So full of holes

Didn't we just have oral arguments in the 7th Circuit Court for the Wisconsin and Indiana same-sex marriage cases? Indeed we did. In amazingly quick time – 9 days – the 7th Circuit has issued its ruling. I wish the 6th Circuit would be so prompt with the Michigan case, which was heard 29 days ago. As expected, the 3-judge panel of the 7th Circuit ruled unanimously that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional. An excerpt from the summary:

The challenged laws discriminate against a minority defined by an immutable characteristic, and the only rationale that the states put forth with any conviction — that same-sex couples and their children don’t need marriage because same-sex couples can’t produce children, intended or unintended — is so full of holes that it cannot be taken seriously.

An excerpt of the discussion about Indiana's claim that straight couples need marriage and gay couples don't:

Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted children; their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexual couples do not produce unwanted children; their reward is to be denied the right to marry. Go figure.

And who is adopting those unwanted kids from straights who got "drunk and pregnant?" These days the new parents are often gay. The state wants to make their situation harder?

Indiana made the claim that allowing elderly first cousins to marry was a model for younger couples. That got a slap-down:

Elderly first cousins are permitted to marry because they can’t produce children; homosexuals are forbidden to marry because they can’t produce children. The state’s argument that a marriage of first cousins who are past child-bearing age provides a “model [of] family life for younger, potentially procreative men and women” is impossible to take seriously.

Alas, an appeal to the ruling from that bigoted judge in Louisiana will go to the 5th Circuit, not to this no-nonsense team on the 7th Circuit.