As if the news wasn’t bad enough on Tuesday, there was even more bad news this week. U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit overturned rulings against bans on same-sex marriage in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. More on the decision at SCOTUSblog.
This decision runs counter to decisions in 4th, 7th, 9th and 10th circuit courts which struck down bans on same-sex marriage in Virginia, Indiana, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Utah, Idaho and Nevada. This led to neighboring states also eliminating their bans. Having these contradictory decisions means that the Supreme Court, which previously tried to avoid getting involved, will probably be forced to decide the issue.
The news might not be all bad. Doug Mataconis looked at previous decisions of the Supreme Court justices and believes that the court will rule in favor of allowing same-sex marriage. While there is no guarantee of this happening, if it does turn out this way we might actually have legalization of same-sex marriage nation wide during the current court session, speeding up what appears to be an inevitable trend.
If the Democrats had any guts they would speak out on this issue, questioning how the Republicans who claim to be the party of limited government can justify using the power of government to tell people who they may or may not marry. Of course as we were reminded by how they campaigned in the midterm elections, the Democrats do not have such guts. As the saying goes, we have one party with brains but no balls, and one party with no brains but which does have balls.
