A Louisiana judge has declared
unconstitutional the state's ban on gay marriage.
District Court Judge Edward Rubin said
in a 23-page ruling handed down Monday that the ban violates the 14th
Amendment and the U.S. Constitution's full faith and credit clause.
Plaintiffs in the case are Angie
Costanza and Christy Brewer, who married in 2008 in California.
Rubin overturned a lower court's decision and ordered the state to
recognize the couple's marriage and allow Constanza to adopt Brewer's
son.
Louisiana officials are “hereby
ordered to act in accordance with this courts' ruling and allow the
petitioners to file their state tax returns as a couple whose
marriage is valid and recognized in Louisiana. The court hereby
enjoins the State from enforcing the above referenced laws to the
extent that these laws prohibit a person from marrying another person
of the same sex,” Rubin wrote.
The state on Monday said it would
appeal the decision.
Rubin strongly dismissed the state's
arguments.
“This court agrees with defendants'
arguments that marriage laws can vary in some respects from state to
state, but Louisiana cannot define and regulate marriage to the
extend that it infringes upon the constitutional rights of the
petitioners,” he
wrote. “This court finds that there is no rational connection
between Louisiana's laws prohibiting same sex marriage and its goals
of linking children to intact families formed by their biological
parents, or ensuring that fundamental social change occurs through
widespread social consensus. What is meant by 'intact' is not clear.
… It would be illogical to say that intact families are only those
that are formed by a child's biological parents.”
The ruling comes less than a month
after a federal judge upheld the state's restrictive marriage ban,
saying it was “anchored to the Democratic process.”
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