip.”

Cherilyn Eager, one of the event organizers, said that people need to speak out.

“We need people to stand up and speak out. We need to get noisy. We need some outrage,” she said. “It is about the sheriffs now coming out to protect the people.”

Mack and Eager asked meeting attendees to call their local representatives and ask them to urge clerks to stop issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.

“The way you take back freedom in America is one county at a time. The sheriffs need to defend the county clerks in saying, ‘No, we’re not going to issue marriage licenses to homosexuals,'” Mack said at the meeting.

Image via Fox 13 Now

[H/t Buzzfeed]