LGBTQ news and entertainment
At 4:30 p.m. today, with many of the justices at an out-of-state conference, the Arkansas Supreme Court issued a stay of Judge Chris Piazza’s ruling last Friday that Arkansas law and constitutional bans on same-sex marriage violated the U.S. Constitution.
The one-sentence order granted stay without any elaboration.
Piazza’s decision will now go through the appeal process. The timeline for the state supreme court could very well take several months.
Late Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Candy Dale ruled that Idaho’s ban on marriage equality was unconstitutional, and said the order would take effect this Friday at 9am.
Now, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has put a stay on that ruling while the state government heads to the Appeals Court.
A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued this single sentence ruling: “The district court’s May 13, 2014 order is temporarily stayed pending this court’s disposition of appellants’ emergency motions for a stay pending appeal.”
Seventeen states and the District of Columbia currently allow same-sex marriage.
Last week in Arkansas, when Judge Chris Piazza struck down the state’s same-sex marriage ban, his order did not include a law specifying county clerks being banned from the act of issuing a marriage license to same-sex couples. Today, that little detail was addressed so that the freedom to marry can continue.
From the AP:
A day after the state Supreme Court effectively halted gay marriages in the state, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza expanded his ruling striking down a constitutional ban to also include the prohibition on clerks issuing same-sex marriage licenses. Justices had ruled Wednesday that Piazza’s decision on the gay marriage ban did not change that license law.
Piazza also rejected a request to suspend his ruling, saying there’s no evidence the state would be harmed by allowing gay marriages to continue.
Via press release, NOM chairman John Eastman says the Washington DC based organization will appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene in the recent Oregon ruling on same-sex marriage.
“We are disappointed in the ruling today denying the National Organization for Marriage the ability to intervene in this case.
“We believe that our members in the state and the people of Oregon are entitled to a vigorous defense of the marriage amendment adopted overwhelmingly by Oregon voters.
“We disagree with the Judge’s finding that our motion was untimely. Although her unwillingness to defend Oregon’s law has been known for some time, the state Attorney General made clear only in April that she would not appeal a ruling invalidating the marriage amendment.
“We believe it is imperative that a party be able to appeal any adverse ruling and that we are entitled under the law to intervene to defend the measure and appeal any adverse ruling. For this reason, we will be filing an appeal of today’s ruling with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals seeking a reversal of this decision.”
Remember kids – all these folks talk about “state’s rights.” So why is a Washington DC based organization interfering in an Oregon lawsuit?
Things that make you go hmm…
A U.S. District Court judge has denied a request by the ironically named National Organization for Marriage to intervene in Oregon’s gay marriage case.
Judge Michael McShane’s decision Wednesday morning, made from the bench after an hour of oral arguments, may still be appealed by the group.
McShane consolidated two lawsuits into one case and heard oral arguments last month.
Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, in light of a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year striking down a federal ban on gay marriage, said she would not defend Oregon’s prohibition.
The National Organization for Marriage filed a motion to intervene in the case in defense of Oregon’s ban but Judge McShane decided the Washington DC based organization does not have standing.
McShane has not indicated when he could decide the larger case. If he decides to overturn Oregon’s ban, he could also decide to let gay marriages proceed immediately, or he could stay gay marriages pending appeals of his decision.
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After yesterday’s ruling from Judge Candy Dale in Idaho overturning the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, Gov. Butch Otter requested the judge put a stay on the ruling while the state appeals the decision.
Today, Judge Dale refused that request saying:
“The State’s continued enforcement of its laws against same-sex marriage irreparably harms Plaintiffs and other same-sex couples.
“Given the ongoing potential for irreparable injury to both sides, the equities do not sharply favor the Governor. Nor does the public interet favor preserving a status quo that deprives individuals of their constitutional rights.
“The Court finds a stay pending appeal is not warranted.”
The original court ruling is scheduled to go into effect Friday morning at 9am. Expect the Governor & company to head over to the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court with another request for stay.
Freedom To Marry shares the news that today U.S. Magistrate Judge Candy Dale, a federal judge in Idaho, ruled in favor of the freedom to marry, striking down the state’s discriminatory constitutional amendment that bans same-sex couples from marriage.
The judge says Idaho’s marriage laws violate the couples’ rights under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
From the ruling:”Idaho’s marriage laws. relegate their gay families to a stigmatized, second-class status without sufficient reason.”
The judge stated that the order takes effect this Friday at 9am.
The ruling is the 16th consecutive victory in state and federal court for the freedom to marry since the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Windsor v. United States in June 2013. The ruling is the 12th win in federal court for marriage since June.
The decision was filed in Latta v. Otter, a federal case filed by the National Center for Lesbian Rights last fall that seeks the freedom to marry and respect for marriages legally performed in other states.
It comes just a few days after a May 5 hearing in the case, where Judge Dale heard arguments on the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment.
(via press release)
Buzzfeed reporter Chris Geidner has posted an in-depth report of today’s oral arguments at the 4th Circuit Appeals Court regarding Virginia’s appeal of the recent ruling that struck down the state’s ban on marriage equality.
Just part of Geidner’s take on the hearing:
Two of the court’s three judges appeared ready to strike down the ban Tuesday at oral arguments in Richmond — the third federal appellate hearing on the question currently winding its way through federal and state courts throughout the nation. Judge Paul Niemeyer was the only judge hearing the arguments who pressed heavily on the side of the state’s ban, saying that same-sex couples are creating a “brand new relationship” and that “it takes a male and female to have a child, to have a family.”
The “core of a family” is the mother-father relationship, Niemeyer told Ted Olson, who was arguing for same-sex couples fighting the 2006 marriage ban. Describing that relationship as “A” and same-sex couples’ relationships as “B,” Niemeyer said that “the state can redefine it and call it marriage,” but that wouldn’t change the fact that “these are two different relationships.”
Although arguments about defining fundamental rights and the level of scrutiny to be used in reviewing the 2006 amendment — the questions central to the briefs in the case — were discussed during the hour, Niemeyer’s focus at times seemed out of place, echoing as it did a Kentucky Court of Appeals opinion from 1973 that dismissed a same-sex couple’s attempt to get a marriage license because “what they propose is not a marriage.”
Read the full breakdown at Buzzfeed.
Attorney General Mark R. Herring attended oral arguments today before the 4th Circuit in the appeal of the recent ruling striking down Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage.
The Commonwealth argued in favor of upholding the ruling of the district judge who reached the same conclusion as Attorney General Herring regarding the constitutionality of the ban.
In a terrific speech, Herring said he found the anti-gay side to have “wholly unpersuasive” arguments.
Five couples filed a lawsuit today in Alaska demanding the freedom to marry. Of the five, four couples are suing to have the state recognize their marriages performed outside the Land of the Midnight Sun, and one is suing for the right to marry.
The Associated Press reports the lawsuit “alleges that Alaska’s ban on same-sex marriage violates their rights to due process and equal protection under the U.S. Constitution.”
It was in 1998 that Alaskans voted to write discrimination into their state constitution and ban marriage equality. The most recent PPP poll showed 47 percent of voters support marriage equality, 46 percent opposed.
Both of Alaska’s Senators, Democrat Mark Begich and Republican Lisa Murkowski, support same-sex marriage.
Only two states in the US remain — North Dakota and Montana – that either do not support the freedom to marry or are not currently in litigation to move toward that end.