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Dissenting 6th Circuit Judge: Anti-Gay Marriage Ruling ‘Fails’ On ‘Constitutional Question’

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The dissenting judge in today’s 2-1 6th Circuit decision upholding marriage bans in four states has written a stunning rebuke of her colleagues’ work.

The author of the majority opinion has drafted what would make an engrossing TED Talk or, possibly, an introductory lecture in Political Philosophy. But as an appellate court decision, it wholly fails to grapple with the relevant constitutional question in this appeal: whether a state’s constitutional prohibition of same-sex marriage violates equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead, the majority sets up a false premise—that the question before us is “who should decide?”—and leads us through a largely irrelevant discourse on democracy and federalism. In point of fact, the real issue before us concerns what is at stake in these six cases for the individual plaintiffs and their children, and what should be done about it. Because I reject the majority’s resolution of these questions based on its invocation of vox populi and its reverence for “proceeding with caution” (otherwise known as the “wait and see” approach), I dissent.

So begins the dissenting opinion – over 20 pages long – in today’s stunning 6th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that finds states can ban same-sex marriage. The ruling sets off a constitutional challenge that most likely will go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

(The complete ruling is embedded above, thanks to Equality Case Files.)

Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey wrote the dissent.

Readers may remember the audio of Judge Daughtrey’s fiery questioning during the case.

“It doesn’t look like the sky has fallen,” Judge Daughtrey told the court, in the ten-plus years same-sex marriage has been on the books in Massachusetts. 

Daughtrey’s opinion continues:

In the main, the majority treats both the issues and the litigants here as mere abstractions. Instead of recognizing the plaintiffs as persons, suffering actual harm as a result of being denied the right to marry where they reside or the right to have their valid marriages recognized there, my colleagues view the plaintiffs as social activists who have somehow stumbled into federal court, inadvisably, when they should be out campaigning to win “the hearts and minds” of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee voters to their cause. But these plaintiffs are not political zealots trying to push reform on their fellow citizens; they are committed same-sex couples, many of them heading up de facto families, who want to achieve equal status— de jure status, if you will—with their married neighbors, friends, and coworkers, to be accepted as contributing members of their social and religious communities, and to be welcomed as fully legitimate parents at their children’s schools. They seek to do this by virtue of exercising a civil right that most of us take for granted—the right to marry.

Bam!

She then slams “what has come to be known as the “irresponsible procreation” theory: “that limiting marriage and its benefits to opposite-sex couples is rational, even necessary, to  provide for ‘unintended offspring’ by channeling their biological procreators into the bonds of matrimony. When we asked counsel why that goal required the simultaneous exclusion of same-sex couples from marrying, we were told that permitting same-sex marriage might denigrate the institution of marriage in the eyes of opposite-sex couples who conceive out of wedlock, causing subsequent abandonment of the unintended offspring by one or both biological parents. We also were informed that because same-sex couples cannot themselves produce wanted or unwanted offspring, and because they must therefore look to non-biological means of parenting that require  planning and expense, stability in a family unit headed by same-sex parents is assured without the benefit of formal matrimony.”

But, as the court in Baskin pointed out, many “abandoned children [born out of wedlock to biological parents] are adopted by homosexual couples, and those children would be better off both emotionally and economically if their adoptive parents were married.” Id. How ironic that irresponsible, unmarried, opposite-sex couples in the Sixth Circuit who produce unwanted offspring must be “channeled” into marriage and thus rewarded with its many psychological and financial benefits, while same-sex couples who become model parents are punished for their responsible behavior by being denied the right to marry. As an obviously exasperated Judge Posner responded after puzzling over this same paradox in Baskin, “Go figure.”

And Judge Daughtrey goes on to denigrate — appropriately — the testimony given by none other than Mark Regnerus.

To counteract the testimony offered by the plaintiffs’ witnesses, the defendants presented as witnesses the authors or co-authors of three studies that disagreed with the conclusions reached by the plaintiffs’ experts. All three studies, however, were given little credence by the district court because of inherent flaws in the methods used or the intent of the authors. For example, the New Family Structures Study reported by Mark Regnerus, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin, admittedly relied upon interviews of children from gay or lesbian families who were products of broken heterosexual unions in order to support a conclusion that living with such gay or lesbian families adversely affected the development of the children. Regnerus conceded, moreover, that his own department took the highly unusual step of issuing the following statement on the university website in response to the release of the study: [Dr. Regnerus’s opinions] do not reflect the views of the sociology department of the University of Texas at Austin. Nor do they reflect the views of the American Sociological Association which takes the position that the conclusions he draws from his study of gay parenting are fundamentally flawed on conceptual and methodological grounds and that the findings from Dr. Regnerus’[s] work have  been cited inappropriately in efforts to diminish the civil rights and legitimacy of LBGTQ partners and their families. In fact, the record before the district court reflected clearly that Regnerus’s study had been funded by the Witherspoon Institute, a conservative “think tank” opposed to same-sex marriage, in order to vindicate “the traditional understanding of marriage.”

And then, bam! again.

Presented with the admitted biases and methodological shortcomings prevalent in the studies performed by the defendant’s experts, the district court found those witnesses “largely unbelievable” and not credible.

 

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‘Dissent Becomes Evil’: Eric Trump’s Claim Father Is Guided by God Slammed by Experts

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October 14, 2025

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Eric Trump’s controversial remarks — declaring that his father is guided by God and praising what he describes as a divinely orchestrated series of events leading America to this moment — are being blasted by a group of hundreds of national security experts.

“I can’t tell you how many things are lining up,” the President’s son told right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson.

“I mean, think about the fact that this book came out on Charlie Kirk’s birthday, on the same day as we have peace in the Middle East,” he said, of his new book. “You know, I mean, so many different factors are all coming together at once in the most unthinkable, unbelievable journey.”

“Look how much better humanity and our world is,” under Trump, he claimed.

READ MORE: ‘Seem Very Nervous’: Top Trump Officials Blasted After Lashing Out at ‘No Kings’ Protests

“You know, we’re saving Christianity. We’re saving God, we’re saving the family unit. We’re saving this nation. I mean, you know, DEI is out the window, Benny. You know, I mean, you no longer have Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the national anthem,” Trump continued. “You no longer have Budweiser going, woke as h–, all of this is dead.”

Trump claimed a resurgence in church attendance, and “a return to people, you know, valuing their children, and valuing society, and believing in the white picket fence, and what the American dream represents, and what the American dream stands for, and American exceptionalism, and peace around the world, and that people can coexist with one another without having to, you know, pick up arms and destroy each other for no reason whatsoever, other than, you know, incompetent, and, you know, and egotistical governments.”

“It’s a beautiful time, and he will go to heaven for all of that,’ he said of his father. “God absolutely guided this journey.”

The Steady State, a group of over 330 former national security officials, slammed the Trump scion’s remarks.

“Eric Trump is not talking politics,” they wrote. “Instead, he’s declaring a new moral order.”

READ MORE: ‘Pure Fascist’: Governor Blasted for Backing ‘Forever’ Federal Joint Policing Operation

“Framing Trump as God-guided and destined for heaven, he claims America has been ‘saved’ from DEI, protest, and pluralism. This is prophetic, authoritarian language,” they warned.

“Dissent becomes evil, and their victory becomes divine destiny.”

Former Obama head speechwriter turned political commentator Jon Favreau remarked, “We’ve moved rather quickly from ‘God saved Trump’ to ‘Trump is saving God,’ which I guess is the foundation of the new MAGA religion?”

Author Jennifer Erin Valent, winner of a Christian writers’ award commented, “No one ‘saves’ God. Every Christian should know that and be repulsed by the very assertion.”

READ MORE: ‘Do Not Love This Country’: GOP Escalates Attacks on ‘No Kings’ Movement

 

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‘Pure Fascist’: Governor Blasted for Backing ‘Forever’ Federal Joint Policing Operation

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October 14, 2025

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Following the launch of a massive federal interagency task force in partnership with state law enforcement, Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee pledged that the “Memphis Safe Task Force” would be a permanent fixture.

Last month, the White House published a presidential memorandum titled “Restoring Law and Order in Memphis,” which orders thirteen federal government agencies and offices to coordinate. It states the “objective shall be to end street and violent crime in Memphis to the greatest possible extent,” and lists actions including “hypervigilant policing, aggressive prosecution, complex investigations, financial enforcement, and large-scale saturation of besieged neighborhoods with law enforcement personnel.”

Memphis is among the most violent cities in the country.

READ MORE: ‘Batten Down the Hatches’: White House Issues New Shutdown Threat

“The Memphis Safe Task Force began operations on September 29, with the National Guard joining efforts this past Friday,” Action5 News reported on Monday.

Governor Lee told reporters on Tuesday, “we’ve just begun,” and said the program will last “for months,” before stating that in some form it will continue “forever.”

“We do know that this is gonna last for months, and we have just begun. In fact, I will tell you that it will last forever,” he said. “Because what we believe will happen is the numbers of law enforcement agents from different agencies will change, depending on the mission at the moment.”

He described a “collaboration that is happening right now between U.S. Marshal Service and the Memphis Police Department, and the FBI, and the DEA, and the Tennessee Highway Patrol.”

READ MORE: ‘Do Not Love This Country’: GOP Escalates Attacks on ‘No Kings’ Movement

“That collaboration will be here from now on,” said Lee. “So this operation, in some ways, may never end.”

Critics blasted the governor.

“As I predicted,” noted authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the “aim is a ‘domestic forever war.'”

The Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein, a political scientist, wrote: “Fascist. Pure fascist.”

Columnist and “recovering attorney” Wajahat Ali added, “Forever occupation, eh?”

READ MORE: ‘Seem Very Nervous’: Top Trump Officials Blasted After Lashing Out at ‘No Kings’ Protests

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‘Batten Down the Hatches’: White House Issues New Shutdown Threat

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6 hours ago

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October 14, 2025

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After firing thousands of federal government workers on Friday, the Trump White House Office of Management and Budget is threatening even more layoffs — which some experts and Democratic lawmakers say could be unlawful.

The Office of Management and Budget last week fired about four thousand federal employees and now says an additional reduction in force (RIF) should be expected.

“OMB is making every preparation to batten down the hatches and ride out the Democrats’ intransigence,” the Office, run by Russ Vought, said in a social media post. “Pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the RIFs, and wait.”

President Trump directed the Pentagon to pay the U.S. military with “all available funds,” which some suggest could also be unlawful without congressional approval. On Tuesday, the White House said it was looking for ways to pay law enforcement officers as well, as first reported by Punchbowl News.

READ MORE: ‘Do Not Love This Country’: GOP Escalates Attacks on ‘No Kings’ Movement

The layoffs, Bloomberg News reported, “marked the first large-scale ouster of federal employees during a funding lapse in modern history, going beyond the furloughs that have characterized past shutdowns. Republicans claim the terminations are necessary consequence of the shutdown, an assertion Democrats and federal budget experts have disputed.”

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on Friday wrote that “a shutdown provides no new legal authority to engage in mass layoffs, nor does it provide any sound management or policy reason to do so.”

“Raising the prospect of mass layoffs as direct retaliation if Democrats do not accede to the House Republicans’ short-term funding proposal is simply an Administration threat to hurt the American people if it does not get its way,” CBPP added.

Washington senior reporter Jennifer Shutt of the States Newsroom called OMB’s statement “Another sign Republicans don’t plan to negotiate with Dems and will wait for more to break ranks on [the Senate’s] procedural vote.”

Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman also reported that “The bet Dems have made is that Trump will push Johnson/Thune to sit down and make a deal. At this point, that’s not happening.”

READ MORE: ‘Seem Very Nervous’: Top Trump Officials Blasted After Lashing Out at ‘No Kings’ Protests

 

Image: Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

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