A federal judge said Wednesday that Kentucky must recognize same-sex marriages from other states, opening the door for gay and lesbian couples to gain full legal protection as families.The tide is coming in on same-sex marriage, and yet today, stupid Hoosier bigots will be debating a resolution to put a state constitutional amendment on the November ballot in order to ban same-sex marriage. As is normally the case (except for in the case of casinos), Indiana is at least a decade behind the times.
Ruling in favor of four Kentucky same-sex couples who sued the state last year, U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II in Louisville struck down portions of a 1998 state law and a 2004 state constitutional amendment, both of which limited marriage in Kentucky to "one man and one woman."
The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees equal protection of the law from state to state, so Kentucky cannot deny people their fundamental rights, such as the right to marriage, Heyburn wrote.
"No one has offered any evidence that recognizing same-sex marriages will harm opposite-sex marriages, individually or collectively. One's belief to the contrary, however sincerely held, cannot alone justify denying a selected group their constitutional rights," Heyburn wrote.
Although Kentuckians are entitled to enact laws based on their "moral judgments ... those laws are subject to the guarantees of individual liberties contained within the United States Constitution," he wrote.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
The Wheels of Progress Keep Turning
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