Palmetto State Still Fighting Against Gay Marriage

S.C. ATTORNEY GENERAL: BAN SHOULD REMAIN IN EFFECT UNTIL SCOTUS RULES

By FITSNEWS || S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson told a federal judge the Palmetto State’s ban on gay marriage should be upheld until the Supreme Court says otherwise.

In pleadings before U.S. District Court judge Richard Gergel, Wilson claimed the “recent tide of same-sex marriage cases” – including a fourth circuit case striking down gay marriage bans – run counter to a “well-reasoned” opinion from the sixth circuit upholding such bans.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the fourth circuit case – effectively upholding the unconstitutionality of gay marriage bans like the one 78 percent of South Carolina voters approved in 2006.  Meanwhile the S.C. Supreme Court has stepped in to block the issuance of same sex marriage licenses pending a resolution of the issue at the federal level – making South Carolina the only state in the fourth circuit not to permit gay marriages.

In Charleston, S.C., city councilwoman Colleen Condon is suing for the right to marry her partner – Nichols Bleckley.  Condon and Bleckley want Gergel to block South Carolina from enforcing its gay marriage ban, arguing that the fourth circuit ruling invalidates it.

According to that ruling, gay marriage bans “impermissibly infringe on … citizens’ fundamental right to marry” – thus prohibiting same sex couples “from participating fully in our society.”

“We recognize that same-sex marriage makes some people deeply uncomfortable,” the fourth circuit court wrote. “However, inertia and apprehension are not legitimate bases for denying same-sex couples due process and equal protection of the laws.”

By contrast, the sixth circuit ruling permitted states “to retain authority over an issue they have regulated from the beginning.”

“How can we say that the voters acted irrationally for sticking with the seen benefits of thousands of years of adherence to the traditional definition of marriage in the face of one year of experience with a new definition of marriage?” the sixth circuit court asked hypothetically.

Additionally, the sixth circuit ruling argued that the case against gay marriage bans “fails to account for plural marriages, where there is no reason to think that three or four adults, whether gay, bisexual, or straight, lack the capacity to share love, affection, and commitment, or for that matter lack the capacity to be capable (and more plentiful) parents to boot.”

Hmmmmm …

“If it is constitutionally irrational to stand by the man-woman definition of marriage, it must be constitutionally irrational to stand by the monogamous definition of marriage,” the court ruled.  “Plaintiffs have no answer to the point.”

Given the direct conflict between these two rulings, it’s increasingly like the Supreme Court will be forced to take a position on the issue.  In fact in a dissenting opinion to the sixth circuit ruling, judge Martha Daughtrey accused her colleagues of having “purposefully taken the contrary position to create the circuit split regarding the legality of same-sex marriage,” thus paving the way for the high court to take up the case.

This website’s oft-stated view on this issue is abundantly clear: No government – local, state or federal – should have the ability to ban (or compel) marriage, gay or straight.  Or plural, for that matter.  That’s because marriage isn’t a government institution, it’s a religious one – meaning the question should be left to individual congregations.  As for civil unions, we believe the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment compels government to acknowledge both homosexual and heterosexual unions.

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