Posted on 01/15/2014 7:49:12 AM PST by SeekAndFind
He’s a Clinton appointee but he’s been sitting on this case for, if you can believe it, nine years. Maybe that’s because he was waiting for the Supremes to tackle the issue or maybe he just didn’t want to touch it in a state as red as Oklahoma. Either way, the plaintiffs were unhappy. They’re happier today.
“The Court holds that Oklahoma’s constitutional amendment limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” U.S. District Court Judge Terence Kern wrote.
The ruling will not go into effect immediately, Kern decided, issuing a stay of his decision based on the recent Supreme Court action granting a stay in the case challenging Utah’s ban on same-sex couples’ marriages…
Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin praised the ruling in a statement, saying, “Judge Kern has come to the conclusion that so many have before him – that the fundamental equality of lesbian and gay couples is guaranteed by the United States Constitution. With last year’s historic victories at the Supreme Court guiding the way, it is clear that we are on a path to full and equal citizenship for all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.”
Here’s the opinion, which is standard as far as equal-protection analysis of gay marriage by federal judges goes these days. His first task was to decide what to do with SCOTUS’s ruling in the Windsor case last year, which found Section 3 of DOMA unconstitutional on equal-protection grounds. Should he find that Oklahoma’s traditional marriage law is unconstitutional for the same reason, or should he give the state more deference than the feds got from the Supreme Court with DOMA? Ultimately he decides on both: States, being the historic locus for marriage laws, get more deference, but that deference isn’t unlimited. If they want to discriminate against gay couples, they need to show some rational reason for doing so. “Moral disapproval” isn’t a rational reason per the Supreme Court’s ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, the landmark case from 2003 that declared Texas’s anti-sodomy law unconstitutional. The upshot of Lawrence is that you can’t legislate morality when you’re targeting intimate relationships between consenting adults. You can regulate those relationships if you have some other rational reason for doing so, but the state couldn’t produce one here: “Encouraging procreation” doesn’t fly if you’re not also excluding straight infertile couples from marriage and “encouraging mother/father households” doesn’t fly if you can’t show how banning gay marriage would actually encourage the formation of those households. As I say, all of this is S.O.P. for federal SSM jurisprudence lately. The only real novelty is that, between this ruling and the ruling in Utah last month, the new legal battlefield over gay marriage lies in America’s reddest states. That may be an extra inducement for SCOTUS to deal with this sooner rather than later.
Kern, the Oklahoma judge, seems to think he knows which way that’ll go too:
Anyway, you don’t want me blathering at you about law and gay marriage, especially when it’s another loss for social conservatism. What you want, via Ace, is … devil baby. Cleanse that palate.
France finally banned it after a man married his daughter
I don’t think leftists would have anything against “brotherly love”
So progressiveness moves steadily onward. Bestiality next. Or should they go for pediophilia first? Decisions, decisions...
Bestiality is already legal in some states, and apparently the Obama regime has made it legal for the armed forces
Gung ho! Semper fi!
This shows an error by the author and/or the judge in this case.
One's rights are individual, they don't apply to a group of people.
Baldwin and Bishop have suffered no discrimination due to the fact that both of these individuals is free to marry someone of the opposite sex.
Ignore him Oklahoma, make this “judge” enforce his decree.
Personally I think it should go farther than that. In my opinion, Governor Fallin should have this judge arrested and escorted to the border and told to go and never return. The Founding Fathers NEVER intended for the Federal Government to interfere with state marriage laws.
IF President Obama can exceed the constitutional power of his office repeatedly, then I see no reason why a State’s governor should not exceed theirs...especially IF that governor is clearly upholding what the voters of that state clearly said they wanted. The ban on homosexual marraige overwhelmingly approved by the voters in Oklahoma.
“The federal judges are the ones distorting the Constitution.”
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
As the great Al Martino sang, “More and More Every Day”.
You are being altogether too kind to the American people, of which you and I are two examples. We have not valued what our founders gave us, we have flung our birthright into the ditch and gone whoring after the blue sky promises of charlatans. It all sounded far too good to be true because it is but we fell for it anyway.
Well "GOODY!" for him(?)
I guess he(?) hasn't heard the Higher Court's decision already...
Genesis 18:20-21
20. Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous
21. that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know."
Genesis 19:4-7
4. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom--both young and old--surrounded the house.
5. They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."
6. Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him
7. and said, "No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing.
Isaiah 3:9 The look on their faces testifies against them; they parade their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to them! They have brought disaster upon themselves.
2 Peter 2:13b Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you.
Ezekiel 16:49-50
49. "`Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.
50. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.
1. But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them--bringing swift destruction on themselves.
2. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.
3. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.
4. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment;
5. if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others;
6. if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;
7. and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men
8. (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)--
9. if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment.
10. This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority. Bold and arrogant, these men are not afraid to slander celestial beings;
11. yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not bring slanderous accusations against such beings in the presence of the Lord.
12. But these men blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like brute beasts, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like beasts they too will perish.
13. They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you.
But there IS hope!!!
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
9. Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived:
Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders
10. nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
11. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
If you could NOT change, you would be in most pitiful shape...
Incest isn’t all THAT bad; as long as you keep it in the family.
No question!
The family that lays together have more fingers per hand together.
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