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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThis Case Could Let the Supreme Court Roll Back Marriage Equality
Two of the Supreme Courts most conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, recently urged their colleagues to hear a challenge to the courts five-year-old ruling on marriage equality. In an October written opinion, Alito and Thomas claimed that the SCOTUS ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges presented threats to religious freedom that only it can fix.
According to Slate, the right-wing judges may get their wish sooner rather than later. In a Tuesday report, the publication claims that the nine Supreme Court justices will meet on December 11 to decide whether to take up a challenge to same-sex parental rights. On Monday, Indianas attorney general, Curtis Hill, filed a petition urging the court to review a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in January which found that states refusal to list both same-sex parents on their childs birth certificate is unconstitutional. Its the second such petition from Indiana this year.
The long-running case, known as Box v. Henderson, dates back six years. In 2014, the Tippecanoe County Health Department refused Ashlee and Ruby Henderson, a lesbian couple who live in Lafayette, Indiana, a birth certificate for their newborn child which would have bore both of their names. According to the Journal and Courier newspaper, the Hendersons blacked out the entry for Father on the form and wrote in Mother #2 instead, but the change was rejected.
The couple filed a lawsuit in 2015, along with seven other couples, challenging the decision as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause under the 14th Amendment which requires governmental entities to extend equal protection of the laws to all citizens. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana ruled in favor of the couples in June 2016 and then the 7th Circuit unanimously agreed earlier this year.
-more-
https://www.them.us/story/supreme-court-case-roll-back-lgbtq-marriage-equality
Arne
(2,012 posts)One step forward, four steps back.
shenmue
(38,506 posts)Do the security cameras reflect this?
Sweet Jimony Pete.
edhopper
(33,579 posts)Alito, Thomas, Barrett and Kavinaugh?
It's that close.
Midnightwalk
(3,131 posts)I thought the government denying equal protection required a compelling government interest.
A religious interest is not the same as a government interest.
This reasoning would seem to establish the religious interest as a government interest which is a violation of the first amendment.
I_UndergroundPanther
(12,470 posts)Doreen
(11,686 posts)I thought the point was that church weddings were acceptable in the eyes of the law for churches who accept gay marriage. Most gay people aren't going to try to get married in the churches who do not accept them.
Midnightwalk
(3,131 posts)I think it is the government denying parents rights by not having both mothers names on the birth certificate.
I probably should read more but I dont see how the religious freedom means the government can do that and not violate equal protection.
As bad as this is from an equal protection point of view, I dont get how this doesnt violate the establishment clause. There is no compelling government reason except if the churchs view is that compelling reason.
This could be even worse.
csziggy
(34,136 posts)If the husband in a hetreo marriage is not the biological father of the child.
From the article linked in the OP:
This case, then, is about whether Indiana may, to advance its unquestionably legitimate policy of safeguarding the rights and obligations of biological parents in the context of completing birth certificates, Hill claims.
But while Hill has argued that Indianas policy is merely about common-sense guidelines based on biological facts, Slate notes that these anti-trans dog whistles dont actually apply to the grounds of the case. Its untrue that a birth mothers wife always has no biological connection to her child, as Hill insists, the publication writes. One set of plaintiffs in this case, a lesbian couple, prove this point: One partner provided an egg, and her wife carried the child.
So if Indiana wants to claim they are only relying on biology to keep same both sex parents from being listed on a birth certificate, they must be consistent and require that ONLY biological parents be listed. This means every sperm donor will be outed, children born in wedlock but not fathered by the legal spouse would have to have the biological father named, etc. Every adopted child will have their biological parents listed, even when it means a lot of heart ache for all involved.
In fact, this law should mean that every child and purported parents must be DNA tested to make sure the information on the birth certificate is valid.
If the right wingers want to deny same sex parents their rights to do what many, many hetero parents have done for decades and put the legal parents rather than the biological parents, let's take it to the extreme with DNA testing required for every child born.
Volaris
(10,270 posts)Legal Parent #1:
Legal Parent #2:
Biological Parent #1:
Biological Parent #2:
The only people who give a fuck about this are people who honestly believe they're going to hell if they dont, and that's a rather ridiculous proposition for a government that has spent the last 4 years locking children in dog kennels for the crime of being born Brown And Somewhere Else.