Marriage Equality Has Finally Arrived To Big Sky Country (Updated)

Jim Burroway

November 19th, 2014

Federal District Judge Brian Morris has issued a ruling striking down Montana’s ban on same-sex marraige. His reason for doing so was simple and straight-forward. It all comes down to Latta v. Otter, in which the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s ruling which found Idaho’s marriage equality ban unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the Ninth’s ruling, which makes the Ninth’s ruling binding on all courts with the Ninth Circuit. (Update: jutta is right in the comments; my memory was faulty. Neither Latta nor any other case from the Ninth Circuit has gone to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Ninth’s ruling in Latta, absent a successful challenge, is nevertheless binding on all courts within the Ninth Circuit.) Montana is in the Ninth Circuit, so that pretty much settles the question for Montana (PDF: 76KB/18 pages)

…Defendants argue that Latta misinterprets these Supreme Court cases and arrives at the erroneous conclusion that Baker no longer serves as binding precedent. This Court has reviewed the analysis in Latta and agrees that Baker no longer precludes consideration of challenges to the constitutionality of laws that prohibit same-sex marriage. Nevertheless, even if the Court disagreed with the analysis in Latta, that analysis represents “binding authority” that “must be followed unless and until overruled.” …

…The Ninth Circuit in Latta analyzed laws in Idaho and Nevada that imposed nearly identical prohibitions on same-sex marriages as the laws in Montana. Latta determined that these Idaho and Nevada laws discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Latta, *3. Montana’s laws that ban same-sex marriage likewise discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation….

…The decision in Latta to apply heightened scrutiny to classifications based on sexual orientation, as developed in SmithKline, represents binding precedent. Hart, 266 F.3d at 1170. This Court must evaluate Montana’s ban on same-sex marriage using the heightened scrutiny analysis. …

You get the idea. References to Latta appear thirty-five times in Judge Morris’s ruling. He basically could have phoned this one in: “Go look up Latta.” There’s nothing legally original to this ruling, but it is nice to see Judge Morris add his own thoughts on the subject:

Plaintiffs who challenge these Montana laws that ban same-sex marriage come from diverse points across Montana. They hale from communities large and small – Butte, Great Falls, Helena, Bozeman, Billings, Charlo, and Philipsburg. Plaintiffs come from families that have lived in Montana for generations and from recently arrived families. They represent different walks of life that range from public employees, to military veterans, to retail managers, to marketers, to health care workers. They spend their free time engaged in activities that thousands of Montana families enjoy. These couples recreate in the beautiful outdoors that Montana offers. They cheer for their favorite teams at local sporting events. They practice their faiths freely as guaranteed by our Constitution.

And like many families in Montana, some of these same-sex couples raise children. … These families want for their children what all families in Montana want. They want to provide a safe and loving home in which their children have the chance to explore the world in which they live. They want their children to have the chance to discover their place in this world. And they want their children to have the chance to fulfill their highest dreams. These families, like all of us, want their children to adventure into the world without fear of violence; to achieve all that their talent and perseverance allows without fear of discrimination; and to love themselves so that they can love others. No family wants to deprive its precious children of the chance to marry the loves of their lives. Montana no longer can deprive Plaintiffs and other same-sex couples of the chance to marry their loves.

The ruling goes into effect immediately, although the state’s Republican Attorney General Tim Fox has already announced that he intends to file a futile yet costly appeal. Hey Timothy! Where’s the map?

CPT_Doom

November 19th, 2014

Wow contrast that ruling language with the “only male/female marriage are valid” rhetoric coming out of this week’s Vatican hatefest.

jutta

November 20th, 2014

“The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the Ninth’s ruling, …”

Are you sure? On Oct. 10th SCOTUS lifted a brief stay but as far as I know, no party has petitioned the Supreme Court for Cert yet.

Nevada is happy with the ruling, but Idaho has filed for an en banc hearing at the 9th Circuit.
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/content/view.php?pk_id=0000000740

Jim Burroway

November 20th, 2014

jutta, you’re right. Thanks for correcting me. I’ve updated the post.

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