Yes. MO. Thank you.
Although a decision is due in MS very soon and the Federal judge will almost certainly overturn the ban there but it will stall at the Circuit level for a while.
And SCOTUS denied the bigots. Marriages will begin there in 38 minutes.
Well, I may have to unabashedly quote myself now that the New York Times has this OP-Ed, Judge on the Spot.
Same sex marriages will begin in Florida in January 6, 2015. There is nothing that can now stop this from happening.
A while ago, a Federal judge in Florida declared the ban to be unconstitutional but stayed the ruling until January 5th. That particular case is still pending. The bigots tried to get the stay extended but were turned down by the 11th Circuit (which indicates how they will eventually rule) and just today were turned down by SCOTUS.
That means that on January 6th, we will have 35 States where SSM is totally legal and two States (MO and KS) where it is effectively totally legal but the full legal situation still needs to be resolved.*
*In MO, SSMs performed in other states are recognized and licenses are being issued in St Louis City, St Louis County and the county where Kansas City is. Nearly the entire State live in one of those areas or close enough to one of those areas that it’s not that much of an inconvenience.
In KS, the Governor is being as much of a dick as possible and is “interpreting” their ruling to only apply to a couple of counties. Separate law suits are pending or finished in every other county. Marriage licenses are being issued in most of the State but every government agency has to be individually sued to get them to recognize the marriages.
It’s just a matter of time. In mid-June the Supremes will announce their decision and SSM will be legal in the entire country.
A district court judge, appointed by GWB, just struck down Alabama’s ban in its entirety. Alabama! And he didn’t issue a stay.
This was totally unexpected. Marriages will begin on Monday morning if not sooner.
The State has requested a stay but this is in the same circuit that denied the FL stay so it’s not going to happen.
We are now at 37 States plus DC and about 72% of the population living in an area with marriage equity.
I realize that your side is happy with this, but this seems to me to be unprecedented in litigation. A losing party is usually granted a stay as a matter of course to pursue appellate remedies. These states are suffering irreparable harm by not being allowed stays. If the Supremes uphold the power of states to regulate marriage, they will have thousands of same sex couples to have to determine how to handle them.
I’ve seen these “35 states! 36 states!” pronouncements like there is a developing national consensus like in Loving. But these were almost all done by federal courts and not voters or legislators. I expect these “national consensus” arguments to be rightfully trashed in briefs and oral arguments.
I think part of the problem is that the states have been unable to show ANY harm from gay marriage. And gay couples may be suffering irreparable harm by NOT being allowed to marry.
But recent polling does indicate that a national consensus is developing. And it’s in favor of gay marriage.
Why should a vocal minority of the country be able to deny a right to another minority when the majority is in favor of them having it? If the Courts are there for anything, it’s exactly this type of situation.
You guys in this instance meaning people who think equal treatment under the law is a good thing.
What harm? There is no harm. Pissing off people who are prejudiced against gays isn’t harm. It’s, if anything, a good thing. Prejudiced people should be pissed off that their desire to hurt others is failing.
It’s the right thing to do, doing it now is better than waiting for a generation of prejudiced people to die off.
And (rather surprisingly, IMHO) it’s advancing a lot faster than the national consensus in favor of allowing interracial marriage, which IIRC didn’t become a majority position until the 1990s.
Yeah, cite?
I’m not as sure that would work. The last time I know of that the issue came up before voters was in 2012 in 5 states. Maine, Minnesota, North Carolina, Washington and Maryland. Maine and Maryland directly voted to to approve same sex marriage, Minnesota rejected a ban and Washington voted to approve the legislation for same sex marriage. North Carolina was the only one of the 5 to approve a ban. Recent polling in NC seems to be swinging back and forth though between a majority approving or disapproving.
Gallup also shows a sharp trend toward approval and most recently shows 55% approval, 42% against. Broken down by age, the 18-29 group has a 78% approval rate going down to 42% in the over 65 group. All of these show a sharp increase in the last 20 years.
I really don’t want to rehash the same old arguments again, but here is a state position against SSM:
—The state has an interest and a duty to pass laws to protect the public morality, health, and safety. States have done this the entire history of the common law by having laws against adultery, fornication, obscenity, bestiality, cohabitation, prostitution, incest, and sodomy. Many legislators and voters believe that homosexuality is incompatible with morality and public health, and many states made homosexual conduct illegal.
Along came Lawrence which held that a public morality law may not go so far as to intrude into the privacy of a home, behind closed doors, and dictate what consenting adults do with regards to sex. Fair enough. Same sex marriage is distinguishable from Lawrence in that the state is not regulating private sexual conduct but it requires an emerging from the home accompanied by a demand that the state issue a license which confers the blessing of the state on a union which is based on, a least a small part, homosexual sodomy. The history and traditions of this country, and the decision in Lawrence, do not require such a thing. We can’t outlaw it, but we don’t have to recognize it because it undermines the basic family structure that has been shown to be the ideal one as a vehicle for raising children. We believe that embracing homosexual marriage will harm that institution by endorsing conduct we believe harmful. This is within our traditional powers to regulate domestic institutions–
Now, you may disagree with the above statement. I disagree parts of it. But to say that it is wholly irrational and devoid of any type of reason goes well beyond the Court’s traditional rational basis review. It puts it in the place of a super legislature with a veto power to all 50 states. It perverts the democratic process by saying “Your reasoning sucks and we know better.”
There are many laws I think are logically absurd. Example: open container laws. I can have a beer at a bar and then drive home, but I cannot have one on the way home. Makes no logical sense. Should the Supreme Court reverse these laws because of their seeming lack of rational basis? I don’t think so lest we get rid of representative democracy.
If it is true that there is an “emerging national consensus” on SSM, we will see it as state by state changes happen.
The “irreparable harm” is if a state does in fact have the power to regulate its own domestic institutions, this power will be subverted by district court opinions forcing it to accept what it, through its elected representatives, have determined to be harmful to public health and morality, and to the institution of marriage. This cannot be remedied by an appellate decision which leaves thousands of same sex couples who have formed legal relationship with the associated recognition and benefits.
If one steps back from the emotional aspect of it, its a pretty clear thing.
This part has been tested and found not to be a rational belief supported by facts. In other words, you can’t make up a reason that passes the test if that reason has no basis in reality. So yes, it pretty much is wholly irrational.
How could you possibly “test” such a belief? The first same sex marriages were performed less than ten years ago. There are no children adopted into same sex marriages who have grown into adults. Therefore, there cannot be any empirical data to support, well, anything.
Further, what factors are you testing? This new rational basis test only means “I don’t agree with your contention.” That has never been the basis for judicial review.
Strictly speaking, no. A same-sex marriage could be celibate, just as an opposite-sex one could be. Nobody is checking on opposite-sex couples to see that they are copulating in approved, procreative ways, right.
But there are adults who were raised by gay parents, albeit without the stability and sanction given to heterosexual marriages.
Of those I have personally known, by percentage, the gay parents are doing a better job. Everybody I know who was notably screwed up by their parents came from a heterosexual-parent raising.
Procreation and intercourse have been an important part of marriage for a long time prior to the debate over same sex marriage. For all of the talk about it being a historically male dominated institution, not for sex, and not for procreation, one wonders why impotency is a grounds for divorce in many states:
One also wonders why blood tests are still required in some states. IOW, these states aren’t just making this shit up as a desperate means to keep gays from marrying. It reflects a real, if outdated, view of marriage that common law jurisdictions have been allowed to have for over 900 years.
Simply because states haven’t decided to perform fertility tests or prohibiting the elderly from marrying doesn’t mean that they are being hypocritical. It just means that they didn’t see the need to devote the police power to stop such marriages and/or they didn’t enact the best law. Just because a law isn’t perfect or internally consistent doesn’t mean that there is no rational basis for it.
One state, actually, plus DC. (Well, one and a half; Montana requires blood tests–for women only.)
How about this “hypo” for a real problem:
Supposed a lesbian couple (one of whom is bi-sexual), living in West Virginia in 2005, were happy and decided to travel to Massachusetts to get married. In 2008, they separate. Knowing that West Virginia and the feds don’t recognize their marriage, they do nothing. West Virginia won’t grant a divorce and neither will Massachusetts because of residency requirements. They had purchased a house in one party’s name, and a court ruled that since SSM was not recognized, the second party didn’t have a claim.
The bi-sexual half of the couple (let’s call her Sally) meets a man, falls in love, and is legally married in West Virginia in 2011. She is told by her lawyer that this is fine because her former marriage is not recognized by state or federal law. They have a child born in 2012.
Windsor happens in 2013. In October of 2014, the Supreme Court denies the stay issued to the 4th Circuit decision and West Virginia now recognizes SSM and out of state SSMs (including Sally’s 2005 marriage).
Is Sally now guilty of bigamy? If she gets a divorce from her 2005 marriage, does her first spouse have a claim to the child? Must she retrieve all receipts from 2005 to 2008 for equitable distribution purposes? From 2005 to 2014? Can her second spouse be sued for alienation of affections or adultery (assume they went on vacation in a state that recognizes the torts)? Can the house purchase be revisited or does res judicata bar the claim? Can Sally redo her West Virginia income tax return and get a refund from 2005 to 2011?
Can she get two marriage credits from 2011 until the present? If only one marriage can be valid during that time, which marriage? Who does she list as her spouse on her 2014 return? What if her first spouse died in 2012? Is she entitled to an elective share of her estate? Does it matter if the estate is still open?
It’s not just substituting “two persons” for “bride and groom.” There will be many things to sort out over the coming years.
As far as the stay in AL goes, there really isn’t a point. The judge in FL issued a stay, and it was a long one, and the same Circuit Court as well as SCOTUS declined to extend it. The same thing will happen here except it will be a denial of the stay instead of a denial of the extension.
It is also interesting that SCOTUS took up the 6th Circuit cases and asked for arguments based on the 14th Amendment, not the 10th. This is a Civil Rights issue, not a States jurisdiction issue.