WILL LOUISIANA PRODUCE THE CASE ENDING DISCRIMINATION?

WILL LOUISIANA PRODUCE THE CASE
ENDING DISCRIMINATION ONCE AND FOR ALL,
BASED ON SEXUAL ORIENTATION?

It’s fairly well known by now that the U.S. Supreme Court decided on Monday to not to review decisions in cases in which five federal appeals courts have struck down the same-sex marriage bans of Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin.
The court’s inaction means same-sex marriages are now legal in those states and eventually are expected to become legal in other states included within those appeals courts’ jurisdictions.
Once thousands of gay couples wed and are saddled with the same obligations as traditional married couples, there conceivably will never be a way back to the past’s status quo.
This action, through inaction, highlights the ruling of Louisiana’s Eastern District Judge, Martin Feldman. Feldman upheld Louisiana’s ban on same-sex marriage in a group of cases out of New Orleans. Feldman is the only federal district judge in the entire United States, to uphold a state ban on same-sex marriage since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year in U.S. v. Windsor.
Feldman’s ruling potentially, will be brought to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for review. The 5th Circuit was the vanguard court in America when it came to bringing an end to discrimination on account of race. It has been radically repopulated since it’s heyday, with jurists of a more “Conservative” bent.
Will they become the only Federal Appellate Court to uphold discrimination on account of sexual orientation citing “states rights”? State’s rights was the soubrette that segregation was justified upon for a century.
Just three weeks after Feldman’s opinion, state court Judge Edward Rubin of the 15th Judicial District, ruled the state’s ban on same sex marriages, unconstitutional in a case from Lafayette Parish. Rubin compared the state’s prohibition on gay couples marrying to Louisiana’s Jim Crow-era laws outlawing interracial marriage.
The Attorney General of Louisiana is appealing Rubin’s rulings to the Louisiana Supreme Court.
If either state Supreme Court or the 5th Circuit uphold Louisiana’s ban on same-sex marriage it will be difficult for the U.S. Supreme Court to not act.
How can we be one nation under law, if our citizens who are free to marry in one state, are forced to surrender their rights by having to move or choosing to move to another state. This could not possibly be allowed to stand, it would clearly violate both the “full faith and credit clause” and the guarantee of “equal protection of the law” contained in our U.S. Constitution.
The U.S. Supreme Court has a number of ways of steering constitutional jurisprudence and it’s decision in Windsor, sent a clear signal, that our nation could no longer discriminate against citizens premised upon their sexual orientation. We have been legally restrained from discrimination based upon skin colour for nearly 5 decades now.
The tide is turning and the cards are laying “face up” on the table. It’s hard to imagine that the Supreme Court’s declaring the just authorized marriages of 100’s of 1000’s invalid is “in those cards.”
Now we wait to see if either the 5th Circuit’s federal jurist, with their lifetime appointments, or Louisiana Justices, who are elected, care to read them.
At times it’s comforting to “just be’ an attorney and not bear the weight of the jurist’s robes.

Here at Regan Law, we take pride in representing out clients. If you have been discriminated against for any reason please DO NOT HESITATE to contact us.  We are always here for you with your best interests in mind.