Related articles and links |  1 of 4

First Michigan, now Louisiana. Another state is declaring that a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. A Louisiana judge yesterday declared that a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and civil unions is unconstitutional. Three weeks ago, the amendment passed with 78 percent of the vote.

Unlike the Michigan Board of State Canvassers, which attempted to prevent the amendment from reaching voters at all, Louisiana Supreme Court allowed the amendment to be placed on the ballot before deciding whether or not it was constitutional. Yesterday, Judge William Morvant said the amendment violates the state constitution's requirement that amendments only address one issue.

"Morvant, a Republican, said the amendment is flawed because, while the state constitution prevents a law or constitutional amendment from having more than one purpose or objective, it contains two 'objects,'" writes the New Orleans Times-Picayune. The amendment forbids both marriage and civil unions for same-sex couples.

"The issue here is whether the issue was properly put to the voters," Morvant said. "It is not about public support or public morality. It is about compliance with the constitution."

Gay-rights groups are naturally encouraged by the decision, but the overwhelming support for the amendment will make it difficult to ultimately block the ban.

The Family Research Council's Tony Perkins responded to the decision. "During my time in the Louisiana legislature, I worked on occasion with Judge Morvant. I am disappointed that he failed to recognize the right of the voters and the legislature to decide the fate of marriage in Louisiana."

James Dobson also rejected the decision. "The will of the people of Louisiana could not be clearer—this amendment passed with the support of nearly 80 percent of the votes. Yet this judge saw fit to disenfranchise those voters in favor of a radical social agenda," he said.

The decision may also have an impact in Georgia, says The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where a similar ban and a similar prohibition in the state constitution could stymie efforts for a Georgia marriage amendment. In that state, a poll registered that 69 percent of voters support the ban.

And now—polygamy
The underlying issue, as 11 states try to pass same-sex marriage bans, is whether it is still possible to legislate traditional morality. According to Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington Law School, in USA Today, legislating morality is not only bad law, it's hypocritical. Turley says our polygamy laws unfairly discriminate against those who marry more than one person at a time.

Weblog would like to remind readers that after the Supreme Court declared a Texas anti-sodomy law illegal, many conservatives asked aloud, What's to stop us from allowing polygamy, then? According to Turley, nothing.

"Individuals have a recognized constitutional right to engage in any form of consensual sexual relationship with any number of partners," says Turley. "Thus, a person can live with multiple partners and even sire children from different partners so long as they do not marry. However, when that same person accepts a legal commitment for those partners 'as a spouse,' we jail them."

Without bothering to explain any faiths' orthodox theology, Turley says many religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and native religions around the world, practice polygamy. "It cannot be seriously denied that polygamy is a legitimate religious belief." Yet, despite the Constitution's protection of free exercise of religion, it is outlawed. "In its 1878 opinion in Reynolds v. United States, the Court refused to recognize polygamy as a legitimate religious practice, dismissing it in racist and anti-Mormon terms as 'almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and African people. … Most tellingly, the Court found that the practice is 'contrary to the spirit of Christianity and of the civilization which Christianity has produced in the Western World.'"

next page... |  1 of 4

share this page

October (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48