Friday, June 27, 2014
7th Circuit Grants Stay Of Judge Young's Ruling, Halting Issuance Of Same-Sex Marriage Licenses In Indiana
Attorney General Greg Zoeller filed a motion with the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals late this afternoon to obtain a stay of Judge Richard Young's order handed down on Wednesday, which struck down Indiana's Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional and ordered affected Indiana clerks to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couple applicants. An order signed by Judges Richard Posner, David Hamilton and Ann Claire Williams granted Zoeller's request for a stay pending an appeal. Zoeller sought a stay from the appellate court after Judge Young failed to timely respond to the emergency stay request he filed on Wednesday only hours after Judge Young issued his order. The stay effectively halts county clerks in Indiana from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples until the state's appeal of Judge Young's ruling is decided. WTHR has posted a copy of the stay here.
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36 comments:
There ought to be a ton of outrage directed toward that putz Zoeller.
I'm pleased with the stay, though Judge Young should perhaps have been more cooperative and available to Zoeller. If he were truly unavailable in the wake of such a profound disruption to the social landscape, questions might arise as to motive.
Though I disagree with gay marriage, it's perhaps useful to say what I do agree with. Gay people have an unfettered right to date as they want, live with whom they want, live how they want, enjoy life with whom they want, have relationships with whom they want, give their property to whom they want, give medical access to whom they want, and any other damn thing they want to do that doesn't require anyone else to do something.
What I strongly disagree with is the gay agenda of forcing the country to accept as normal the gay lifestyle, utterly dispensing with centuries of social understanding to be replaced with novel and late-arrived ideas.
I think the gay community has gone too far, overplayed its hand and has asked for too much with gay marriage in each and every state. Where gays had enjoyed a couple decades of quiet tolerance and the appearance of normalcy, gay marriage will inflame old hostilities. Forcing gay marriage on Oklahoma, Kansas and Utah is downright foolish and dangerous.
Lastly, gay marriage is nowhere in the Constitution, and it's the most tortured legal reasoning and does the fiercest violence to the document to taffy pull it wide enough to stuff gay marriage into it.
There is a STRONG probability that the SCOTUS will clearly see that the 10th Amendment delegates marriage to The States. The Federal Government cannot interfere with The State's Rights.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Anonymous 10:37,
Hate to burst your bubble, but no interpretation of the 10th Amendment allows the states to violate the 14th Amendment. Even a 2nd year law student could blast your argument to pieces and laugh while doing so. Give it a rest.
Given U.S. v. Windsor, Judge Young's decision in the main case was preordained; however, I believe that a strong case can be made that he was derelict in his duties as a federal judge in refusing to act on the emergency stay filed by the state's Attorney General regardless of whether you agree with Zoeller's position. The fact that the 7th Circuit panel signed the stay so quickly after the AG filed it was a clear rebuke of Judge Young's inaction on an emergency order for more than 2 days.
There have also been rumblings about the apparent foreknowledge that plaintiffs had of the ruling, even to the point of ordering wedding cake the night before and making advanced preparations in the Marion County Clerk's Office to begin issuing licenses to people who were prepared to rush down to the City-County Building on a moment's notice to form long lines and create a big media circus. Even worse was the granting of licenses to people who had already obtained marriage licenses in other states, which either required lying on the application about a person's existing marriage or the clerk's staff simply ignoring the fact that they were issuing licenses to people already married.
I also think that there were some attorneys who were completely out of line in suggesting to the media that clerks in counties, other than those directly impacted by Judge Young's order by virtue of having plaintiffs in the case who resided within their counties, were in contempt of court and could be jailed. Those clerks had a rational basis for withholding their decision on whether to issue licenses until a ruling on the stay had been handed down or they were specifically ordered by the court to begin issuing marriage licenses in their counties.
Marriage is a fundamental human right. Judge not lest ye be judged. The end.
Take note that Marion County Clerk Beth White (D) was quick to not only issue the gay marriage licenses, but to perform the unions...IN VIOLATION OF STATE LAW.
Does anyone think that Democrat Terry Curry will file a charge of Official Misconduct against a fellow Democrat???
IC 35-44.1-1-1 Official Misconduct
Sec. 1. A public servant who knowingly or intentionally:
(1) commits an offense in the performance of the public servant's official duties;
commits official misconduct, a Class D felony.
The counties directly impacted by Judge Young's order were Allen, Boone, Hamilton, Lake and Porter Counties. The clerks in those counties would have been in contempt of Judge Young's order if they refused to issue marriage licenses before the stay was granted. The AG so advised those clerks. In other counties, the AG advised them that they were not under the jurisdiction of the order issued by Judge Young since they weren't named as defendants but should respect any orders issued by the court.
Gay marriage is in the 14th Amendment, Cox?
Any person with a real degree and a real line of work could blast this ridiculous assertion out of the room with a laugh and an insult at lawyers.
Here's the 14th Amendment:
Amendment XIV
Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2.
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.
Section 3.
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4.
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5.
The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Not even a hint of gays or gay marriage in there. Guess you have to be a lawyer to just make up words where none exist.
The text 10:37 posted appears far more accurate and relevant than your "reasoning."
What I find utterly disgusting in all of this is the way the U.S. courts just make things up and decide as they want cases to turn out.
The Second Amendment says: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
It's right there, clear as day, yet you can't carry a gun in New York City. Abortion and gay marriage are nowhere in the Constitution, but U.S. Courts have found that the Constitution fully guarantees and protects these acts in New York City.
How can anyone think the U.S. Court system is doing anything but just deciding cases as it wants them to turn out?
Anon 11:00 p.m. You quote The Bible, but it also says in Leviticus 20:13: "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."
Enough said.
Leftist judicial activism is cause for Impeachment. All judges who have thus far abandoned their oath of office, should be impeached from office.
An honest question here, but where is straight marriage mentioned or specifically protected in the Constitution?
There are some who had obtained their license before the 7th Circuit ruling yesterday afternoon but still had not had an official ceremony
conducted as of then.
Anyone care to guess what their status is now?
Gary, you are wrong about Judge Young. The AG only filed a stay in two of the three cases and did not file the motion for stay in the third case until Friday morning. The AG asked for a blanket stay and as the AG acknowledged, there could be no effective stay of the judgment until all three cases were stayed. It was the AG who caused the delay.
And while I love you and your blog, stop seeing black helicopters! Beth White's office, just like the rest of us, had an inkling of how the judge might rule when he found the State had no likelihood of success on the merits when he granted the initial preliminary injunction. Being a good officeholder, Beth White was prepared for when the decision came down. And, as one who was there, I can tell you, the cake did not appear immediately.
And Anonymous 10:02, what the heck is a gay agenda? Are you fearful that armies of gays and lesbians are going to attempt to recruit you and yours? And what the heck is the "appearance of normalcy"? What happens in the bedroom between two consenting adults is not a public appearance of anything nor is it any of your business or my business. You think being heterosexual is normal and gay is abnormal? Well, I am a heterosexual who thinks being gay is like breathing and eating and hair color - it is part of who you are. Learning to live with people who are different from us is the "normalcy" towards which we should be striving.
Veracity, stopped splitting hairs. As the Star reported:
Zoeller sought relief from the appellate court after initially filing a request for a stay in Young's court just hours after Wednesday's ruling. In a statement before the 7th Circuit issued the stay, Zoeller's office said it had expected an immediate ruling from Young on his request.
"That has not yet happened," the statement said, "so the AG's Office today filed a separate emergency motion for stay in the higher court, the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago."
In its filing, the state's attorney said "without a stay, any same-sex marriages granted now might have their legal validity questioned later if the United States Supreme Court eventually were to rule in favor of states in upcoming legal challenges to marriage laws."
And by the way, Veracity, the so-called "black helicopter conspiracy" meme that dishonest government officials and their protectors always throw our at their detractors was long ago disproven when the military finally admitted the existence of the high-tech helicopters after denying their existence of years.
Veracity said:
"What happens in the bedroom between two consenting adults is not a public appearance of anything nor is it any of your business or my business."
So Beth White was issuing licenses and performing wedding ceremonies in bedrooms?
Anonymous 11:42, what part of "equal protection" do you not understand? What part of "equal protection" says it's OK to deny gays the right to marry?
Anonymous 12:22,
Arguing that the teachings of a religious book should be the basis for state law enforceable by violence is what the Taliban and al Qaida do.
Hey anonymous 12:22, it's me anonymous 11:00. I'd like to jump onto what Jeff said and point out that putting in bold a punishment for death is fairly severe. It almost seems like a terroristic threat. Are you a Christian? Doesn't seem like you are trying to be very Christ like. Also, do you take literally everything written in Leviticus ?
Why don't you propose that everything in the bible is interpreted into current law, including polygamy and slavery?
Leviticus also states that it is wrong to bring a child into a church within 33days of its birth if it's a boy, 66if it's a girl.
Jesus cam to teach us revolutionary compassion and HUMILITY. Not scriptural cherry picking.
Found this online:
Here’s chapter and verse on a more-or-less comprehensive list of things banned in the Leviticus book of the bible. A decent number of them are punishable by death.
Unless you’ve never done any of them (and 54 to 56 are particularly tricky), perhaps it’s time to lay off quoting 18:22 for a while?
1. Burning any yeast or honey in offerings to God (2:11)
2. Failing to include salt in offerings to God (2:13)
3. Eating fat (3:17)
4. Eating blood (3:17)
5. Failing to testify against any wrongdoing you’ve witnessed (5:1)
6. Failing to testify against any wrongdoing you’ve been told about (5:1)
7. Touching an unclean animal (5:2)
8. Carelessly making an oath (5:4)
9. Deceiving a neighbour about something trusted to them (6:2)
10. Finding lost property and lying about it (6:3)
11. Bringing unauthorised fire before God (10:1)
12. Letting your hair become unkempt (10:6)
13. Tearing your clothes (10:6)
14. Drinking alcohol in holy places (bit of a problem for Catholics, this ‘un) (10:9)
15. Eating an animal which doesn’t both chew cud and has a divided hoof (cf: camel, rabbit, pig) (11:4-7)
16. Touching the carcass of any of the above (problems here for rugby) (11:8)
17. Eating – or touching the carcass of – any seafood without fins or scales (11:10-12)
18. Eating – or touching the carcass of - eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, the red kite, any kind of black kite, any kind of raven, the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk, the little owl, the cormorant, the great owl, the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey, the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat. (11:13-19)
19. Eating – or touching the carcass of – flying insects with four legs, unless those legs are jointed (11:20-22)
20. Eating any animal which walks on all four and has paws (good news for cats) (11:27)
21. Eating – or touching the carcass of – the weasel, the rat, any kind of great lizard, the gecko, the monitor lizard, the wall lizard, the skink and the chameleon (11:29)
22. Eating – or touching the carcass of – any creature which crawls on many legs, or its belly (11:41-42)
23. Going to church within 33 days after giving birth to a boy (12:4)
24. Going to church within 66 days after giving birth to a girl (12:5)
Cox, how does "equal protection," in any way, come anywhere near governing or concerning gay marriage? Indiana's marriage laws quite clearly apply equally to all. I don't see any matter on which you can be confused; neither do I grant any basis for your argument.
Was gay marriage discussed during the proposal and ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment? The amendment would have been discussed in Congress, in the vibrant press of the day and in every state house. Can you find a single contemporaneous mention to gay marriage in any of these extensive debates and discussions?
You're going to have to do more than ask a bare question to carry your point. You currently stand a long way from proving your claim.
Jeff Cox: The 14th Amendment has nothing to do with gay marriage. In fact the Constitution specifies that: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Sorry, Jeff. The Constitution specifies that marriage is an issue for The States to decide.
Anonymous 12:38,
Abortion rights apply to all as well. Therefore, using your logic, a man should be able to get an abortion.
Anonymous 12:43,
I read your "argument." It amounts to "marriage is about having babies. Nothing more." Congratulations. You have just insulted every childless couple in America and reduced marriage to a biological mechanism, which is what it was in the Middle Ages.
Anonymous 2:57,
So, in your "constitutional" view, a state can ban blacks from marrying. After all, marriage is only a state issue. How Dred Scott of you.
Very weak responses, Jeff.
Anonymous 8:13,
And yet still more than enough to rebut the ridiculous "constitutional" arguments made here.
To Jeff Cox: I'd encourage you to take a middle-school civics class so you may better understand our form of government. The framers of The Constitution brought the states together to form a single country, for limited purposes that the states agreed on. A Bill of Rights was passed containing a specific 10th Amendment that stated if the Constitution did not grant The Federal Government authority nor prohibit something, it is up to The States to decide.
You must realize that you have no basis for your argument when you try to put a spin on the truth. A truth that is so important that our Blog Owner has posted it in the Advance Indiana masthead. "Dedicated to the advancement of the State of Indiana by re-affirming our state's constitutional principles that: all people are created equal"
The Indiana Constitution states in Article I, Paragraph I, "We declare that all people are created equal..." That alone just blew your convoluted spin out of the thread! You can't win this one, Jeff. The Indiana Constitution prohibits racial discrimination, as you suggest it stops certain races from being married. Look around you, Jeff Cox, Indiana has equal protection of laws and all people have the same chance to get married under the law with no regard to race. It has been said that when someone has no merit to their cause, they throw in the race-card. Well, Jeff Cox threw in the race-card, and obviously has no merit.
The Constitution of The United States, without dispute, by virtue of the 10th Amendment, left marriage to the states, just like incorporation of a business, and most other matters.
One final thought, Jeff Cox: Your post 5:29 began with the race-card and ended with name-calling.
Jeff Cox uses argumentum ad hominem, a general category of fallacies in which he tries to reject the truth on the basis of some irrelevant spun-off fact about the person presenting the argument. Jeff Cox dropped the ever-emotionally appealing race-card, so closely associated with highly valued concepts and beliefs that it may carry belief without any valid argument, supporting information or reason.
Anonymous 9:01,
I just took the "anonymous" argument to its logical conclusion. If states are the only ones to have any say whatsoever in marriage, that federal constitutional rights do not apply, then a state can ban blacks from marrying. You don't get to cry "foul" when your own argument is taken to its own abhorrent conclusion.
Nor do you get to say you're for equal protection when you're trying to deny equal protection to others, including the editor of this blog. You don't far to invoke Indiana's equal protection provision when your entire argument is about the states' ability to deny equal protection.
Finally, you don't get to cry over "name-calling" when you're too much of a coward to attach your own name to your posts. Not that it matters. Judging by the lack of intelligence in your "anonymous" posts I think your identity is becoming more and more clear.
Cox at 8:52:
Only because vapid courts side with you.
In a real forum of logical exchange, you lost, long ago.
You brought up the 14th Amendment as trumping the 10th Amendment on gay marriage. You were asked to defend your claim, to show where gay marriage is in the 14th. You were asked to show where gay marriage was ever considered in the deliberation and ratification of the 14th.
You didn't answer, because you can't answer. Your position is groundless and wholly contrived. In response to being cornered so quickly, you lobbed a series of sophomoric taunts and ran away from the discussion.
This passes for "lawyering?"
I won't presume to speak for Gary, but I suspect he allows anonymous posts so he can continue to expose corruption in state and local government, giving some measure of protection to government workers exposing that corruption. You're just making sanctimonious statements that went out of style with the Civil War. Where it was clearly estaished that state's rights do not trump individual rights. Perhaps you missed that.
And please, promote that story of me all you want. Any publicity is good publicity. That's one reason I put my name by my statements and take the slings and arrows for them, however outrageous. The bigger reason is, of course, honesty. You should look into it sometime.
The highest court to hear these issues so far is the tenth circuit court of appeals which upheld a Utah judge’s decision striking down the State’s ban. This appeals court set a precedent by finding that voter-approved bans on same-sex marriage — such as Utah’s Amendment 3 — violate the constitutional rights of same-sex couples to equal protection and due process. Unless the U.S. Supreme Court invalidates, this is the law of the land in the tenth circuit. Indiana’s 7th Circuit may reach the same conclusion, or it may split from the tenth. It can still go either way. But the language from the Court’s opinion reflects consensus from some 14 federal cases in a row to reach similar result. “We hold that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right to marry, establish a family, raise children and enjoy the full protection of a state’s marital laws,” the majority wrote in its decision, posted on the court's website. “A state may not deny the issuance of a marriage license to two persons, or refuse to recognize their marriage, based solely upon the sex of the persons in the marriage union. A similar case in Oklahoma is pending before the 10th circuit. And a Virginia case that struck down that state’s ban has been argued on appeal and a decision is pending. Its anyone’s guess what the 7th circuit will do with Indiana’s decision. Wait and see. But the strong trend is to find both equal protection and due process arguments in favor of gay marriage. Unless we quickly see a split between the circuits, this will be the law of the land. There was a strong dissent from Judge Kelly in the 10th circuit opinion who warned the court was overstepping it authority, but that is the kind of sovereign state argument that few judges believe trumps the 14th amendment. The smart money is still betting on gay marriage nationally. Greg Zoeller had a hard time even getting his stay. He has very few moves left.
Wasn't it Antonin Scalia who, when queried about the gay marriage issue, adked, "Where in the U.S. Constitution does it say gays are not allowed to marry?"
Same sex sharia notwithstanding; no common language- no law.
"Where it was clearly estaished that state's rights do not trump individual rights."
Walk away, Cox. Now you're hiding behind the Civil War / War of Northern Aggression as proof that gay marriage is in the 14th Amendment?
The War of Northern Aggression had nothing, at all, to do with individual rights. I know you're soft on history, so here's what you won't learn from Ken Burns: the WNA proved that whoever has the most guns wins and that the U.S. Government will kill people to have greater power than the states.
Nothing in those facts is proof that gay marriage is in the 14th or that the 14th guarantees every conceivable individual right to the citizens of the United States.
Today a federal judge has struck down Kentucky's ban on same-sex marriage, ruling that gay couples have the right to marry in the Bluegrass State.
"In America, even sincere and long-hold religious beliefs do not trump the constitutional rights of those who happen to have been out-voted," U.S. District court Judge John G. Heyburn II wrote in the ruling, which concluded that the state's ban violated the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause.
The judge stayed the ruling pending an appeal in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court, meaning same-sex weddings are not yet allowed in the state. However, Heyburn criticized Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear (D) for arguing that the ban preserves the state's birth rate and therefore contributes to Kentucky's economic stability.
"These arguments are not those of serious people," Heyburn wrote.
Beshear plans to appeal Tuesday's ruling.
Earlier this year, Heyburn ruled that the state must recognize same-sex marriages performed in states where the weddings are legal. That decision is also temporarily on hold pending legal challenges.
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