The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that same-sex marriage bans in Wisconsin and Indiana are unconstitutional, making it the third appeals court to decide for marriage equality. Reagan appointee Judge Richard Posner wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel,
bluntly rejecting arguments endorsed just the day before by a federal district judge in Louisiana:
“Our pair of cases is rich in detail but ultimately straightforward to decide,” Posner writes. “The challenged laws discriminate against a minority defined by an immutable characteristic, and the only rationale that the states put forth with any conviction — that same-sex couples and their children don’t need marriage because same-sex couples can’t produce children, intended or unintended— is so full of holes that it cannot be taken seriously. [...]
“The argument that the states press hardest in defense of their prohibition of same-sex marriage is that the only reason government encourages marriage is to induce heterosexuals to marry so that there will be fewer ‘accidental births,’ which when they occur outside of marriage often lead to abandonment of the child to the mother (unaided by the father) or to foster care.,” Posner writes. “Overlooked by this argument is that many of those abandoned children are adopted by homosexual couples, and those children would be better off both emotionally and economically if their adoptive parents were married.”
Quite a nice palate-cleanser after
the Louisiana idiocy. It's not yet clear whether marriage can begin immediately in Wisconsin and Indiana; Wisconsin's Republican attorney general, J.B. Van Hollen,
plans to appeal the decision straight to the Supreme Court.
The decision to appeal is one that might look a little different with Mary Burke, rather than Scott Walker, as governor of Wisconsin. Please give $3 to Mary Burke's campaign, to put a voice for equality in the Wisconsin governor's office.
