Federal Judge in Puerto Rico Rules Against Gay Marriage
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| Morcillas |
After the Supreme Court decision (non decision ) of Oct. 6 all the district courts that were not on line with the message of the supremes, got in line. Even districts that fell on the three homophobes of the courts like Scalia. The Supremes had an understanding after meeting with justice Kennedy that either they take the case in which there are 5 justices(including Kennedy)for vs. four for against or instead let the states keep going the way they were going unless there was a dissenting district appeals court. The Puerto Rican judge one of the Scalia persuasion has decided to break rank and go against all the others. Why? He might be wanting to run for governor or do something that he feels he needs the majority of Puerto Ricans which at this time are on the side of religion. The people living in PR is the demographic that least goes with gay marriage. They are over 55. The ones that can not due without pork , Morcillas(blood sausages and shell fish)…..which you know they already should have been stoned to death following that side of the bible which condemns without doubt this type of food along with women cutting their hair, etc.which is ignore and never even read in the churches.
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| Crab salad with morcillas |
It is such a shame that Puerto rico is following the rest of the homophobia in the Caribbean. The reason is the Religion. Puerto Ricans are very religious, they might not follow dogma but they follow tradition. The Pentecostals and the adventists are very strong there. You still have the catholic church but the worse problem comes from the protestants. Now they will learn that we are getting Gay marriages this fast because they hatred for change. Hate blinds people and sometimes they cut their noses despite their faces. I don’t give this decision any great importance except it might make headlines, but if the press has already figure out the road the high court put the nation in there might not be even be that.
As a gay Puerto Rican I wanted to give the take I see on this before you read the actual media news. The news post below comes from the Washington Post. If there is something you don’t understand just ask, I will answer for you.
Adam Gonzalez, Adamfoxie*blog Int.
United States District Judge Juan Perez-Gimenez has dismissed a challenge to Puerto Rico’s law limiting marriage to one man and one woman. He concluded the outcome was controlled by the Supreme Court’s summary rejection of same-sex marriage claims in Baker v. Nelson in 1972, a view that has been rejected by every other federal court since United States v. Windsor on the grounds that doctrinal changes have eroded Baker. The decision heightens anticipation of what other judges now considering same-sex marriage cases may do. Appointed by President Carter in 1979, Judge Perez-Gimenez also becomes the first Democrat-appointed judge to rule against same-sex marriage since Windsor.
While purporting not to decide the merits, the judge made plain his merits conclusions about constitutional arguments for same-sex marriage in a concluding section:
Recent affirmances of same-gender marriage seem to suffer from a peculiar inability to recall the principles embodied in existing marriage law. Traditional marriage is “exclusively [an] opposite-sex institution . . . inextricably linked to procreation and biological kinship,” Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2718 (Alito, J., dissenting). Traditional marriage is the fundamental unit of the political order. And ultimately the very survival of the political order depends upon the procreative potential embodied in traditional marriage. Those are the well-tested, well-proven principles on which we have relied for centuries. The question now is whether judicial“wisdom” may contrive methods by which those solid principles can be circumvented or even discarded.
In addition to the threat same-sex marriage may pose to “the fundamental unit of the political order,” Judge Perez-Giminez went on to raise the specter of a constitutional right to polygamous and incestuous marriages.
The decision does two important things, in addition to denying marriage to same-sex couples in Puerto Rico. First, it puts the First Circuit back in play in the national litigation, although every state in the circuit already recognizes same-sex marriage. A panel of that court suggested that Bakerdid indeed bar same-sex marriage constitutional claims in its decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act in 2012. According to Perez-Giminez, “the First Circuit has spared us from the misapprehension that has plagued our sister courts” over whether federal courts can entertain same-sex marriage claims. It will be interesting to see whether the First Circuit itself thinks it is bound by the statements about Baker in its 2012 decision or whether it concludes they were dicta.
Second, the issue of Baker‘s effect is actively being considered in other circuits. Most immediately, the Sixth Circuit is already considering a casethat turns in part on whether Baker controls. In the Eighth Circuit, a motion to dismiss a same-sex marriage challenge was argued in a South Dakota district court last Friday. (The challenge was brought by my former student Joshua Newville.) And the Fifth Circuit will soon schedule argument in Texas’s appeal from a district court decision striking down that state’s limitation on marriage.
No matter whether it’s decided on Baker grounds or on substantive grounds, a decision denying same-sex marriage at the appellate court level would create the circuit split on same-sex marriage that awaits resolution by the Supreme Court.
Dale Carpenter is the Distinguished University Teaching Professor and Earl R. Larson Professor of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. He teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law; the freedoms of speech, association, and religion; and sexual orientation and the law.
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