A federal ruling by a Texas-born judge has declared Texas’ same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional. | Natalie Harms/The Daily Cougar
A federal judge has ruled Texas’ ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, saying that the 2005 amendment, Texas Proposition 2, “demeans the dignity of homosexuals,” according to NPR.
Texas-born Judge Orlando Garcia struck down the law Wednesday, but he will not enforce his ruling in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Two Texas couples, Nicole Diemetman and Cleopatra De Leon, and Victor Holmes and Mark Phariss, sued the state in a challenge of the state’s constitution, which was amended in 2005 to define marriage as “the union of one man and one woman.”
Diemetman and De Leon legally married in Massachusetts and wish for Texas to recognize their marriage. Phariss and Holmes have been together for nearly two decades and wish to be legally married in Texas.
“As I suspected all along, since the federal law was changed, it’s just a matter of time for the rest of the states to follow suit. It’s like a domino effect,” said Lorraine Schroeder, program director of UH’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Resource Center.
“Because the truth is a ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. There are plenty of people who are willing to step forward and sue for that type of discrimination.”
The Defense of Marriage Act, struck down last year after passing in 1996, did not allow the federal government to recognize any state-allocated same-sex marriages.
“What I know is that right now, nothing is going to change until after the appellate court has had a chance to look at (the law),” Schroeder said. “Once that happens, then I’m sure they’re going to uphold it. Then, having a law that bans same-sex marriage will no longer be on the books.”
Some conservatives, including Gov. Rick Perry, have spoken out against the ruling because of personal beliefs or opposition to a federal judge deciding a state’s law.
“Texans spoke loud and clear by overwhelmingly voting to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman in the Constitution, and it is not the role of the federal government to overturn the will of our citizens,” Perry said in an official statement.
This ruling makes Texas the latest of at least 20 other states to challenge its gay marriage bans.
“My thought — not only is (the law) fair — but something that other people don’t think of is that is your child, the upcoming generation after us, if your child was gay, you would want your child to be happy,” said biomedical engineering freshman Valerie Ayaoa.
“Part of that is being able to be with whoever you want, to marry whoever you want. And I believe that when you put it in that perspective, how it could affect you personally, how it could affect someone that you love, it changes things.”
The religious extremists are losing their self proclaimed rights of continued bigotry and division.
The Mormon church have spent $millions and fought tooth and nail against gay marriage in CA, Hawaii and now in Mormon controlled Utah – the taliban state of the US.
They are presently spending $2million of tax payers money appealing the gay marriage decision by a federal judge. The church continues to stigmatise and discriminate against gay members within their membership. They encourage parents to monitor and discipline their gay children.
The prophet of the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City has also been issued with a summons to appear at a London Magistrates Court, UK in 2 weeks time, to answer charges of possible Financial Fraud. If he does not attend the court, a warrant for his arrest will be issued.
Cult religious organisations in the USA have been involved in widespread financial irregularities and systematic discrimination of targeted groups of people over many years.
Their days of venom and mistrust are ending.
Pardon me, but my girlfriend is Mormon. I myself am a Methodist. You have clearly forgotten that this is a series of political decisions. You can make the same statements of ANY other denomination of any religion. To single out a single group, such as the church of Latter Day Saints is simply showing your personal hatred to that church. Also, if you wanna call it the Taliban state, technically Taliban fighters are Muslim, generally. Please, keep your personal hatred of a people to yourself. Your hatred of a people for their religion is just as bad as people’s discrimination again gays, which is what youre fighting against. This is the land if freedom, equality, and opportunity. That means believe what you want. Be who you want. Love who you want. Marry who you want. Worship who you want. Do what you want . No matter the age, sex, religious belief, sexual orientation, skin color, or creed.
It’s not a matter of “personal hatred”. In the California Prop 8 ballot initiative, the Mormon Church dispatched 2,800 missionaries from Utah to California to knock on doors and repeat horrendous lies (“if this ballot fails, they will teach homosexuality in first grade” and “statistically, most child sexual abusers are gay”. I have personally seen and read the materials they left behind with my Mother). The Mormon Church formed the hate group, National Organization for Marriage, and funded it with $6 million to spread more horrific lies, some of which are documented in the transcript of the Perry case. It is estimated that the Mormon Church spent $32 million in its’ anti-gay campaign in California alone. You can find all this data online.
Most child sexual abusers are male. About half of child sex abuse victims are male. This would mean that male on male(same sex) sexual attacks are roughly 50%. Yet the LBGT community does not represent 50% of the general population. It is a cop-out for the LGBT community to say that men who have sex with men(such as during rape in prison) or men who commit sexual crimes against boys are “heterosexual” if these criminals self-identify themselves as “heterosexual”. By definition that behavior is not heterosexual.
Studies have shown that heterosexual men engage in homosexual CONDUCT when it is their only outlet. Your mistake is your failure to distinguish between orientation and opportunistic conduct.
They are not heterosexual if they engage in homosexual conduct. What they characterize themselves is irrelevant. Such use of terms like “heterosexual men” to describe men who engage in homosexual acts is used to cause confusion and distract people from the facts, especially with politically correct terms like MSM. There are many men who never engage in homosexual conduct or harbor homosexual desires when under the same circumstances (prison, male-only confinement) as men who use that excuse.
Stupidly, states attempt to defend these marriage bans by relying upon tradition, voter approval, regulation of procreation and child-rearing qualifications. Not one of these has been accepted as a rational basis for a state to deprive a class of citizens of their fundamental right to marry, but the states keep repeating these like they were kindergartners learning the alphabet. My suggestion; States should admit that these bans were passed out of hatred and then defend by claiming that hate is a fundamental right protected by the US Constitution. They can even use their Bibles to show hundreds of instances of hatred condoned there. They can rely upon the tradition of hatred in the Catholic Church when people were boiled in oil as hated heretics. The can demonstrate the hatred that exists in parents who , in obedience to Deuteronomy, slay their disobedient kids. They can show the hatred that permeates marriages to steer half of them into divorce. They can show the long history of racial hatred in the US, with resulting lynchings. Certainly, such ingrained hatred must be a fundamental right!
Atheists should demonstrate their rights in killing Christians under communist doctrine as has been done successfully in the Soviet Union and other places where revolution has taken place. Atheist regimes love killing as can be demonstrated by Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin,and many others. Atheism under a communist system rules! Look at how many millions were killed in atheist communist regimes!
Atheist governments have killed more people than any other type of of government. I wonder if wayne finds atheist mass murder to be rational and human
http://netwar.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/democide.gif
rational and humane. Left wing atheist governments tend to kill people when they are disarmed and under their total control.
Oh….I agree with you….atheists are also capable of Hatred, but as persecution goes in the history of the US, they have not been as prominent as Christians……..perhaps you have a chart of atheist atrocities committed “in the name of religion” in the US???
You shouldn’t be so US centric. The US as a nation is not very old compared to many parts of the world. Give it time, and the Atheists here will get their chance to commit such atrocities like their comrades have done around the world.
I’m a gay man, but most of my fellow gays need to look in the mirror. They are trying so hard to be like the heterosexual couples. Getting married and having children? Come on! First of all, marriage is an ancient institution that is dying anyway. The reason many of my fellow gays want to get married is the constant obsession with being accepted and being like the “normal” heterosexual population. The same thing with being able to have kids. Two gay men or two lesbians will never result in a child by having intercourse. That’s how nature works, and for a good reason. Yet they want to have kids. Every kid deserves to have a father and mother. Life is unfair and not every child gets that, but that should be the ideal. I’m happy I’m a gay uncle that doesn’t have to spend my time cleaning
diapers or any of those boring things. I get to have fun with my sisters
kids, and I do not want to waste my time in a marriage. I constantly tell my fellow gays that they need to be proud of who they are and stop trying to be like the straight couples. It wont be too long before gay couples start marrying the opposite sex to be like the straight couples.