4/14/09
Date Reviewed: 4/14/09
Wisconsin
The marriage amendment is currently being challenged in Wisconsin in
Mcconkey v Van Hollen. The plaintiffs are claiming that
two amendments were placed before voters, not just one. Cases similar to this have happened in two other states.
UPDTAE: 6/30/10: The Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled that the amendment was indeed properly presented to the voters.
ref
Federal judge Joseph Bataillon in
Citizens for Equal Protection v. Bruning ruled that the state's constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage or anything similar to it was unconstitutional. He said it
violated the US constitution's first amendment and penalized homosexuals for being gay and violated the equal protection clause. The equal protection clause is section 1 of the fourteenth amendment. If you want to read more about the history of this case in detail go
here. It then went to the 8th circuit court of appeals where Joseph Bataillon's ruling was overturned.
Chief Judge James Loken of the Circuit court wrote
"the political harm to appellees' members is not punishment in the functional sense because it serves the nonpunitive purpose of steering heterosexual procreation into marriage, a purpose that negates any suspicion that the supporters of [the amendment] were motivated solely by a desire to punish disadvantaged groups. While voting rights and apportionment cases establish the fundamental right to access the political process, it is not an absolute right. In a multi-tiered democracy, it is inevitable that interest groups will strive to make it more difficult for competing interest groups to achieve contrary legislative objectives."
ref
Louisiana
The
Louisiana marriage amendment was overturned just 2 weeks after it was approved by voters. District Judge William Morvant claimed that it put
two amendments to voters; one banning same sex marriage and another banning civil unions. The Louisianna state Supreme Court reversed Morvant's decisions stating
"each provision of the amendment is germane to the single object of defense of marriage and constitutes an element of the plan advanced to achieve this object."
ref I am posting this for historical reasons and to show that it isn't the end of the road if a state amendment is overturned, so let's see what happens in Wisconsin.
TAGS: marriage,
activist judges,
wisconsin,
nebraska,
louisiana