In defense of marriage and the rule of law—the importance of making the right argument
Jeffrey S. Sutton, Circuit Judge (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Some arguments just have to be made, and made well. In the case of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit , the moment for such an argument arrived last week when that court had to rule on appeals over the question of same-sex marriage coming from the four states in its federal jurisdiction, Michigan , Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. In each case, Federal District Courts had struck down measures banning same-sex marriage. Now, the question loomed before the three judge panel of the Sixth Circuit. Until last week, no federal appeals court had ruled against same-sex marriage in the aftermath of the U. S. Supreme Court ’s 2013 Windsor decision striking down the federal government’s Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA]. That changed when the panel of the Sixth Circuit, in a 2-1 decision, affirmed the measure limiting marriage to one man and one woman in the four covered states. The decision sent sho...