Fear Of Legalizing Incest Underlies Federal Judge’s Ruling Against Same-Sex Marriage

A fear of legalizing incest just one of several illogical or anti-gay reasons that led to today’s ruling by a federal judge to uphold Louisiana’s ban on same-sex marriage. 

An apparent fear of legalizing incest is just one reason federal Judge Martin Feldman, an 80-year old Reagan appointee, ruled against same-sex marriage supporters in a Louisiana case today. Feldman became the first federal judge to break a string of 38 rulings in favor of marriage equality.

“And so, inconvenient questions persist,” Feldman wrote in his highly controversial ruling today. “For example, must states permit or recognize a marriage between an aunt and niece? Aunt and nephew? Brother/brother? Father and child? May minors marry? Must marriage be limited to only two people? What about a transgender spouse? Is such a union same-gender or male-female?”

“The Court finds that defendants in this passionately charged national issue have the more persuasive argument,” Feldman noted in his second sentence of the ruling, indicating his eye is on history and the Supreme Court. Claiming that the “State of Louisiana has a legitimate interest under a rational basis standard of review for addressing the meaning of marriage through the democratic process,” Feldman is off the belief that civil rights should be subject to popular vote.

Feldman also refers to same-sex marriage as “lifestyle choices.” 

“This national same-sex marriage struggle animates a clash between convictions regarding the value of state decisions reached by way of the democratic process as contrasted with personal, genuine, and sincere lifestyle choices recognition.” He does not label marriage between different-sex couples a lifestyle choice.

Feldman also is blind to anti-gay prejudice. 

“The Court also hesitates with the notion that this state’s choice,” to ban same-sex marriage “could only be inspired by hate and intolerance” of voters.

Feldman supports the idea that procreation and poor planning by heterosexual couples gives them the right to claim the institution of marriage at the expense of same-sex couples.

“This Court is persuaded that Louisiana has a legitimate interest…whether obsolete in the opinion of some, or not, in the opinion of others…in linking children to an intact family formed by their two biological parents, as specifically underscored by Justice Kennedy in Windsor.”

And Feldman fears a future which includes an “evolving understanding of equality.”

“Perhaps, in the wake of today’s blurry notion of evolving understanding, the result is ordained. Perhaps in a new established point of view, marriage will be reduced to contract law, and, by contract, anyone will be able to claim marriage. Perhaps that is the next frontier, the next phase of some ‘evolving understanding of equality,’ where what is marriage will be explored. And as plaintiffs vigorously remind, there have been embattled times when the federal judiciary properly inserted itself to correct a wrong in our society. But that is an incomplete answer to today’s social issue.”

He concludes:

There is simply no fundamental right, historically or traditionally, to same-sex marriage.

 Feldman’s ruling has been further dismantled by Ian Millhiser at Think Progress and Chris Geidner at Buzzfeed.

 

Image: Wikimedia