Georgia Gay Marriage Ban Challenged In Lawsuit

[DonViejo]

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

ATLANTA (AP) — A gay rights group filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday challenging Georgia's constitutional ban on same-sex marriages.

Lambda Legal filed the lawsuit on behalf of seven people and seeks class action status. They are suing the state registrar, a clerk of the Gwinnett County Probate Court and a Fulton County Probate Court judge in their official capacities.

"The history of the United States has been defined by the ability of each succeeding generation to recognize that social, economic, political, religious, and historical norms do not define our unalienable rights," the lawsuit says. &quot I)n time, the American ideal of equality and liberty demanded that our government move past cultural and majority oppressions, however long-standing, in order to secure and fulfill the individual rights of all citizens."

Georgia voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on gay marriage in 2004. Gay rights groups filed lawsuits in state court challenging the wording of the ballot question, but the state Supreme Court ultimately ruled the vote was valid in 2006.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/22/gay-marriage-georgia_n_5191941.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

[JohnnyRingo]

1. Those anti-gay marriage laws had little to with gays or marriage.

Here in Ohio, we had the same issue on the ballot in 2004. It too passed and became a state law, but the real reason for putting it on the ballot that year was to get the same people to the polls who would likely cast a vote to re-elect GW Bush, and it worked.

Though I doubt Georgia was going to go blue that year, it certainly helped garner extra votes for a president who had lost much popularity by then. It's possible that the Georgia GOP feared that angry voters would show up to oust Bush, and unmotivated republicans may stay home that year. Many forget Bush's sagging polls at the end of his first term and what a viable threat Kerry really was by then.

I'm fairly sure that legislators knew the laws wouldn't hold up in a higher court, but by then the issue had already done it's job. People who are now outraged that gays will be given equal rights in their state don't realize they were just expendible pawns in what I admit was a clever ruse to retain the White House for the GOP.

I'm thrilled that GLBT people will finally be given equal status in the eyes of the law, but I think it should be expected... even in the deep South. I hope the bigoted rednecks, there and here in Ohio, who voted for hate and discrimination, deservedly choke on it and suffer a fatal stroke.

Dumbasses.

K&R Thanx for posting.

[nomorenomore08]

4. Co-signed!

[awoke_in_2003]

2. Good luck to them...

I think the momentum is unstoppable. I think I will see this as legal in all 50 in my lifetime. K&R

[nomorenomore08]

5. Not just in my lifetime, but probably my parents' (59 and 58) lifetime even.

[awoke_in_2003]

6. God, I hope so...

the nonsense has to end.

[nomorenomore08]

7. I'm 29, which I guess would qualify me as an older Millennial - I do have clear memories of grunge

etc. for better or for worse. But generally - though not universally - for the better is my generation's attitudes toward LGBT rights, racial equality, and hopefully (though I have my doubts) gender equality. Assuming we aren't all crushed under the boot-heel of enormous debt and inadequate wages, we may live to make this society a little less shitty.

[awoke_in_2003]

9. I think your generation...

is better equipped to do this. That is my one point of optimism.

[K lib]

3. Yay Georgia

2004 was my first year voting and I course voted No on the ban. Hopefully it gets overturned there is a huge gay population in Atlanta

[nomorenomore08]

8. Even the Deep South - where 81% of Alabamans and 86% of Mississippians voted against equality 8-10

years ago - doesn't seem totally resistant to change on this issue. Which gives me hope not just for the region but the whole country.