Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi are making their cases in a federal appellate court to maintain their gay marriage bans. Their reasons for continuing these civil rights violations are so awful it’s just laughable at this point. Let the stupid begin:
Louisiana went first, telling a federal appellate panel that giving gays and lesbians marriage rights is so risky and unproven that states must be allowed to protect their citizens against it.
Same-sex marriage is “a novel perception” in terms of recorded history, argued Louisiana’s special counsel, Kyle Duncan.
Only ten years of data has been gathered since Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriages, he said – not enough to know the consequences if courts keep overturning state-imposed bans.
Wow. I understand that these three states are scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of state education rankings, but that argument is just atrocious. How could you even keep a straight face listening to that?
Ten years of data? What!? As if to say there were zero gays and lesbians existing and living together prior to the Massachusetts ruling and zero studies of the effects on surrounding societies, which is just insane.
Happily, the Supreme Court appears to be on its way to finally taking up this issue and handing down a ruling that very likely legalizes gay marriage across the country. This, of course, does not lift the black-eye off of them for all of their previous actions that did not reach this inevitability, a point mentioned in the article:
Only 14 states still prohibit same-sex unions, which may give the justices reassurance that the country is ready for a nationwide change.
Three earlier seminal high court rulings that outlawed state-backed discrimination – involving education, interracial marriage and criminal prohibitions against gay sex – were issued when similar fractions of the country still kept discriminatory laws on their books.
Justice may be blind but it apparently still reads the opinion polls enough to stick itself in the eye over and over. Now, if only we could address that whole “corporations are people, too” thing…
