New York New York!

NEW ORLEANS, La. — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Monday scheduled oral arguments in the appeals of same-sex marriage rulings from Texas and Louisiana.

John Minor Wisdom U.S. Courthouse in New Orleans, home of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
John Minor Wisdom U.S. Courthouse in New Orleans, home of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The court set arguments for both cases to be heard during the week of January 5, 2015.

In the Louisiana case, U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman upheld the state’s refusal to recognize same-sex marriages performed legally in other states. His Sept. 3 ruling was the first to uphold a state ban since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act last year.

In the Texas case, U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia declared that state’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional. The February ruling has been on hold pending appeal.

Kansas can now issue same-sex marriage licenses after the Supreme Court on Wednesday afternoon ended a stay that temporarily prevented the state from doing so.

Earlier Wednesday, a federal judge in South Carolina struck down that state's ban on same-sex marriage in a ruling that joins a string of decisions that have legalized gay and lesbian nuptials in many states.

Same-sex couples in Florida could begin marrying shortly after the new year, after a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that a stay in the state’s gay-marriage ban case will be lifted at the end of the day Jan.5.

In a two-page ruling, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta turned down a request by Florida’s secretaries of health and management services and the clerk of the court in the Panhandle’s Washington County to extend the stay. A federal judge based in Tallahassee ruled in August that the state’s gay-marriage ban is unconstitutional, but stayed his decision until Jan.5 to give the state time to appeal.

“This is a clear victory for us because it finds the harm is being done to the people, not the state,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, which is representing same-sex couples from throughout Florida and gay-rights group SAVE, who sued to have out-of-state same-sex marriages recognized in the Sunshine State.

“It means that relief is finally in sight for the same-sex married couples suffering under Florida’s refusal to recognize their legal unions,” SAVE Executive Director Tony Lima said in a statement.

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared same-sex weddings to start in Florida next month, potentially increasing the number of gay-marriage states to 36 as the justices consider whether to rule on the issue nationwide.

The justices today said they will let a federal trial judge’s decision backing marriage rights take effect. Florida’s Republican attorney general, Pamela Jo Bondi, asked the court to block the ruling, which declared the state’s ban unconstitutional.

The court gave no explanation, issuing a one-sentence order. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.

The names of state lawmakers are rarely important to the average person, especially when that lawmaker isn't even theirs. But the name Bob Marshall might right a bell.

Delegate Bob Marshall wrote the 2006 bill that became Virginia's ban on same-sex marriage. It was struck down as unconstitutional last year.

In 2012, Del. Marshall blocked the judicial nomination of a veteran who is gay, because, Marshall claimed, "sodomy is not a civil right."

That same year, he made the totally false claim at a Tea Party rally that being gay "cuts your life by about 20 years."

Del. Marshall has tried to ban gay people from serving in the National Guard, and falsely claimed that the Fed's flying of the LGBT pride flag is a felony. He took that opportunity to claim, again, falsely, that homosexuality “adds significantly to illness, increases health costs, promotes venereal diseases, and worsens the population imbalance relating to the number of workers supporting the beneficiaries of America’s Social Security and Medicare programs.”

Now, Marshall, who is 70 and a Roman Catholic, is fighting for the right's latest craze: the use of the First Amendment as a shield to discriminate against gay people, and claiming religious preference to do so.

HB 1414 states that "a person shall not be required to perform, assist, consent to, or participate in any action or refrain from performing, assisting, consenting to, or participating in any action as a condition of obtaining or renewing a government-issued license, registration, or certificate where such condition would violate the religious or moral convictions of such person with respect to same-sex marriage or homosexual behavior."

That may be a lot to swallow, but here's how ACLU Executive Director Claire Guthrie Gastañaga interprets it.

May this too get that nonsense behind us.

Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Texas say they plan to keep fighting even if the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stirkes down bans on same-sex marriage in the two states.

As we've reported, such an outcome appears likely based on oral arguments, assuming the 5th Circuit decides to rule rather than waiting for the Supreme Court to settle the issue.

Louisiana Attorney General James D. "Buddy" Caldwell (above left) issued a statement late Friday:

Through the democratic process, Louisiana citizens have previously voted to establish this definition of marriage and to add it to the state’s constitution.

Louisiana's Attorney General prevailed at the trial court level and was the first attorney general in the nation to win on this issue. Today's appearance was in support of the trial court's favorable decision.

Attorney General Caldwell said, “I was joined at counsel table today by constitutional law experts Kyle Duncan and Mike Johnson, both of whom I retained to assist my office with this important task of defending our constitution, which is the expression of the will of our Louisiana citizens.

"As I've said previously, as Louisiana’s attorney general, I will do everything in my power to uphold the will of our citizens and the right of states to manage their own affairs.”

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A federal judge has declared South Dakota’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional, but has stayed the decision pending appeal.

U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier on Monday issued a summary judgment in favor of the six couples who filed the lawsuit. The federal complaint challenges both South Dakota’s ban on gay marriage and its refusal to recognize marriages of same-sex couples who legally wed in other states.

Attorney Josh Newville is representing the couples. He says he looks forward to “calling his clients and informing them of the news.”

A spokeswoman for South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment. Jackley has said he’s obligated by law to defend both the state constitution and state statutes. Jackley is among the defendants that also include Gov. Dennis Daugaard.

The judge’s full ruling can be read below:

Setting the stage for its most significant ruling ever on gay rights, the U.S. Supreme Court said Friday it would resolve the state-by-state battle over same-sex marriage.

The justices said they will decide cases from Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee, where state officials are defending laws that limit marriage to a man and a woman.

The high court is expected to hear arguments in late April and will probably issue a decision by the end of June.

Former pediatric neurosurgeon and possible 2016 presidential candidate Ben Carson explained to an Iowa broadcaster on Tuesday that Congress can and should eject judges who rule in favor of gay marriage.

On the conservative Steve Deace Show podcast ("Fear God. Tell The Truth. Make Money.") Carson said most Americans are unaware of this authority "because they don't know the Constitution."

"When judges do not carry out their duties in an appropriate way, our Congress actually has the right to reprimand or remove them," Carson said. Any law on marriage should be decided by a popular referendum, and any decisions made by courts are "unconstitutional," justifying dismissal of judges, he added.

Later on in the interview, Carson agreed with Deace that ongoing spread of legalized gay marriage would make it “open season on Christians."

“Values and principles cannot be drummed out of us," Carson said. "They’re going to try, and the only way we maintain a country with values and principles is we have to be brave enough to stand up for what we believe.”

His language echoed a recent statement in which he compared favorably Islamic State militants to American patriots who are ready to die for their beliefs.

A federal judge in Alabama has become the latest to strike down a state ban on same-sex marriage, ruling against the Yellowhammer State’s prohibition on gay nuptials on the basis that it violates the Fourteenth Amendment.
In a 10-page decision on Friday, U.S. District Judge Callie V.S. Granade, an appointee of George W. Bush, issued summary judgement in favor of a plaintiff same-sex couple, finding Alabama marriage laws violate the couple’s right to due process and equal protection under the U.S. Constitution.
“There has been no evidence presented that these marriage laws have any effect on the choices of couples to have or raise children, whether they are same-sex couples or opposite-sex couples,” Granade writes. “In sum, the laws in question are an irrational way of promoting biological relationships in Alabama.”

Here's a story that'll bring a smile to your face and a tear to your eye today.
Last weekend, a lesbian couple in their 90s tied the knot at a church in Davenport, Iowa after an incredible 72 years together. The Quad City Times reports:
Vivian Boyack and Alice "Nonie" Dubes say it is never too late for people to write new chapters in their lives.
Boyack, 91, and Dubes, 90, began a new chapter in their 72-year relationship Saturday when they exchanged wedding vows at First Christian Church, Davenport.
Surrounded by family and a small group of close friends, the two held hands as the Rev. Linda Hunsaker told the couple that, "This is a celebration of something that should have happened a very long time ago."
The two met in Yale, Iowa, where they grew up, and moved to Davenport in 1947... Over the years, the two have traveled to all 50 states, all the provinces of Canada, and to England twice.
"We've had a good time," Dubes said. Boyack added it takes a lot of love and work to keep a relationship going for 72 years.

On Friday and Monday a federal judge struck down Alabama's ban on same-sex marriage in two separate cases, prompting state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore to issue a three-page declaration promising he will not observe the rulings.

Moore, a Republican, in 2003 lost his job as Chief Justice after refusing to remove from the state's judicial building a stone monument (above) of the Ten Commandments. In 2012 he won re-election to his former job and today is still the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

"As Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, I will continue to recognize the Alabama Constitution and the will of the people overwhelmingly expressed in the Sanctity of Marriage Amendment," Moore wrote. "If we are to preserve that 'reverent morality which is our source of all beneficent progress in social and political improvement,' then we must act to oppose such tyranny!" he added.

In his letter, addressed to Alabama Republican Governor Robert Bentley, Moore warned "the destruction of that institution is upon us by federal courts using specious pretexts based on the Equal Protection, Due Process and Full Faith and Credit Clauses of the United States Constitution."

"I would advise," Moore added, that any marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples "would be in defiance of the laws and Constitution of Alabama," and claimed that the State of Alabama is not bound by decisions of federal district or appellate courts.

Moore also quoted the bible in his letter, Mark 10:6-9, which begins, "But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’"