With the justices of the Supreme Court returning from break at the end of the month, time is running out for states to prepare their marriage-equality cases for consideration. Utah, Oklahoma and Virginia are all ready for the justices to review, and Wisconsin and Indiana aren't far behind. But even though it's a long way from being ready for Supreme Court consideration, a strange case in Louisiana has been attracting a lot of attention.
On its face, the Louisiana marriage case seems straightforward enough: As in over 30 other states, the plaintiffs have sued for access to marriage on the grounds of due process and equal protection. What's unusual in the case is the bizarrely error-filled ruling delivered recently by Judge Martin Feldman.
Among the problems: Feldman refers to homosexuality as "lifestyle choices." He claims that gay and lesbian couples aren't entitled to the same protections as interracial couples because the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly mentions race. (It doesn't.) And he uses the wrong term to describe the standards of review by which discriminatory laws can be judged.
Feldman is the only federal judge to uphold a marriage-equality ban since the Supreme Court overturned DOMA in 2013. In that time, more than 20 other courts have overturned the law. It's hard to imagine how Feldman's strange ruling can be allowed to stand, and plaintiffs have already announced their intention to appeal.
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