"Just hours after the New York Court of Appeals ruled 4-2 that the state's law allowing marriage only between a man and a woman was constitutional, Georgia's highest court reinstated a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
In New York, the court agreed a decision on the issue should be left to the state's legislature.
"Marriage has become an emotionally charged issue because some courts have catered to political special interests," said Chris Stovall, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case. "But the judges in New York's highest court showed judicial restraint, and today's win will echo loudly through America's courtrooms."
read more @: Same-Sex Marriage Rulings Will Echo Across the US
"Opponents of gay marriage won two major court rulings Friday, with a federal appeals court reinstating Nebraska's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage and the Tennessee Supreme Court dismissing an effort to keep a proposed ban off the November ballot.
Last week, the highest courts in two others states also dealt gay rights advocates setbacks. The New York court rejected a bid by same-sex couples to win marriage rights, and the Georgia court reinstated a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage there."
read more @: Two More Defeats for Gay Marriage
"Gay and lesbian couples have not been harmed by the state's decision to legalize same-sex civil unions rather than grant them full marriage rights, a state Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday.
The plaintiffs plan to appeal the ruling to the state's highest court.
"Civil union and marriage in Connecticut now share the same benefits, protections and responsibilities under law," Judge Patty Jenkins Pittman in New Haven wrote. "The Connecticut Constitution requires that there be equal protection and due process of law, not that there be equivalent nomenclature for such protection and process."
Connecticut became the second state in the nation, after Vermont, to allow civil unions. In 2005, the Democrat-controlled legislature passed, and Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell signed into law, a bill legalizing civil unions but defining marriage as between a man and a woman."
read more @: Judge Rules Gay Couples Not Harmed By Civil Unions Law
"The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court shook the country with a landmark decision that established a constitutional right to same-sex, civil marriage. The 4-to-3 holding of Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, implemented in May 2004, made the SJC synonymous with liberal activism. Massachusetts judges, especially Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall, were pilloried by social conservatives, starting with the president of the United States.
But, since Goodridge, something happened: When it comes to same-sex marriage, the Bay State's highest court has been in decorous retreat. In March, the SJC ruled that a 1913 law can be used to bar same-sex couples who live in other states from marrying in Massachusetts. And this month, the justices unanimously validated a proposed constitutional amendment that seeks to outlaw same-sex marriage via a 2008 ballot measure. In both cases, the justices tread very carefully to make sure they could not be vilified again for usurping the role of the Legislature or the people."
read more @: SJC Treads Carefully
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