Last of the Anti-Gay Marriage Judges [View all]

[DonViejo]

A judge upheld Louisiana's ban on same-sex marriage—but support for freedom to marry is now the norm across America.

When a judge refers to being gay as "lifestyle choices," you know there's going to be a problem.

That’s how U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman, appointed to the bench in 1983 by President Reagan, teed up his ruling on Wednesday upholding Louisiana's denial of the freedom to marry to gay couples.

Fortunately, Judge Feldman's legal opinion is an outlier, the only one out of 26 in federal courts in the last year that didn’t find marriage discrimination unconstitutional.

The very next day, another Reagan appointee, Judge Richard Posner, in a unanimous ruling for the 7th Circuit federal appellate court, struck down comparable marriage bans in Wisconsin and Indiana. In an authoritative, hard-hitting opinion Judge Posner eviscerated the justification Judge Feldman had latched onto, writing, "The only rationale that the states put forth with any conviction—that same-sex couples and their children don’t need marriage because same-sex couples can’t produce children, intended or unintended—is so full of holes that it cannot be taken seriously." Judge Posner’s dismantling of the specious arguments for the denial of the freedom to marry was so pointed, so effective, so direct—so readable!—that I wonder if any other state will dare trot them out again.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/05/louisiana-s-gay-marriage-ban-is-an-outlier.html