In a couple of days, two high-profile civil trials will be under way in Detroit's Federal Court.
In addition to Judge Steven Rhodes' ongoing bankruptcy proceeding, Judge Bernard Friedman this week starts a non-jury trial of a marriage equality case.
Hazel Park nurses April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse originally sued in January 2013 to win joint custody of their three adopted children and later expanded the case to challenge Michigan's same-sex marriage ban.
Jayne Rowse holds her 4-year-old son, Nolan, at left. April DeBoer holds Ryanne and Jacob, both 3.
When Friedman scheduled this week's trial, Brian Dickerson writes in the Free Press, "it looked as if DeBoer v. Snyder might become the decisive battleground in the nationwide campaign for marriage equality."
What a difference four months has made.
While lawyers for both sides have been preparing for the trial that begins in Friedman’s Detroit courtroom this Tuesday, federal judges elsewhere have struck down all or parts of state laws banning same-sex marriage in Ohio, Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Virginia. . . .
By the time a new law permitting gay marriage in Illinois takes effect June 1, same-sex couples will be free to marry in at least 17 states. . . .
With federal appellate judges already poised to take up same-sex rulings from half a dozen trial courts, the likelihood that DeBoer v. Snyder will percolate its way through the system to the U.S. Supreme Court is diminishing.
Still, a Detroit ruling on the hot-button issue "is likely to create a stir," the Freep columnist predicts.
Friedman has already telegraphed his skepticism that Michigan’s same-sex marriage ban can withstand constitutional scrutiny. . . .
I’ll be surprised if he allows it to stand as is. . . .
DeBoer and Rowse’s attorneys believe the expert evidence will convince Friedman that [Atty. Gen. Bill] Schuette has no rational basis for his argument that Michigan’s gay marriage ban is good for children. . . .
When it’s over, Michigan voters may be left wondering why, with so many demands on their state’s limited law enforcement resources, Michigan’s attorney general spent so much time and money just to make sure two loving parents couldn’t adopt each other’s special-needs children.
Earlier coverage by Deadline Detroit:
Michigan Same-Sex Marriage Case Goes To Trial, Oct. 16, 2013
