US: Louisiana judge upholds ban on same-sex marriage
A federal judge in Louisiana has dismissed a court challenge to the state’s same-sex marriage ban.
Today District Judge Martin Feldman shattered the winning streak of equality activists, by finding against their case to throw out the state’s Amendment 1 marriage ban.
Despite the massive amount of precedent from nearly 20 other federal judges, the Reagan-appointed judge claimed that same-sex marriage supporters had failed to prove that the ban violates the Constitution.
In his ruling, the Judge also wrote that states themselves have a right to define marriage – dissenting with nearly other court ruling on the issue of the past year.
Attorneys for the same-sex couples who brought the case say they are likely to appeal, though the Supreme Court is likely to take up another marriage equality case before the challenge is resolved.
Sarah Warbelow of the Human Rights Campaign said in a statement: “Today a federal district court put up a roadblock on a path constructed by twenty-one federal court rulings over the last year – a path that inevitably leads to nationwide marriage equality.
“Ultimately the nine justices of the Supreme Court of the United States will be asked to decide whether committed and loving gay and lesbian couples should be denied an institution that they, themselves, have deemed a constitutional right more than a dozen times. We firmly believe that justice will ultimately be done.”
The Amendment, still in effect, states: “Marriage in the state of Louisiana shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.
“No official or court of the state of Louisiana shall construe this constitution or any state law to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any member of a union other than the union of one man and one woman.”
