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Loading ...Challenge to Louisiana anti-gay amendments
04.22.2009 1:08pm EDT
(New Orleans, Louisiana) A New Orleans same-sex couple is asking a federal court to strike down an amendment to the Louisiana constitution that limits marriage to opposite-sex couples.
Kristoffer Bonilla, 33, and John Thomas Wray, 18, filed the lawsuit after they were refused a marriage license at city hall on April 2.The lawsuit, which names city and state officials, alleges that the amendment overwhelmingly passed by voters in 2004, violates the U.S. Constitution.
The suit says that the denial of the right for same-sex couples violates the First Amendment “by curtailing the right to marry based upon a religious interpretation of the nature and purpose of marriage itself.”
“By failing to articulate a legitimate, compelling and secular interest for the restriction on marriage, the state has necessarily established a wholly religious civil institution,” the lawsuit says.
The suit was prepared by Bonilla himself. He is a graduate of law school in New Orleans law school said he is not a practicing attorney.
State officials and LGBT advocates say they believe it is the first case of its kind in Louisiana.
“This has the potential to be a pretty important case,” Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine told The Associated Press. Levine is one of the defendants named in the case.
Although it is the first case seeking marriage rights in the state, a challenge to the Louisiana amendment was filed shortly after it was approved by voters in 2004. A district judge struck it down on a technicality over the way the question was put to voters. Several months later, the Louisiana Supreme Court reversed the ruling.
Louisiana also does not recognize full same-sex parenting rights. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is considering a case involving a birth certificate for a child adopted by a gay couple.
Earlier this month, the court issued a stay on an order by a lower court ordering the state to put the names of both men on the birth certificate. The full court is expected to hear arguments in the case later this year.
Oren Adar and Mickey Smith adopted their Louisiana-born son in a New York court in 2006, where a judge issued an adoption decree.
When Smith attempted to get a new birth certificate for their child, in part so he could add his son to his health insurance, the office of Louisiana State Registrar Darlene Smith told him that Louisiana does not recognize adoption by unmarried parents and so could not issue it.
Lambda Legal filed suit on behalf of Adar and Smith in October 2007, saying that the registrar was violating the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution by refusing to recognize the New York adoption. The Constitution holds that judgments and orders issued by a court in one state are legally binding in other states as well.
In December, U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey in New Orleans ordered the state Office of Vital Records to put the names of both fathers on the amended birth certificate.
In his ruling, Zainey said failing to amend the birth certificate violated the U.S. Constitution.
I just do not understand why all the legal, seperation of sex etc. …
I personally feel that a person should be free to marry whom ever they want, as long as they are not hurting others, physically that is. Politicians are changing the constitution, and denying gays of a right to *Free Life, Free Marrage, Health Benefits for companions, Right to have children. Who is to say that two moms or two dads are not as good as one mom and dad, if not better.
I wish the law makers and courts would let people live their lives to the best of their ability and marry who eever they want. It is their personal life and it is too short not to be happy.
Just what is it hurting????? It is time to put away those old 1930 laws LA and catch up with the times it is 2009.
A very interesting case indeed.
Rodney Moore, I see where you’re going but nothing is stopping the UCCs and MCCs out there from performing marriage ceremonies. They just won’t be legally recognized by the state.
Places of worship are not necessary in weddings or marriage. All that is necessary is a marriage license when it comes to a legal marriage.
The state would never come out and say they base marriage on religious conviction and we can’t say that ALL people who are against marriage equality are against it for religious reasons. There are plenty of religious people who are for marriage equality…just like there are non religious people who are against it.
“Congress(state or federal govts) shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, nor the free practice thereof”
By making marriage a religious institution and excluding gays and lesbians from marriage, based on religious justification. The state of Louisiana has violated the separation clause of the Constitution. This angle is not equal protection, but the religious freedom angle, which has NOT been used as it should.
If marriage is a religious institution, as many have argued, than the state has no right to define it or prohibit it. If marriage is a civil institution, which it is, than to deny it to gays and lesbians violates the equal protection clause. But even more so, if the state, by way of legislature or amendment process, tries to super-impose religious(even widely held religious) definition, restrictions and qualities upon a civil institution then not only does one violate equal protection but the 1st Amendment’s guarantee of Freedom of Religion itself. To define marriage as between one man and one woman exclusively, based on religious justification, violates the freedom of religion of those gays and lesbians who feel religiously justified in believing marriage is between two men, two women or man and woman. The state of Louisiana has effectively said that Catholic marriage rules are valid, but United Church of Christ rules are not. This would qualify as an “establishment of religion” as well as “prohibition of the free excercise thereof” because the prohibition of same-sex marriage prevents the MCC, UCC and other gay affirming denominations the right to bless a marriage according to the dictates of their own faith.
Louisiana has the most reactionary state Supreme Court in the country. No help there. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals is probably the most conservative federal appelate court. So don’t count on justice from them either.