Federal court upholds gay marriage bans

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The Hill:

A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld four states' bans on gay marriage, in a ruling likely to trigger Supreme Court review of the hot-button issue.

 

The decision from a three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati stands as the first federal circuit court decision in favor of prohibitions on same-sex unions, creating a split with other federal court's that have found the bans as unconstitutional.

 

The ruling adds pressure on high court to weigh in on gay marriage for the first time since the justices struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act that barred same-sex couples from receiving certain federal benefits.

 

Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote that the people should decide the question, not federal judges.

"When the courts do not let the people resolve new social issues like this one, they perpetuate the idea that the heroes in these change events are judges and lawyers," he wrote. "Better in this instance, we think, to allow change through the customary political processes, in which the people, gay and straight alike, become the heroes of their own stories by meeting each other not as adversaries in a court system but as fellow citizens seeking to resolve a new social issue in a fair-minded way."

The decision, upholding bans in Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan, and Tennessee, breaks a long string of federal courts striking down gay marriage bans. Four other circuit courts have struck down bans. One district court, in Louisiana, has upheld a ban.

The ruling can be appealed to the full court, or to the Supreme Court. If the full circuit court ruling strikes down the bans, then all circuit courts would be in agreement again and the Supreme Court would not have to take up the issue.

The Supreme Court last month declined to take up appeals from three of those circuit court rulings, effectively allowing them to stand. That decision was widely interpreted as the high court ducking the issue, allowing bans to continue to be struck down in lower courts.