Last Hurrah of Hate

Yep, it finally happened. It was bound to happen. Perhaps there was no way of stopping this from happening.

For the first time since the US Supreme Court's landmark US v. Windsor decision, a federal judge ruled against marriage equality. Yesterday, US District Court Judge Martin Feldman upheld Louisiana's marriage ban. Oh, and he didn't stop there.

Judge Feldman also denigrated LGBTQ families. He pulled the "incest card". And to top it all off, he essentially declared that Louisiana LGBTQ families don't deserve equal treatment under the law because they made the wrong "lifestyle choice".

Hmmm... Where have we heard this before? Oh wait, might it be the case that's about to be heard by the Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals next week?



Oh, yes. That's right. Sevcik v. Sandoval will be among the three marriage cases heard by the San Francisco federal appellate court next week. (The other two are Idaho and Hawaii.)

All too often, we've heard the "family values" argument against LGBTQ civil rights. And there's a reason why so few federal courts have given this argument any merit in recent years: It's crap. There's no real Constitutional case behind it, and there's no "moral case" there either.

So what do opponents of equality have? That's a good question. We know they have "political issues". We know they have "variations". We've constantly heard their nonsensical garblety-goop. And of course, we've seen their "segregation laws".



Unfortunately for opponents of equality, that's all they seem to have (along with their increasingly sparse courtroom victories). Yet while they keep trying to "rebrand" their opposition to civil rights, they can't "rebrand" the basic dollars & sense. There's a reason why so many business leaders want marriage equality. Not only is it simply the right thing to do, but it also opens the door to $52 million worth of more business for Nevada.

So what do they have left? Fear. No really, all they have left is xenophobia. And yesterday's ruling from Louisiana (along with the 2012 Nevada federal court ruling) is their last hurrah of hate.