If U.S. Supreme Court justices imagined they could watch from the wings while lower courts completed the hard work of securing justice for the 200,000 American children being raised by same-sex parents, they know better now, Brian Dickerson writes in the Free Press.
In their 2-1 decision reinstating same-sex marriage bans in Michigan and three other states, Sixth Circuit Judges Jeffrey Sutton and Deborah Cook broke with appellate colleagues who had struck down similar bans in four other federal circuits with jurisdiction over nearly half the states.
Thursday's ruling means it is still legal for the attorneys general of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee to discriminate against same-sex couples, but illegal for their counterparts in 23 other states to do so...
Until Thursday, no federal appellate court had ever swallowed the specious claim that laws banning gay marriage were designed principally to promote "responsible procreation" or protect children. As U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman pointed out in his decision striking down Michigan's ban, there is simply no credible evidence that excluding same-sex couples has been a boon to any child.
