Federal Appeals Court Ruling On Marriage Equality Misguided

[beam me up scottie]

A federal appeals court ruling upholding bans on same-sex marriage in four states is misguided and should be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State:

Federal Appeals Court Ruling On Marriage Equality Misguided, Says Americans United
Church-State Watchdog Group Criticizes Reasoning Of 6th Circuit Opinion
Nov 6, 2014

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in DeBoer v. Snyder and related challenges that bans on same-sex marriage in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Michigan may stand. The ruling clashes with decisions by several other appeals courts, which have invalidated such bans.

“This ruling isn’t persuasive and is poorly reasoned,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “The court shows a disturbing willingness to turn individual rights over to a majority vote. Our country doesn’t work that way.”

The court accepted arguments often raised by the Religious Right that view marriage primarily as a vehicle for procreation.

“People may not need the government’s encouragement to have sex,” Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote. “And they may not need the government’s encouragement to propagate the species. But they may well need the government’s encouragement to create and maintain stable relationships within which children may flourish. It is not society’s laws or for that matter any one religion’s laws, but nature’s laws (that men and women complement each other biologically), that created the policy imperative.”

Dissenting Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey criticized the majority for treating the plaintiffs as “abstractions.”

She wrote,

“These plaintiffs are not political zealots trying to push reform on their fellow citizens; they are committed same-sex couples, many of them heading up de facto families, who want to achieve equal status – de jure status, if you will – with their married neighbors, friends, and coworkers, to be accepted as contributing members of their social and religious communities, and to be welcomed as fully legitimate parents at their children’s schools. They seek to do this by virtue of exercising a civil right that most of us take for granted – the right to marry.”

https://blog.au.org/media/press-releases/federal-appeals-court-ruling-on-marriage-equality-misguided-says-americans

[rug]

1. The Sixth Circuit is in a clear minority.

Four other Circuits have ruled otherwise.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/07/us/appeals-court-upholds-same-sex-marriage-ban.html?_r=0

I don't think even this supreme Court will uphiold it.

[okasha]

2. I'm still trying to figure out

how equal marriage will discourage heterosexual couples from procreating. (Thank you, Greg-the-idiot Abbott.)

[AtheistCrusader]

3. They claim

That declining marriage rates in countries like within Europe are attributable to ruining the 'sanctity' of marriage by legalizing SSM.

They have no data of course, but they don't need data to justify their bigotry. Never have.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. This of course has nothing to do with religion.

See, this bigot of judge said so right here:

"It is not society’s laws or for that matter any one religion’s laws, but nature’s laws ..."

What an ass-turd. Another lying defender of the faith.

In case this is unclear, the judge is being "clever" by stating "any one religion" as of course all the Abrahamic religions have mainstream sects that denounce gay marriage, as do most other major religions. What this isn't an issue of is "nature's laws" as marriage is entirely a human social construct, clearly is not restricted to procreation, and the fuckwit prevaricator knows that quite well but is attempting to couch his opinion in terms that are not grounded in his religious beliefs so that there might be some chance that it won't be rejected outright by the USSC.