US Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that the federal government now officially recognizes same-sex marriage in six states where the freedom to marry recently became legal (Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, North Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming).
The government’s announcement follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision earlier this month to decline to hear appeals from five states that sought to keep their marriage bans in place. It brings the total number of states with federal recognition of gay marriage to 32, plus the District of Columbia.
Couples married in these states will qualify for a range of federal benefits, including Social Security and veterans’ benefits.
“With each new state where same-sex marriages are legally recognized, our nation moves closer to achieving full equality for all Americans,” Holder said.
The attorney general said the government is working “as quickly as possible” to make sure same-sex married couples in these states receive the “fullest array of benefits” that federal law allows.
At this writing, in the United States, same-sex marriage is legal in 32 states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming), and in the District of Columbia.
Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Juan M. Perez-Gimenez ruled that Puerto Rico’s ban on same-sex marriage should stand based on a 42 year old ruling by the Supreme Court (Baker V Nelson) saying the lawsuit “fails to present a substantial federal question.”
The judge based his decision on the absence of any guarantee of same-sex marriage present in the US Constitution, defaulting to the 42 year old ruling which said there is no inherent right to marriage without regard to gender.
Acknowledging the long list of federal court rulings since Windsor striking down state same-sex marriage bans, Judge Perez-Gimenez simply disagreed, attributing those rulings to the “ingenuity and imagination” of the judges involved.
From the ruling:
Baker, which necessarily decided that a state law defining marriage as a union between a man and woman does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment, remains good law. Because no right to same-gender marriage emanates from the Constitution, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico should not be compelled to recognize such unions. Instead, Puerto Rico, acting through its legislature, remains free to shape its own marriage policy. In a system of limited constitutional self-government such as ours, this is the prudent outcome. The people and their elected representatives should debate the wisdom of redefining marriage. Judges should not.
Lambda Legal issued this statement via press release:
“The court’s ruling directly conflicts with the wave of recent decisions finding these marriage bans unconstitutional and perpetuates the discrimination and harm done to same-sex Puerto Rican couples and their families,” said Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, Staff Attorney for Lambda Legal.
“It defies the unmistakable import of the Windsor decision and flies in the face of the blizzard of rulings of the last year, the reasoned rulings of the Courts of Appeals for the 4th, 7th, 9th and 10th Circuits, and the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to let stand the rulings striking down five bans similar to Puerto Rico’s.
“One struggles to understand how this judge came to a different conclusion. We will, of course, appeal this ruling to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals,” Gonzalez-Pagan said. “All families in Puerto Rico need the protections of marriage.”
An appeal of the ruling sends the case to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals where every state has adopted marriage equality as the law of the land.
Interestingly, the court is located in Massachusetts – the first state to adopt the freedom to marry.
Via Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist and commentator David Horsey
After the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found Nevada’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional, gay and lesbian couples have been legally allowed to marry in the state.
But according to a recent news investigation, some Las Vegas wedding chapels are refusing to perform the nuptials based on religious beliefs.
After making calls to about 15 wedding chapels, 8 News NOW found that several of them refused to perform wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples.
The Elvis Wedding Chapel, which welcomes traditional and Elvis-themed weddings, said they wouldn’t marry same-sex couples. However, when the 8 News Now cameras were rolling as we tried to get their stance on camera, they refused to open the door.
“I’m not going to tell you,” David with the Elvis Wedding Chapel said, “It just — there is no story here.”
Dolly Deleon, the owner of the Vegas Wed Chapel, said she’s a born-again believer in Jesus.
“My faith won’t allow me,” Deleon said.
She did not know that a couple who is turned away based on race, sex, or sexual orientation could file charges against her. That could then lead to a misdemeanor arrest.
“I would be a hypocrite if I said I’m a Bible-believing person and yet I would perform marriage that believe is solely against God’s law,” Deleon said.
Because nothing says “sanctity of marriage” like being married by an Elvis impersonator, right?
The problem for businesses like Vegas Wed Chapel is that in 2011, sexual orientation was added to the state’s public accommodation law making it a misdemeanor offense for businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians.
“The difference between a church and a place of worship and a wedding chapel, is that a wedding chapel is a business so that is covered under the Public Accommodations Law of Nevada,” said Tod Story, ACLU.
“Any Las Vegas wedding chapel that operates as a business is covered under Nevada’s public accommodations law and is not allowed to discriminate against same-sex couples seeking a wedding ceremony, or any other couple for that matter,” says Tod Story, executive director for the ACLU of Nevada. “Currently, the way the law is written, it’s a misdemeanor crime. Any couple refused service has to file a complaint with the state. … [Vegas Wed] has turned away couples. I don’t know if [those couples] even knew there was a law that protected them.”
The news isn’t all bad though. Gay partners Jamie Richards and Ron DeCar own and operate the Viva Las Vegas chapel in Las Vegas, and have in the business of same-sex ceremony packages since 1999, even though they were not legally binding.
“From Day One we were doing commitment ceremonies,” Richards told the Daily Beast. “I worked at the MGM (Grand) years ago when you literally went to board meetings and stuff, and nobody could know you were gay. And now all the hotels embrace the gay population, and they embrace the gay dollar. It’s got to help the economy.”
Wyoming Attorney General Peter Michael says the state will notify a federal court at 10 .m. Tuesday that it won’t appeal last Friday’s ruling that struck down the state’s ban on gay marriage.
With no waiting period for marriage in Wyoming, same-sex couples should be able to marry immediately following the notification of no appeal.
We just picked up more states with the freedom to marry, and the number could continue increasing over the course of this week.
But in several states, officials are blocking the start of marriage despite courts ruling against their bans. We’ll have the details on how couples are fighting back.
Plus, more bad news for the National Organization for Marriage. This time it’s a ruling in Virginia that means they’ll lose out on over half a million dollars.
After hearing oral arguments today in a lawsuit filed by NCLR and Wyoming Equality, U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl stated he will issue a ruling on same-sex marriage by 5 pm Monday, the Casper Star-Tribune reports.
The plaintiff’s lawsuit requests that the state comply with the 10th Circuit ruling handed out earlier this year following the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear its appeal.
From the NCLR, via press release:
The case was brought by Wyoming Equality and four same-sex couples who requested an immediate order directing state officials to comply with two decisions of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit establishing that a state’s refusal to allow same-sex couples to marry violates the U.S. Constitution.
The U.S. Supreme Court on October 6th let those appeals court decisions stand, meaning that all states within the Tenth Circuit, including Wyoming, must comply with those decisions.
I realized I’ve been posting the “progress of marriage equality” maps from Wikipedia showing the beautiful blue states where gay and lesbian couples enjoy the freedom to marry.
But then I thought “what if folks really like red???”
So, for all the red lovers, here’s the current state of same-sex marriage in the US in rich, vibrant red from the folks at Freedom To Marry.
Set to the fab Sara Bareilles’ “I Choose You” – check out the shiny happy people who were among the first in Boise, Idaho to exercise their freedom to marry.
Gov. Butch Otter has issued a statement acknowledging his state has run out of options and same-sex marriage will begin in Idaho beginning tomorrow morning at 10AM MDT.
“The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has issued its mandate for enforcement of decisions overturning the Idaho Constitution’s prohibition on same-sex marriage effective at 10 a.m. MDT, 9 a.m. PDT on Wednesday, October 15.
“I continue to believe that the federal courts are mistaken in abandoning the sanctity of traditional marriage and in undermining the will of Idaho voters and each state’s right to define marriage. But we are civil society that respects the rule of law. We have done all we can through the courts for now to defend traditional marriage in Idaho.”
You’ll note the use of “for now” in that last sentence.
Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden’s spokesman, Todd Dvorak, told BuzzFeed News, “Attorney General [Wasden] currently has no plans for filing any legal challenge today or tomorrow.”
