Another Marriage Ban Bites the Dust

Another Marriage Ban Bites the Dust

DOMA bites the dust again

Once again, a US federal judge strikes down a gay marriage ban – this time in Michigan. US District Judge Bernard Friedman said there is no “credible” evidence that heterosexual couples make better parents and dismissed as “unbelievable and not worthy of serious consideration” the testimony anti-marriage “experts” gave in their attempt to prove that children raised by same-sex couples “fare worse” than those raised by heterosexual couples.

This is just the latest in a number of court rulings to find gay marriage bans unconstitutional.

The judge issued a 31-page opinion stating the state of Michigan did not overcome legitimate expert testimony offered by marriage supporters that “every major professional organization in the United States whose focus is the health and well-being of children and families” has concluded that children raised by gay and lesbian parents “are not disadvantaged.”

Friedman also ruled that the gay marriage ban not only violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection under the law, the Michigan law “fosters the potential for childhood destabilization.”

Of course Michigan’s Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette immediately filed an appeal.

So far – since June of 2013 – when the U.S. Supreme Court determined that couples in same-sex marriages were entitled to the same federal benefits and protections as their heterosexual counterparts, federal judges in Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Virginia have ruled in favor of marriage for LGBTQ couples. The New Mexico Supreme Court also made a similar decision regarding that state’s marriage ban.

This is just one more notch on our belt toward full equality in every state in the U.S.