They ruled unanimously.
And they wrote an excellent explanation piece.
After spending some time explaining about protected classes, strict scrutiny, and an intermediate level of scrutiny, they address the "defenses" of the ban one by one and dismiss them as easily as they should be. Here is a short excerpt:
Promotion of Procreation. Next, the court addressed the County’s argument
that endorsement of traditional civil marriage will result in more procreation. The
court concluded the County’s argument is flawed because it fails to address the
required analysis of the objective: whether exclusion of gay and lesbian
individuals from the institution of civil marriage will result in more procreation.
The court found no argument to support the conclusion that a goal of additional
procreation would be substantially furthered by the exclusion of gays and
lesbians from civil marriage.
They got it right. Congratulations.
Promoting Stability in Opposite-Sex Relationships. The County also
asserted that the statute promoted stability in opposite-sex relationships. The
court acknowledged that, while the institution of civil marriage likely encourages
stability in opposite-sex relationships, there was no evidence to support that
excluding gay and lesbian people from civil marriage makes opposite-sex
marriage more stable.
Now we move on. The opponents of same-sex marriage will undoubtedly cry about legislation from the bench. There are even those who now argue that the court does not have the right to overturn laws (Marbury vs. Madison anyone?) But the more serious callenge will surely be some effort to change the constitution, e.g., Prop 8 in California. Let's hope a more serious resistance is put up.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment