Thursday, December 4, 2014

No marriages in Mississippi yet

I know, Mississippi, right? 

The Federal District Court over turned the MS anti-equality law on the 25th, but today the 5th circuit denied the effort to combine this with the TX and LA cases scheduled to be heard in January, although they fast-tracked the schedule  They also stayed the marriages.

But these words from the opinion are great:
In reviewing the arguments of the parties and conducting its own research, the court determined that an objective person must answer affirmatively to the following questions:
  • Can gay and lesbian citizens love?
  • Can gay and lesbian citizens have long-lasting and committed relationships?
  • Can gay and lesbian citizens love and care for children?
  • Can gay and lesbian citizens provide what is best for their children?
  • Can gay and lesbian citizens help make their children good and productive citizens?
  • Without the right to marry, are gay and lesbian citizens subjected to humiliation and indignity?
  • Without the right to marry, are gay and lesbian citizens subjected to state-sanctioned prejudice?

Answering “Yes” to each of these questions leads the court to the inescapable conclusion that same-sex couples should be allowed to share in the benefits, and burdens, for better or for worse, of marriage.
ThinkProgress also notes the poor argument that equality should be left up to the democratic process :
[Judge] Reeves was not compelled by the idea that the law should wait for people to come around, citing a 2011 survey that found that nearly half of Mississippi Republicans still oppose interracial marriage. “If the passage of 50 years has had such negligible impact on the public’s opinion of interracial marriage in the Deep South,” he wrote, “it is difficult to see how gay and lesbian Mississippians can depend on the political process to provide them any timely relief.” 

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