"... private disapproval is a categorically inadequate justification for public injustice...
...Raising children is hard; marriage supports same-sex couples in parenting their children, just as it does opposite-sex couples...
...In extending the benefits of marriage only to people who have the capacity to procreate, while denying those same benefits to people who already have children, Idaho and Nevada materially harm and demean same-sex couples and their children...
Denying children resources and stigmatizing their families on this basis is “illogical and unjust.”... It is counterproductive, and it is unconstitutional...
...To allow same-sex couples to adopt children and then to label their families as second-class because the adoptive parents are of the same sex is cruel as well as unconstitutional. Classifying some families, and especially their children, as of lesser value should be repugnant to all those in this nation who profess to believe in “family values.”...
...Because defendants have failed to demonstrate that these laws further any legitimate purpose, they unjustifiably discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, and are in violation of the Equal Protection Clause...
...When same-sex couples are married, just as when opposite-sex couples are married, they serve as models of loving commitment to all.
The judgment of the district court in Latta v. Otter is AFFIRMED. The judgment of the district court in Sevcik v. Sandoval is REVERSED, and the case is REMANDED to the district court for the prompt issuance of an injunction permanently enjoining the state, its political subdivisions, and its officers, employees, and agents, from enforcing any constitutional provision, statute, regulation or policy preventing otherwise qualified same-sex couples from marrying, or denying recognition to marriages celebrated in other jurisdictions which, if the spouses were not of the same sex, would be valid under the laws of the state."
Judge Stephen Reinhardt, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, October 7, 2014.
click here to read entire decision
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Virginia Governor Issues Executive Order for Full Equality
"The highest priority of state government should be to guarantee
every person’s right to live, learn, work, and do business, regardless
of their race, gender, creed or sexual orientation. This principle
guided my first act as Governor when I signed Executive Order #1 banning
discrimination in the state workplace based on sexual orientation or
gender identity. This principle also guided the Virginia leaders,
advocates and allies who fought for marriage equality and won when the
Supreme Court declined to review the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals’
ruling in Bostic v. Schaefer. Same-sex marriage is now legal in Virginia. This is a historic and long overdue moment for our Commonwealth and our country.
The decision has opened new doors to my administration’s guiding principle of equality. An open and welcoming environment is imperative to grow as a Commonwealth, and to build a new Virginia economy that will attract vital businesses, innovative entrepreneurs, and thriving families.
On issues ranging from recognizing same-sex marriages to extending health care benefits to same-sex spouses of state employees, state government is already well-prepared to implement this landmark decision. My administration will act quickly to continue to bring all of our policies and practices into compliance so that we can give married same-sex couples the full array of benefits they deserve.
Pursuant to the authority vested in me as the Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth, and pursuant to Article V of the Constitution and the laws of Virginia, I hereby order, effective immediately, that all entities in the executive branch, including agencies, authorities, commissions, departments, and all institutions of higher education further evaluate all policies and take all necessary and appropriate legal measures to comply with this decision.
In addition, the Director of the Department of Human Resource Management shall notify all state agencies that employees whose same-sex marriage is recognized as legal in the Commonwealth, and who are eligible, may enroll their spouse and eligible dependents in the health benefits program for state employees within sixty (60) days of marriage.
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, Executive Order #30, October 7, 2014.
The decision has opened new doors to my administration’s guiding principle of equality. An open and welcoming environment is imperative to grow as a Commonwealth, and to build a new Virginia economy that will attract vital businesses, innovative entrepreneurs, and thriving families.
On issues ranging from recognizing same-sex marriages to extending health care benefits to same-sex spouses of state employees, state government is already well-prepared to implement this landmark decision. My administration will act quickly to continue to bring all of our policies and practices into compliance so that we can give married same-sex couples the full array of benefits they deserve.
Pursuant to the authority vested in me as the Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth, and pursuant to Article V of the Constitution and the laws of Virginia, I hereby order, effective immediately, that all entities in the executive branch, including agencies, authorities, commissions, departments, and all institutions of higher education further evaluate all policies and take all necessary and appropriate legal measures to comply with this decision.
In addition, the Director of the Department of Human Resource Management shall notify all state agencies that employees whose same-sex marriage is recognized as legal in the Commonwealth, and who are eligible, may enroll their spouse and eligible dependents in the health benefits program for state employees within sixty (60) days of marriage.
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, Executive Order #30, October 7, 2014.
Monday, October 6, 2014
Governor Lauds Final Same-Sex Marriage Outcome in Virginia
“This is a historic and long overdue moment for our Commonwealth and
our country. On issues ranging from recognizing same-sex marriages to
extending health care benefits to same-sex spouses of state employees,
Virginia is already well-prepared to implement this historic decision.
Going forward we will act quickly to continue to bring all of our
policies and practices into compliance so that we can give marriages
between same-sex partners the full faith and credit they deserve.
I applaud all of the Virginians who gave so much time and effort in the fight for equality, and congratulate my friend Attorney General Mark Herring on this important victory for justice and equal treatment under the law.
Equality for all men and women regardless of their race, color, creed or sexual orientation is intrinsic to the values that make us Virginians, and now it is officially inscribed in our laws as well.”
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe on the U.S. Supreme Court’s denial of a writ of certiorari in the case that overturned Virginia’s ban on gay marriages, October 6, 2014.
I applaud all of the Virginians who gave so much time and effort in the fight for equality, and congratulate my friend Attorney General Mark Herring on this important victory for justice and equal treatment under the law.
Equality for all men and women regardless of their race, color, creed or sexual orientation is intrinsic to the values that make us Virginians, and now it is officially inscribed in our laws as well.”
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe on the U.S. Supreme Court’s denial of a writ of certiorari in the case that overturned Virginia’s ban on gay marriages, October 6, 2014.
Missouri AG Won't Appeal Marriage Ruling
"The circuit court's judgment in Barrier v. Vasterling held that Missouri must recognize marriages lawfully entered into in other states. We will not appeal that judgment. Our national government is founded upon principles of federalism – a system that empowers Missouri to set policy for itself, but also obligates us to honor contracts entered into in other states.
A consequence of this morning's ruling by the United States Supreme Court is that gay marriage will soon be legal in as many as 30 states. At a time when Missouri is competing to attract the nation's premier businesses and most talented employees, we should not demand that certain individuals surrender their marriage licenses in order to live and work among us.
Missouri's future will be one of inclusion, not exclusion."
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, October 6, 2014.
A consequence of this morning's ruling by the United States Supreme Court is that gay marriage will soon be legal in as many as 30 states. At a time when Missouri is competing to attract the nation's premier businesses and most talented employees, we should not demand that certain individuals surrender their marriage licenses in order to live and work among us.
Missouri's future will be one of inclusion, not exclusion."
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, October 6, 2014.
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Louisiana Court Strikes Down State Ban on Same-Sex Marriage
"... This court acknowledges that in deciding an equal protection claim, the Supreme Court recognizes that the 14th Amendment does not deny states the power to treat different classes of people in different ways. However, the statute which created different classes by treating some people different must be related to the objective of that statute. We find in this case that Louisiana’s laws banning same-sex marriage is entirely unrelated to the objective of those statutes. Therefore the court finds that the state’s laws prohibiting the petitioners’ same-sex marriage and the adoption of --- are due to the sole reason that this couple is of the same gender, and thus those laws are arbitrary, capricious, discriminatory, and unrelated to any legitimate state interest...
The court... hereby declares that La. Const. Article XII, Section 15 (the Defense of Marriage Act/DOMA), and La. Civil Code Articles 86, 89, and 3520(B) are unconstitutional because they violate the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article IV, Section 1, the Full Faith and Credit Clause, of the United States Constitution. Louisiana’s Revenue Bulletin No. 13-024 (9/13/13) is likewise declared unconstitutional as it violates the petitioners’ rights guaranteed by the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Hence,... the Secretary of the State of Louisiana Department of Revenue, is hereby ordered to... allow the petitioners to file their state tax returns as a couple whose marriage is valid and recognized in Louisiana... The court hereby enjoins the State from enforcing the above referenced laws to the extent that these laws prohibit a person from marrying another person of the same sex..."
Judge Edward D. Rubin, 15th Judicial District Court, Parish of Lafayette, September 22, 2014.
click here to read entire decision (not quite primary source)
The court... hereby declares that La. Const. Article XII, Section 15 (the Defense of Marriage Act/DOMA), and La. Civil Code Articles 86, 89, and 3520(B) are unconstitutional because they violate the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article IV, Section 1, the Full Faith and Credit Clause, of the United States Constitution. Louisiana’s Revenue Bulletin No. 13-024 (9/13/13) is likewise declared unconstitutional as it violates the petitioners’ rights guaranteed by the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Hence,... the Secretary of the State of Louisiana Department of Revenue, is hereby ordered to... allow the petitioners to file their state tax returns as a couple whose marriage is valid and recognized in Louisiana... The court hereby enjoins the State from enforcing the above referenced laws to the extent that these laws prohibit a person from marrying another person of the same sex..."
Judge Edward D. Rubin, 15th Judicial District Court, Parish of Lafayette, September 22, 2014.
click here to read entire decision (not quite primary source)
Monday, September 8, 2014
Appeals Court Upholds Wisconsin & Indiana Same-Sex Marriage Decisions
“Our pair of cases is rich in detail but ultimately straightforward to decide. The challenged laws discriminate against a minority defined by an immutable characteristic, and the only rationale that the states put forth with any conviction - that same-sex couples and their children don’t need marriage because same-sex couples can’t produce children, intended or unintended - is so full of holes that it cannot be taken seriously. To the extent that children are better off in families in which the parents are married, they are better off whether they are raised by their biological parents or by adoptive parents. The discrimination against same-sex couples is irrational, and therefore unconstitutional even if the discrimination is not subjected to heightened scrutiny, which is why we can largely elide the more complex analysis found in more closely balanced equal-protection cases.
... Indiana’s government thinks that straight couples tend to be sexually irresponsible, producing unwanted children by the carload, and so must be pressured (in the form of governmental encouragement of marriage through a combination of sticks and carrots) to marry, but that gay couples, unable as they are to produce children wanted or unwanted, are model parents - model citizens really - so have no need for marriage. Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted children; their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexual couples do not produce unwanted children; their reward is to be denied the right to marry. Go figure.
... A degree of arbitrariness is inherent in government regulation, but when there is no justification for government’s treating a traditionally discriminated-against group significantly worse than the dominant group in the society, doing so denies equal protection of the laws. One wouldn’t know, reading Wisconsin’s brief, that there is or ever has been discrimination against homosexuals anywhere in the United States. The state either is oblivious to, or thinks irrelevant, that until quite recently homosexuality was anathematized by the vast majority of heterosexuals... Although discrimination against homosexuals has diminished greatly, it remains widespread. It persists in statutory form in Indiana and in Wisconsin’s constitution.
... Tradition per se therefore cannot be a lawful ground for discrimination - regardless of the age of the tradition. Holmes thought it “revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr... (1897)...
... If no social benefit is conferred by a tradition and it is written into law and it discriminates against a number of people and does them harm beyond just offending them, it is not just a harmless anachronism; it is a violation of the equal protection clause, as in Loving...
... To return to where we started in this opinion, more than unsupported conjecture that same-sex marriage will harm heterosexual marriage or children or any other valid and important interest of a state is necessary to justify discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. As we have been at pains to explain, the grounds advanced by Indiana and Wisconsin for their discriminatory policies are not only conjectural; they are totally implausible.
... The district court judgments invalidating and enjoining these two states’ prohibitions of same-sex marriage are AFFIRMED.”
Judge Richard A. Posner, U. S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, September 4, 2014.
click here to read entire decision
... Indiana’s government thinks that straight couples tend to be sexually irresponsible, producing unwanted children by the carload, and so must be pressured (in the form of governmental encouragement of marriage through a combination of sticks and carrots) to marry, but that gay couples, unable as they are to produce children wanted or unwanted, are model parents - model citizens really - so have no need for marriage. Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted children; their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexual couples do not produce unwanted children; their reward is to be denied the right to marry. Go figure.
... A degree of arbitrariness is inherent in government regulation, but when there is no justification for government’s treating a traditionally discriminated-against group significantly worse than the dominant group in the society, doing so denies equal protection of the laws. One wouldn’t know, reading Wisconsin’s brief, that there is or ever has been discrimination against homosexuals anywhere in the United States. The state either is oblivious to, or thinks irrelevant, that until quite recently homosexuality was anathematized by the vast majority of heterosexuals... Although discrimination against homosexuals has diminished greatly, it remains widespread. It persists in statutory form in Indiana and in Wisconsin’s constitution.
... Tradition per se therefore cannot be a lawful ground for discrimination - regardless of the age of the tradition. Holmes thought it “revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr... (1897)...
... If no social benefit is conferred by a tradition and it is written into law and it discriminates against a number of people and does them harm beyond just offending them, it is not just a harmless anachronism; it is a violation of the equal protection clause, as in Loving...
... To return to where we started in this opinion, more than unsupported conjecture that same-sex marriage will harm heterosexual marriage or children or any other valid and important interest of a state is necessary to justify discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. As we have been at pains to explain, the grounds advanced by Indiana and Wisconsin for their discriminatory policies are not only conjectural; they are totally implausible.
... The district court judgments invalidating and enjoining these two states’ prohibitions of same-sex marriage are AFFIRMED.”
Judge Richard A. Posner, U. S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, September 4, 2014.
click here to read entire decision
Monday, September 1, 2014
Federal Court Strikes Down Ban on Same-Sex Marriage in Florida
"The founders of this nation said in the preamble to the United States Constitution that a goal was to secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity. Liberty has come more slowly for some than for others. It was 1967, nearly two centuries after the Constitution was adopted, before the Supreme Court struck down state laws prohibiting interracial marriage, thus protecting the liberty of individuals whose chosen life partner was of a different race. Now, nearly 50 years later, the arguments supporting the ban on interracial marriage seem an obvious pretext for racism; it must be hard for those who were not then of age to understand just how sincerely those views were held. When observers look back 50 years from now, the arguments supporting Florida’s ban on same-sex marriage, though just as sincerely held, will again seem an obvious pretext for discrimination. Observers who are not now of age will wonder just how those views could have been held.
The Supreme Court struck down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act last year. United States v. Windsor, 133 S.Ct. 2675 (2013). Since that decision, 19 different federal courts, now including this one, have ruled on the constitutionality of state bans on same-sex marriage. The result: 19 consecutive victories for those challenging the bans. Based on these decisions, gays and lesbians, like all other adults, may choose a life partner and dignify the relationship through marriage. To paraphrase a civil-rights leader from the age when interracial marriage was first struck down, the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.
These consolidated cases are here on the plaintiffs’ motions for a preliminary injunction and the defendants’ motions to dismiss. This order holds that marriage is a fundamental right as that term is used in cases arising under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, that Florida’s same-sex marriage provisions thus must be reviewed under strict scrutiny, and that, when so reviewed, the provisions are unconstitutional...”
Judge Robert L. Hinkle, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida Tallahassee Division, August 21, 2014.
click here to read entire decision (not quite primary source)
The Supreme Court struck down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act last year. United States v. Windsor, 133 S.Ct. 2675 (2013). Since that decision, 19 different federal courts, now including this one, have ruled on the constitutionality of state bans on same-sex marriage. The result: 19 consecutive victories for those challenging the bans. Based on these decisions, gays and lesbians, like all other adults, may choose a life partner and dignify the relationship through marriage. To paraphrase a civil-rights leader from the age when interracial marriage was first struck down, the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.
These consolidated cases are here on the plaintiffs’ motions for a preliminary injunction and the defendants’ motions to dismiss. This order holds that marriage is a fundamental right as that term is used in cases arising under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, that Florida’s same-sex marriage provisions thus must be reviewed under strict scrutiny, and that, when so reviewed, the provisions are unconstitutional...”
Judge Robert L. Hinkle, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida Tallahassee Division, August 21, 2014.
click here to read entire decision (not quite primary source)
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