Posted on 05/12/2005 9:50:55 PM PDT by neverdem
LINCOLN, Neb., May 12 (AP) - A federal judge on Thursday struck down Nebraska's ban on same-sex marriage, saying the measure interfered not only with the rights of gay couples but also with those of foster parents, adopted children and people in a variety of other living arrangements.
The amendment to the state's Constitution, which defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman, was passed overwhelmingly by the voters in November 2000.
The Nebraska ruling is the first in which a federal court has struck down a state ban on same-sex marriage, and conservatives in the United States Senate pointed to it as evidence of the need for a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
"When we debated the merits of a federal marriage amendment on the Senate floor, opponents claimed that no state laws were threatened, that no judge had ever ruled against state marriage laws," said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. He added, "After today's ruling, they can no longer make that claim."
The drive for a constitutional amendment stalled out after the last election as Senate leaders said they would await court rulings on the many state constitutional amendments that already ban same-sex marriage.
The judge in the Nebraska case, Joseph F. Bataillon of Federal District Court, said the ban "imposes significant burdens on both the expressive and intimate associational rights" of gay men and lesbians "and creates a significant barrier to the plaintiffs' right to petition or to participate in the political process."
Judge Bataillon said the ban went "far beyond merely defining marriage as between a man and a woman." He said the "broad proscriptions could also interfere with or prevent arrangements between potential adoptive or foster parents and children, related persons living together, and people sharing custody of children as well as gay individuals."
Forty states have laws barring same-sex marriages, but Nebraska's ban went further, prohibiting same-sex couples from enjoying many of the legal protections that heterosexual couples enjoy. Gay men and lesbians who work for the state or the University of Nebraska system, for example, were banned from sharing benefits with their partners.
Nebraska has no state law against same-sex marriage, but Attorney General Jon Bruning said it was not allowed before the ban and would not be permitted now. Mr. Bruning said he would appeal the ruling.
The challenge to the marriage law was filed by the gay rights organization Lambda Legal and the Lesbian and Gay Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.
A lawyer for Lambda Legal, David Buckel, has called the ban "the most extreme anti-gay family law in the entire nation."
Massachusetts has allowed same-sex marriages since last May; Vermont has offered civil unions since 2000. The actions came after courts ruled that gay couples were being discriminated against.
Those court decisions spurred the move last year for a federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, a move President Bush has said he supports. A subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a May 19 hearing on the need for such an amendment.
Now that is an interesting approach!
Bump!
What about the Supreme Court, whose jurisdiction the Congress cannot remove?
How can it be unconstitutional if it is an amendment to the constitution?
the law has devolved into mere doublespeak.
Ignorance is strength.
Though not published, judges have been "whispering" how they will bypass the amendments to force homosexual mariage on the public.
For example since the first marriage amendments were silent as to civil unions, they would impose civil unions 100% equal to marriage (in all but child bearing) by saying the homosexual marriage was not marriage.
This just has just done that by declaring that sexual satisfaction must be accomondated as a matter of law. Love has NEVER been part of the law of marriage, love is just a homo talking point to justify their orgasm fetish.
This now goes to appeal.
All of which begs the question of how SCOTUS can presume to rule on an issue which they are party to. By any definition, it would be a blatant conflict of interest, and SCOTUS would have to recuse itself.
I agree. The fags are trying to force their dysfunctional sex fetish on the rest of the country as "normal" and equal to marriage. That would make a man having sex with a dog a "marriage."
This federal robe has decided that the state's amendment violates previous federal penumbras.
You think it's a coincidence that you pass through metal detectors to get within a stone's throw of these black robed dictators?
>>How can it be unconstitutional if it is an amendment to the constitution?<<
State constitutions cannot violate the Federal constitution.
>>I agree. The fags are trying to force their dysfunctional sex fetish on the rest of the country as "normal" and equal to marriage. That would make a man having sex with a dog a "marriage."<<
That, has to be most negative and least true post I've seen on Freep.
These are human beings and American citizens we are talking about.
Actually there's only 49 senators in the single-house Unicameral legislature and we have about 1.6 million in population.
Joseph F. Bataillon is an attorney with the Omaha law firm of Sodoro, Daly & Sodoro, where he has practiced since 1980. Previously, he was a Deputy Public Defender for Douglas County and a Defense Counsel Judge Advocate General in the United States Army Reserve. Bataillon earned his J.D. and B.A. degrees from Creighton University. He and his wife, Pamela, have five children and reside in Omaha.
Press release here:
http://clinton6.nara.gov/1997/01/1997-01-07-names-of-twenty-two-for-federal-bench-resubmitted.html
Actually, you don't need the Congress and the legislatures to amend the Constitution. If the People are hot enough about it, they can do it by convention.
That, has to be most negative and least true post I've seen on Freep.
Really? Let me link you to some drive-by posts by gay "seminar" posters on FR.....oh, wait, they usually get zotted. Well, they say things like "you people are so negative" and "you people are so small and mean and obsessed with homosexuality" (translation: back off, stupid, we're doing our propaganda and we don't need your comments, and if you stick around I'm going to make sure everyone suspects you're a closet case).
So I had to post one of their attacks for them, since they get spotted and zotted pretty quickly as seminar disruptors usually do.
But they're quick to supply you with links to sites like Poppy Dixon's standing assault on received Christianity (she's a lipstick lesbian from the Coast who was raised Christian and hated every minute of it), and the latest "interesting study" that tries to sell the "essentialist" POV that this Clintonoid judge was buying in this case, even though other gays retailing Queer Theory are very quick to tell you how subjective and fluid sexual identity really is.......
IOW, the Gay Propaganda Machine doesn't have its act together -- but it doesn't need to, with so many friends appointed to the federal bench by Bill and Hillary. And that's what's really happening. The arguments, the reasoning, is all just a sideshow. It's all about the judges -- and they think they've got five on their side on the Supreme Court, thanks to the wonderful social skills at introduction that the late Pamela Harriman put to work for the liberals, handing around Republican Supreme Court appointees.....helping Justice Souter get dates.....helping Justice Kennedy understand how appreciated he was by People Who Really Understand the Issues......and thanks, too, to the back-stairs influence of Professor Tribe of Harvard with his former students, the Supreme Court clerks, and the access they afford him to the Justices on cases before the Court. (A cite here, an interesting argument there.....clerks can do a lot of good....)
But then, I'm just repeating what bad old Bob Novak said a few years ago, and everyone knows how dyspeptic he is. Can't possibly be true, can it, that liberals are cribbing two or three votes on every case that comes before the High Court through improper influence? Naaaaaahhh, they wouldn't do that -- that'd be unethical!
Congress can indeed restrict their jurisdiction. It can also vacate every seat on the Supreme Court bench by impeachment.
That's a gay-propaganda chestnut whose hollowness is revealed by reflecting for moment on whether I'd get a knock on my door if I were, in the sanctum sanctorum of my bedroom:
1. Buggering little boys,
2. Producing perfect copies of $20 bills,
3. Having a perfectly civil conversation about killing the President of the United States,
4. Disciplining my wife with my fists,
5. Converting my CAR-15 carbine to a suppressed ("silenced") and fully automatic weapon (to be stored not used, of course),
6. Storing 500 pounds of Composition B, RDX, Semtex, dexedrine, morphine, rohypnol, heroin, and other fun chemical compounds, or
7. Xeroxing -- for my own use, of course -- copies of the Defense Intelligence Agency's "NOFORN News", with all the latest inside scuttlebutt classified SECRET - LIMITED DISTRIBUTION - NOFORN.
Now, lest you conclude that I'm in favor of legislating on "just anything", thus invading the spirit of the Ninth Amendment (which can in fact be invaded at liberty by the Congress and the local municipal council whenever they make new laws for public purposes; the force of the Ninth is that there is a presumption in favor of liberty to make or do any thing whenever the law is silent), the point is that deviant sexuality
a) is deviant because there's something wrong with the individual -- he is not normal -- and so a concern arises immediately, whether (or not, it may not be the case) that person is also sociopathic; and
b) has consequences beyond the bedroom in the form of
i) transmissible diseases,
ii) transmissible beliefs and attitudes that are harmful to the partner (we don't need a condom, I don't have a disease, we're young and bulletproof and can't get sick, you're a confused teenager but my gaydar says you're gay, go forth and love all mankind as I loved you, etc. etc.), and
iii) the demoralization (literally) or jading of the public on a subject that touches on family formation, the education of the young, public policy on AIDS, and the ability of a society to defend itself against pathological alien memes (Fabian socialism and its ghastly sibling, liberalism).
And then there's the whole issue of liberal judicial activism and the processual argument that gays are trying to use courtrooms and liberal judges (their lawsuits are all carefully forum-shopped: that is what Lambda Legal, of-counsel and no doubt primary instigator in the case under discussion, exists for) to find a way around the Constitution, viz., the legislative process, in order to impose their 2% will on the nonconsenting 98% whom they -- tactically playing the bleating victim all the way -- hate, despise, and eagerly look forward to trampling underfoot.
But that's a separate issue.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.