Posted on 02/26/2014 5:17:50 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that Texas’ amendment banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. While Judge Orlando Garcia stated that same-sex marriage should be legal in the state, he allowed his ruling to be stayed until an appeals court has a chance to review it. Therefore, at this moment, gay and lesbian couples cannot get married in the state of Texas.
This is just the latest step in what will surely be the complete toppling of same-sex marriage bans across the country. Currently, gay marriage is legal in 17 states and the District of Columbia. At the same time, there are currently lawsuits filed in 20 other states challenging the marriage laws. We’ve already seen federal judges rule the same-sex marriage bans in Utah, Virginia and Oklahoma unconstitutional in recent months. Those rulings are currently facing appeal, as will this Texas ruling.
However, it seems highly, highly unlikely that the appeal courts will overturn the judges’ rulings in these cases. The fact of the matter is that gay marriage is here to stay in America. If it isn’t legal in your state yet, it will be in short order. On top of that, if there are some states that hold out or don’t have lawsuits filed within, it is inevitable that the federal law will eventually reflect what is happening in these court. Marriage equality will be the law of the land.
Perhaps this inevitability is the reason gay discrimination bills have popped up in the state legislatures of certain red states recently. The fear of having to accept gay marriage and seeing gay and lesbian couples ‘flaunting’ their relationships was too much to take for the religious right. Knowing that they couldn’t stop the tide of marriage equality, they decided to take a presumably quieter approach by trying to get ‘religious freedom’ bills passed in states with Republican dominated governments.
The only thing is that it didn’t work. A large spotlight was cast on Kansas and Arizona regarding the bills that were passed. The business community freaked, as did more pragmatic Republicans, realizing the long-lasting and negative effects that passing these laws would have on the GOP. At some point, the Republican Party doesn’t want to be labeled as hateful, intolerant and bigoted anymore. Passing these laws would be the death knell for the GOP as a national political party.
The ruling in Texas on Wednesday is just another step towards eliminating the discrimination the LGBT community faces in this nation. Judge Garcia rejected the notion that each state in this country should be allowed to determine what the definition of marriage is. The reason he rejected it shows exactly why same-sex marriage bans in other states will quickly fall.
“Today’s Court decision is not made in defiance of the great people of Texas or the Texas Legislature, but in compliance with the United States Constitution and Supreme Court precedent. Without a rational relation to a legitimate governmental purpose, state-imposed inequality can find no refuge in our United States Constitution.”
Essentially, if a state can’t find a legitimate purpose for outlawing same-sex marriage, then a law should not be on the books. A law can’t be made to purposely discriminate against a certain segment of the population just because it makes another segment of the population feel better. At that point, you are sanctioning inequality. That is how more and more federal judges are reading the law in terms of same-sex marriage. Gay marriage is here to stay.
What’s there to comment on? The will of the people has been subverted by our ridiculous Iran-style judicial system where judges can pretty much run the government. NEVER have we had a sitting AG greenlight federally appointed judges to simultaneously overrule state constitutions.
If you’re conservative and you haven’t bought firearms in bulk at this point, you’re not doing your constitutional duty. Remember what the Founders said.
Obamacare is the Law of the Land, but states’ homosexual marriage bans are not. Nice. Since the judge stayed his own ruling, that means he doesn’t believe this will pass muster with either the Fifth Court of Appeals or SCOTUS, meaning that this was simply another feeble attempt in the left’s long-term goal of turning Texas blue.
What a putrid article. The perverted graphic itself is a hangable offense.
Comments? Let’s give the boot to any Freeper who refuses to pray for Ted Kennedy!!!!!! That will help.
Leftist gloating. If the trends continue, in 20 years, all current Traditional-Marriage supporters will be vilified, like Jim-Crow era whites are vilified today.
So? Per the example set by Eric the Red, Texas can just ignore it if they don’t like it.
It would be so sweet to impeach Nixon, the democrat governor of Missouri.
They are free to rule it unconstitutional, and I am free to not obey them and will not consider a couple of dykes or faggots as married, nor will I afford them the same respect as a husband/wife.
These judges can decree, and I can say thank you for you input, but F^&K off.
Judge Orlando Garcia is the latest judge suffering from “black robed fever” which impels these jerks to overrule the will of the people.
I can't believe you're giving them 20 years. We're almost there now. I'd give them at most 20 months to finish the job.
Thats what Holder said the other day..don’t like a law? feel free to ignore it.
If Tx fights, I want to be there...
Let them gloat.
We all know how this ends.
Gnashing of teeth comes to mind.
In the absence of an amendment to the federal constitution, states will have to disentangle all the rights they have attached to marital status. It is simply a matter of reviewing all the laws, seeing where rights are conditioned upon marital status, and then making those laws refer to individuals.
This has been obvious since the Massachusetts state supreme court ruled on the matter. The conservative position, stated by the minority in that decision, is that the interest of the state in marriage is to fix paternity to the husband of the mother at the time of birth (technically, this is a refutable presumption; since, the husband of the father can exercise a right to a divorce upon discovering that he has been cuckolded by the mother of the child).
Has any state actually reviewed its litany of laws that attach thousands of other things to marital status? No. Therefore, it is a joke for conservatives to say marriage is not about equality before the law. It’s only about protecting children. Will any state NOW review its laws?
As soon as the same sexes experience the misery of Family court (divorce), I don’t believe they will be rushing to get married. Plus, a divorce is darn expensive.
How the hell does an appointed judge overturn a legally enacted statute on an issue that is left to the states to decide?
I would think that every time a homosexual couple ties the knot, a divorce lawyer buys a strip mall.
Yeah, it looks like the left, and the demons in hell for that matter, have good reason to gloat. For the moment.
“We The People” have dropped the God ball.
We can complain from here till doomsday that what’s right isn’t being done, and you know, what’s right won’t get a decent foothold among sinful us without embracing a Savior in all seriousness.
This debacle is a lesson in needing Him which is being taught by God, and that largely not to the heathen world, but to Christians!!
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