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.
The 10th Amendment is now dead.
Why are the federal judges trying to foist something on us that is wrong, unacceptable to normal society, favoring something that is immoral, and violates the 10th and 11th ammendment to the Constitution by calling it unconstitutional? The federal judges are the ones distorting the Constitution.
This Federal Judge has violated the Constitution. His opinion is VOID . The remedy is IMPEACHMENT. The political will to do what is right is nonexistent. “we the people ..in the Government lexicon translates “the people be damned. “
I wish they’d look at Ok’s ban on fish with wings too. That’s just not fair.
RE: Why are the federal judges trying to foist something on us that is wrong, unacceptable to normal society,
That is not what bothers me... I accept the fact that there will be idiotic, immoral, unconstitutional people sitting on the bench ( and appointed by an immoral President ).
What bothers me more is this — WHY ARE THE STATES NOT ASSERTING THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT OF SOVEREIGNTY?
When did we become such cowards when facing the Federal Government?
Ignore him Oklahoma, make this “judge” enforce his decree.
RE: Ignore him Oklahoma, make this “judge” enforce his decree.
EXACTLY. I’d like to see what the Feds can do about it.
The more states assert their sovereign rights, the closer we are to the original intent of the constitution.
We must remember — IT WAS THE STATES THAT CREATED THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.
In the era of massive federal government expansion, simple facts are easily lost. Lest we lose hold of our plumb line, even the simplest, most basic tenets of our founding principles bear repeating.
I agree! I’ve wondered the same thing for some time, dating back to Roe versus Wade. Harry Blackman’s decision states that since one state had free access to abortion, the other 49 states had to go along. Wrong!
“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.
Wrong Amendment moron.. If the Equal Protection clause allows Homosexuals to marry then it has to allow all others to marry. People that want more then one husband or wife. Brothers and sisters, pedophiles, etc.
It is either equal protection or it is not.........
where in the Constitution does it mandate “gay marriage?”
So much for “government of the people, by the people, and for the people”.
What’s left to the Constitution? What’s left to the States rights? Not a damn thing in this land ruled by communists. The Democrats are pure communists and they have ruined America. America is finished.
We are in a dictatorship controlled by the worst communists that America has. It is unbelievable that we could have gone so far wrong. I place 60% of the blame on the American people. They have drifted in a godless breed of ignorant fools that are more like robots that the MSM and that godless Hollywood idiots have constantly pushed fantasy and left reality out of their lives.
When are State Supreme Courts going to start ruling Federal Courts have no standing to change state law?
judges GENERALLY are like insects in the light. They don’t like it.
This gives these judges a way to pass the buck.
Also keep in mind all these judges know each other as friends and collegues.
It would not suprise me to know the fix was in. Judicial college seminars need to be recorded and public.
fun·da·men·tal
[fuhn-duh-men-tl]
adjective
1.serving as, or being an essential part of, a foundation or basis; basic; underlying: fundamental principles; the fundamental structure.
2.of, pertaining to, or affecting the foundation or basis: a fundamental revision.
3.being an original or primary source: a fundamental idea.
4.Music. (of a chord) having its root as its lowest note.
noun
5.a basic principle, rule, law, or the like, that serves as the groundwork of a system; essential part: to master the fundamentals of a trade.
How is homosexuality an ‘essential’ basis or part of our society?
Where in the Constitution, was it proclaimed that homosexuality is a “fundamental” principle, or structure of the foundation of this nation?
Where in the Constitution, does it support that these assertions are an “original, or primary idea?
Where in the Constitution, does it say that homosexuality has served as the “groundwork” of our system?
NEVER FORGET....The Devil is a LIAR. And the father OF THEM.
What about incest? Why can’t a brother and a sister get married? Look at how wonderful Prince Jofry turned out in Game of Thrones, handsome, tall, sociopathic...
They will get to incest sooner rather than later. And the libertarians will be on the same side as the left again.
Even France finally banned incest in 2010
Awww. What about gay incest?
Brotherly love. Not like your motherly or otherly love...
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