Quick Note: A Sad Day at the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals

After a long string of victories for the marriage equality movement, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit dropped the ball yesterday in Cincinnati.

In a 2-1 ruling, the panel decreed that bans on same-sex marriage could stand in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Judges Jeffrey Sutton speaking for himself and Deborah Cook, (a fellow-GOP appointee), wrote, "When the courts do not let people resolve new social issues like this one, they perpetuate the idea that the heroes in these change events are judges and lawyers.  Better in this instance, we think, to allow change through the customary political processes, in which the people, gay and straight alike, become the heroes of their own stories by meeting each other not as adversaries in a court system but as fellow citizens seeking to resolve a new social issue in a fair-minded way."

This sounds like some idea they lifted from a really bad Harlequin romance novel, or maybe one of those saccharine, high school Civics film strips from the 1950s.

Ignoring the fact that the cases before them involved issues like whether same-sex marriages performed elsewhere should be recognized, whether same-sex couples should be able to adopt children and whether same-sex couples should have their names on their spouse's death certificate, the decision instead focused solely on whether LGBT couples have the right to marry at all.  Their ruling maintained that states "got into the business of defining marriage, and remain in the business of defining marriage, not to regulate love but to regulate sex, most especially the intended and unintended effects of male-female intercourse." 

I've said this before, but it apparently needs to be repeated: this procreation argument is senseless.  If breeding is considered the sole reason for marrying, why don't states require fertility tests before issuing a marriage license?  And what about couples who pass the big "F" test, but remain childless?  Does the state revoke their license if they don't produce 2.5 children within a certain time frame?   

Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey, the sole Democratic appointee on the panel, wrote a blistering 22-page dissent.  Addressing the other judges' reasoning that courts and judges should not decide this issue, she wrote, "If we in the judiciary do not have the authority, and indeed the responsibility, to right fundamental wrongs left excused by a majority of the electorate, our whole intricate, constitutional system of checks and balances, as well as the oaths to which we swore, prove to be nothing but shams."

The only positive I can take away from the 6th Circuit Court's decision is that, now the Supreme Court is faced with divergent rulings at the Appeals Court level and will be more likely to agree to hear a case or cases.  With thirty-two states plus the District of Columbia allowing same-sex marriage, I don't see how SCOTUS can allow same-sex couples in these four states to live under a label of second-class citizenship. They can't dodge the issue any longer.

But why, oh why, did it have to happen in my state? Isn't being home to John Boehner burden enough for Ohio to bear?