Gay marriage makes my marriage yucky

Marriage news of the week...

The governor of Wyoming officially notified the federal district court that he will not appeal the ruling that overturns the state's same-sex marriage ban. Marriages have begun (a few photos here). Some of the first were in Laramie County. That has some significance because that was where Matthew Shepard was murdered for being gay 16 years ago.

Kansas is the only state in the 10th Circuit that doesn't have marriage equality yet. A straight couple has filed a suit at the federal district court level to make sure it stays that way. Their suit claims that allowing same-sex couples to marry somehow defiles their marriage and makes it worthless. They got a lawyer to fill out and submit the motion, but that doesn't mean there is a smidgen of logic to it. I didn't waste my time to read it.

The Utah Supremes have lifted their stay against adoption by same-sex parents. Five months ago adoptions were put on hold by the state. Officials wanted to wait until it was clear same-sex marriage would be legal.

The governor of Idaho has asked the 9th Circuit for an en banc hearing of the state's same-sex marriage ban. The Gov is fuming over the statements that marriage equality would harm nobody. But a wedding chapel in Coeur d'Alene is claiming harm. The owners say their religious freedom would be violated if they must marry same-sex couples but the city's antidiscrimination ordinance doesn't exempt them because they aren't a legitimate nonprofit religious organization.



A federal district judge in Puerto Rico has dismissed a lawsuit challenging the island's same-sex marriage ban. Some of his reasons:

Same-sex marriage isn't mentioned in the Constitution.

Back in the 1970s the Supremes refused to hear a same-sex marriage case. While circuit court judges say times have changed and that refusal no longer applies, this judge says it still does.

Circuit courts have been basing their arguments in favor of same-sex marriage on the big *Windsor* case from a year ago that struck down a key part of the Defense of Marriage Act. This judge, reading a lot from the dissents in that case, says states maintain the right to define marriage.

He bought the conservative stories that procreation and tradition apply and that there is that big slippery slope.

All those other judges are just wrong.

The case has been appealed to the 1st Circuit. That is an interesting situation because all the states in the 1st Circuit (Maine, Mass., NH, RI) have equality and none of them got it through a federal ruling. So the 1st Circuit hasn't yet taken up the issue.