Watch the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkin’s hit his usual talking points with a smarmy smile: “Sexual license?, “Religious Liberty”, and ” lawyers and judges running the country” as Ted Olsen wipes up the floor with Tony and redeems himself for giving us G.W. Bush
The U.S. Supreme Court announced today that it will review the constitutionality of bans on same-sex marriage in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. The Court’s ruling is expected in June 2015 and will likely impact not only the same-sex couples in these four states but also the nearly 160,000 same-sex couples and their 60,000 children who live in the 14 states and Puerto Rico where same-sex marriage bans are currently being enforced, as well as more than 200,000 same-sex couples and their 65,000 children who live in the 19 states where courts struck down same-sex marriage bans under the federal constitution in 2014.
Statistics via The Williams Institure:
• As of today, more than three-quarters (75.8%) of same-sex couples across the country are living in the 36 states where they can marry and more than seven-in-ten (70.4%) Americans are living in states that allow marriage for same-sex couples.
• Williams Institute research suggests that there were 690,000 same-sex couples in the US in 2013 raising an estimated 200,000 children. As many as 30,000 of those children are being raised by married parents.
• Recent Williams Institute analyses suggest that the number of married same-sex couples, estimated to be as high as 130,000 in 2013, has increased by more than 50% over the last 3 years.
• Fourteen states, home to nearly 30% of the US population, (AL, AR, GA, KY, LA, MI, MO, MS, ND, NE, OH, SD, TN, TX) and Puerto Rico continue to enforce bans on same-sex marriage.
• In 2014, courts prohibited nineteen states, home to 32% of the US population, from enforcing their bans on same-sex marriage on federal constitutional grounds (AZ, AK, CO, ID, IN, FL, KS, OK, OR, PA, NC, NV, MT, SC, UT, VA, WI, WV, WY).
Center For American Progress:
Executive Vice President for External Affairs, Winnie Stachelberg, issued the following statement today after the announcement that the U.S. Supreme Court will make a decision on marriage equality in the coming term.
The Supreme Court’s decision to again take up the issue of marriage equality is welcome news to the thousands of loving and committed same-sex couples who seek a resolution to the cruel legal limbo that currently denies them the dignity and respect that all families deserve. We are confident that when arguments are heard, the Supreme Court will affirm that the fundamental right to marry is the right of all Americans, regardless of the person they love or where they live.
Lambda Legal
The U.S. Supreme Court today announced it has granted review of all six marriage equality cases decided by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, including two Ohio cases litigated by Lambda Legal, the ACLU and Gerhardstein & Branch. The two cases are Henry v. Hodges, where Lambda Legal joined Gerhardstein & Branch, and Obergefell v. Hodges, where the ACLU joined Gerhardstein & Branch. Oral argument is expected to take place later this year. “After years of struggle and the dedicated work of thousands across the movement, we are finally within sight of the day when same-sex couples across the country will be able to share equally in the joys, protections and responsibilities of marriage,” said Jon W. Davidson, Legal Director and Eden/Rushing Chair at Lambda Legal. “While these cases will carry the marriage standard before the Supreme Court, they represent literally dozens of cases in state and federal courts nationwide and the collective effort of Lambda Legal, NCLR, the ACLU, GLAD, and other sister LGBT groups and private (often pro-bono) counsel dating back years.”
ACLU
The American Civil Liberties Union and Stanford Law School Supreme Court Litigation Clinic are co-counsel in the two Kentucky cases, Bourke v. Beshear and Love v. Beshear, brought by lawyers at Clay Daniel Walton & Adams and the Fauver Law Office. These cases challenge Kentucky’s anti-marriage laws on the ground that they violate due process and equal protection provisions of the U.S. Constitution. The ACLU along with Lambda Legal and Gerhardstein & Branch are also co-counsel in the Ohio case, Obergefell, et al v. Hodges. “We are thrilled the court will finally decide this issue,” said James Esseks, director of the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & HIV Project. “The country is ready for a national solution that treats lesbian and gay couples fairly. Every single day we wait means more people die before they have a chance to marry, more children are born without proper protections, more people face medical emergencies without being able to count on recognition of their spouses. It is time for the American values of freedom and equality to apply to all couples.”
Just a quick note to people because no other site is reporting this part. But don’t be too overjoyed yet.
Remember, if SCOTUS decide against us, we lose all the other wins in federal court. Only state laws which were changed to stop blocking our right to marry would stand.
Any declarations of victory now could turn into the equivalent of “Dewey Defeats Truman” in 1948.
In this corner wearing the white sheet and pointy hat, weighing in at 190 lbs of pure bullshit we have the president of the Family Research Council President Tony Perkins………
At 10AM this Sunday on FOX news Prop 8 attorney Ted Olson and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins will debate the same-sex-marriage issue LIVE!
Via press release from Fox News:
Both sides in the same-sex marriage debate are looking to the Supreme Court as it decides whether or not to weigh in on the issue. The High Court is set to discuss cases from Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee, and decide whether to rule on petitions challenging state bans on same-sex marriage. We’ll debate what has become a key social issue within the country, exclusively with Ted Olson, former Solicitor General who served as Co-Counsel for the plaintiffs in Virginia’s same-sex marriage case, and Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council.
And so the fiction that Perkins is a qualified expert on marriage continues…
Its come to light that the Traditional Youth Network, a white supremacist group, filed an amicus brief late last March with the Sixth Circuit Court in support of Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriage. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, who defended the ban denounced the groups brief saying that it should be used “to line a birdcage.” But on Friday, Kyle Bristow, who filed the brief for the bigoted group pointed out that Bush appointees Judge Jeffrey Sutton’s ruling used much of the same language as his brief.
Although the Left disparaged the Traditionalist Youth Network, LLC, for arguing for tradition and invoking the judicial philosophy of originalism, the Sixth Circuit invoked originalism—they called it “original meaning”—and stated rather overtly, “Tradition reinforces the point.” Judge Sutton also referred to “thousands of years of adherence to the traditional definition of marriage” in his written opinion, which echoes the sentiment espoused within our brief: “[T]he Western and American legal traditions have proscribed sodomy—much less same-sex marriage—for thousands and hundreds of years, respectively.” Not surprisingly, Judge Sutton mentioned the importance of tradition in the very first paragraph of his lengthy written opinion: “[M]arriage has long been a social institution defined by relationships between men and women. So long defined, the tradition is measured in millennia, not centuries or decades. So widely shared, the tradition until recently had been adopted by all governments and major religions of the world.” Also, our brief pointed out that sexual deviants with proclivities stranger than those even of homosexuals could demand the “right” to marry if the Court ruled that states cannot constitutionally regulate marriage, and the liberals mocked us for making the “slippery slope argument.” Well, Judge Sutton agrees with us, which is evinced by what he opined in his opinion: “If it is constitutionally irrational to stand by the man-woman definition of marriage, it must be constitutionally irrational to stand by the monogamous definition of marriage.” How do you liberals like them apples?
“Proscribed sodomy”?
I will have you know you that my doctor, Dr. Buttsmack prescribed sodomy for me with unlimited refills!
How do you like them apples!
“We have been awaiting this decision for some time and welcome it not only as a tremendous victory, but as a common sense recognition that it is not for the federal courts to substitute their judgment about whether same-sex ‘marriage’ is a good idea or not, but to leave it to the people to make the decision about this fundamental institution. The justices of the Supreme Court were derelict in their duty when they refused to review the marriage cases previously before them. They now have no excuse. We call on the Supreme Court to stand for the proposition that men and women of good will across this land have the right under their constitution to preserve marriage in the law as it has always existed in reality, the union of one man and one woman.”
“The Sixth Circuit was certainly correct to frame the question before them as ‘who decides?’ and we wholeheartedly agree that the American people should decide this issue. But the majority is wrong to suggest that voters have changed their minds. In fact, in the vast majority of states that now have redefined marriage, it’s been judges and not voters who have done this. The movement to redefine marriage does not benefit from having momentum, it benefits from the exercise of raw political power by federal and state judges and politicians bent of imposing their politically-correct view of the world on the American people.”
“We applaud the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit for upholding the freedom of the people to define marriage as the union of a man and woman. The Sixth Circuit rightly recognizes that the Constitution does not demand that this modern redefinition of marriage be forced on the States. The American people simply will not accept a nationwide redefinition of marriage imposed on them by a judicial oligarchy. As the debate continues, recent polls and the election demonstrate that support for marriage redefinition is stalling as Americans begin to experience and consider the consequences for religious freedom, free speech, and parental rights.
“Where marriage is redefined, parents are increasingly finding a wedge being driven between them and their children as school curricula is changed to contradict the morals parents are teaching their children. And as more and more people lose their livelihoods because they refuse to not just tolerate but celebrate same-sex marriage, many Americans are beginning to see that this is about far more than the marriage alter, but is about fundamentally altering society.
Ah yes the 6th circuit, the most over turned circuit in the country. Big win there Herr PerKKKins and Frau Brown.
See you at the Supreme Court. Bring Kleenex.
One of the best lines that happened yesterday during the Sixth Circuit 4 state same-sex marriage hearing in Cincinnati, OH yesterday came from 6th Circut Senior judge Martha Daughtrey (also known as Cissy Daughtrey, I kid you not) who totally trashed discredited anti-gay researcher and fraud Mark Regnerus stating that “Even the Texas professor’s university says not to believe anything this man says.”
Looks like its time for Regnerus to apply for National Organization Witness Protection which means he disappears after Brian Brown eats him and destroys false evidence.
Audio files of the arguments for all four states have now been posted. Lets me know what YOU think?