The state is planning to appeal of course, but the ruling strikes down a voter approved law from 2004 banning it in the state. The state AG will be trying to get a stay on marriage licenses but there’s already a rush of people trying to get married before that happens.
Utah has long been an odd outlier of conservative politics. They’re very strongly conservative and well outside the Republican regional stronghold of the South, without the same shared history of post-Civil war reconstruction. Their most dominant religion is outside of the mainstream Christian faiths and sometimes mocked but often their politics overlap.
With the fall of DOMA and the ruling on Prop 8, I don’t see any realistic way that this law won’t be ruled unconstitutional no matter how high they appeal it. At most, there will be a stay in license after a few thousand go out and a delay of a few years as the lawsuit winds through the courts.
I’m glad. Utah Mormons were instrumental in funding the slew of dishonest and hateful ads in California in 2008 to trick voters into voting for Prop 8. Now they have to tolerate “the gheys!” marrying in their temples. I’m happy the courts are forcing the issue and happy that we have checks and balances on hateful and bigoted discrimination masking as proper laws being legally eliminated in the fastest way possible without waiting for bigots to die off and the “free market” extremists to assert that its not time yet.
I await the inevitable deluge of wisecracks about polygamous gay marriage.
(In another oddball fit of Utah policy from an earlier age, it was the state that put the repeal of Prohibition over the top. Easier to understand in the sense of wishing to have that power at the state level.)
This is potentially much bigger than New Mexico’s similar ruling yesterday. It’s a federal judge ruling that marriage is a right, and same sex marriage bans violate the U.S. Constitution. Either it has to be overturned on appeal, or same sex marriage becomes legal in the whole country, right?
Well, I would have thought that overturning of Proposition 8 would have applied to the whole country but they drew back from saying that. I fully expected they would overturn DOMA but allow Prop. 8 to stand on the basis of states’ rights. They surprised me. When Mississippi follows suit, the revolution will be complete.
Judge Walker wrote his decision to specifically apply to California’s case, i.e., you can’t grant a right to a minority and then remove it unless you can prove it has a substantial detriment to the public good. The governor and attorney general of California refused to defend Prop. 8, allowing the Supremes to avoid the issue entirely by saying that its supporters didn’t have standing to defend it. In this case, I don’t see how they can weasel out of a definite ruling on whether or not banning SSM is constitutional.
Well, the Tenth Circuit could affirm the district court, and then the Supreme Court could refuse to hear the state’s appeal (or alternatively, the state could decline to make an appeal), which would have the effect of making SSM legal throughout the Tenth Circuit but not nationwide. That’s just one possibility, there are others. (Although this would be pretty weird since the Tenth Circuit consists of some pretty conservative states.)
Betcha anything you want they don’t. The Constitution’s pretty clear on that “freedom of religion” thing. The Mormons just have to stop interfering in everybody else’s right to get married. They can put whatever limits they want on their own members, so long as those members are accepting them voluntarily.
None of the states are (nor could) force clergy to perform marriages against their religious beliefs.
A fact often pointed out by marriage equality advocates. Phil “gays are murderous” Robertson won’t have to start performing same-sex marriages in his church, and the Mormons and Southern Baptists and Catholics can go on teaching that homosexuality is a sin, when marriage equality is the law of the land. It just means that states have to treat same-sex marriages exactly the same way they treat opposite-sex marriages. No more, no less. Precisely why I cannot see any reasonable argument against it, myself.
I don’t think it is. Its a tenth circuit federal judge.
The interesting thing is that SSM opponents have a choice - if Utah appeals, and it goes to the Supreme Court - and it will take a few years to get there - and the Supremes uphold the ruling under some sort of “well, its time” sort of thing (which was the vibe I got from the Prop 8 decision - it isn’t time yet), then that’s the ballgame. They’ve lost.
If they don’t appeal, then SSM is valid in UTAH!
The judge has forced them into going all in - and with a hand that looks weaker every time a new card is laid face up.
At least, until they add an amendment to their state constitution, which will likely happen as quickly as possible, as allowed under their current one.
Which will be challenged on the same grounds, and overturned again. The tide’s turned on this, I think. It seems unlikely that DOMA can be reconciled with Full Faith and Credit clause (as was speculated when it passed originally), and the fact that the Supreme Court keeps trying to dodge ruling on that, I think, reflects what they’ll have to decide if they’re ever forced to.